Category Archives: Reactions to classroom

Going phone-less: the first experiment

There is growing and pretty persuasive evidence that cell phones are toxic to learning, consistent with common sense and experience. So how to get phones out of the classroom (or at least into airplane mode?). Laptop bans are easy. Phone bans not so.

At the end of last year, I discussed with the class what it would take for them to part with their phones. They said 1% extra credit. I discussed it with this years class Tuesday and there were no objections so today we tried it. The mechanics of that: students put their name on a form we provided and then they put that and their silenced phones into a plastic bag we provided, and then they gave the whole package to the TAs.

This is what it looks like when 300 students try to do that.

this is one of the three lines that developed

This is one of the three lines that developed

The view from the back

The view from the back

And this is what 300+ bagged phones looks like.

2016-09-22-13-43-19

During class, one phone fell to the floor (drawing a stunned reaction from the students – more striking than any reaction to what I say)…but we lost no phones, broke none, and so far as I know, swapped none.

So it can be done. But it took 7 minutes into class time before it was all in hand, and I cut class short at the end to make sure the returns worked ok. Sadly, that meant I skipped a pop quiz which would have given me hard data on what proportion of the class surrendered their phones. It looked to me like everyone did. And pedagogically? My sense was that the class was paying more attention to what I was saying today. But maybe they were suffering separation anxiety.

The return process…well that was so chaotic, and I was so scared a phone would be crushed or dropped that I completely forgot to take photo of it all…. And was that fear I saw in the eyes of the TAs supervising the process?

Conclusion: not obviously the way to go. I have yet to think of a better way. But this way sure made the classroom social for a while. And I learned that 300 students milling around is a much bigger scene than 300 students sitting down.

Andrew Read

September 22, 2016

The plagiarism test. 14 questions. The students got to do it has many times as they wanted but they had to get 100%, and once they did, the test was dead to them.

I just noticed on the computer log: the 360 students managed to submit the test a total of 2,685 times.

Getting better

This is the actual hat I use....

This is the actual hat I use in class…….

I like students answering questions I pose in class, but it tends to be the same minority who stick up their hands. I have tried cold-calling people, but that terrifies some and is unfair to those with speech disabilities. So this year I decided to offer up to 2% extra credit for students who opted-in to have their names in a hat for me to pick at random.

A little under a third of the class opted in. I was pretty pleased with that — it gives me 100 or so people, more than enough to make a classroom work. But it was amazing to me that >60% of the class doesn’t want 2% extra credit just for answering a question or two (and I made clear that ‘I don’t know’ would be a perfectly reasonable answer). I don’t know of too many professions where public speaking of some sort is not essential. And public speaking is something to practice. Answering questions in class is a safe, easy way to practice. I tell my grad students to try to ask a question in each research seminar they go to — even the exercise of trying to come up with a question sharpens the mind.

download-34So many of the skills that employers want can be easily honed by students themselves. The shy and under confident have it in their hands to become good public speakers. I have known several students who began their PhDs so terrified of public speaking, they would vomit before giving research talks. One of them solved the problem this way: she took up stand-up comedy. No kidding. In open-mic comedy clubs, with drunk people in the audience. Even more, she took up stand-up comedy about scienceBallsy or what?

She will surely go far.

What I've done this year to try to head off plagiarism

Dear Academic Integrity Committee

After last year’s fiasco regarding plagiarism on the class blog, I thought a great deal about what to do this year. Particularly helpful were discussions with the STEM Gen Ed discussion group (their horror stories also added to my motivation). Several articles I was directed to had an impact (1, 2, 3, 4), as did the advice of the ever energetic Julia Kregenow who has actually done courses on promoting academic integrity in our student body (sad that such courses have to exist, but good that she does them and passes on accumulated wisdom). So these are the changes I instituted.

  • Whenever I was discussing plagiarism in class, I asked the students to turn off their phones. Phone-induced inattention was the only alternative explanation for one of last year’s cases (though I still maintain that case was just plain and simple dishonesty).
  • I instituted a fourteen question plagiarism test, which tested the students knowledge of what plagiarism is, what good and bad practice looks like, how the policy and penalties are implemented on SC200, and resources to turn to. I took much pleasure in using as examples of bad practice the writing you got to see last year, and more pleasure showcasing a blog post from a student who really could write complex things in her own words because she the took the time to understand what she was writing about.
  • I required students to get 100% on the plagiarism  test. They got as many goes to do it as they wanted, and the test was live on Angel for six days.
  • That test ended six days before the end of the first blog period, and I made clear in class that anyone who had realized that they might have stepped over the line could still edit out the plagiarism before the first blog period deadline.
  • I refused to grade any blog work for anyone until they achieved 100% on the plagiarism test. This meant 21 students were excluded from Blog Period 1.
  • In the syllabus, I greatly extend my discussion of academic integrity and in particular, the discussion on plagiarism. In class, I implored the students to read that discussion, although we know of course that most never read that part of syllabi. But I know you do when you are reviewing the cases I bring to you. I hope you like the wording this year. Personal highlights:
    • I tried to be as positive as I could (“My promises to you…”)
    • I tried to explain why cheating is bad, beyond the risk of getting caught.
    • I tried to make clear what is honest work, and what is cheating.
    • I made very clear my sources, and made clear that much of the wording was lightly edited from Julia’s syllabi, used with permission.
  • In the syllabus, I made explicit the penalty for plagiarism on the blog. I did this to make it clear to the students how serious this is and more importantly to limit wiggle room when we (me and you) are post-hoc trying to figure out what penalty to impose. I think it important that the penalty be very significant, totally transparent and applied equally to all offenders. The bottom line is that on SC200, plagiarists will get a maximum score for the entire course of a C+ on first offense. In practice, their score will likely be a lot lower and they may even struggle to pass.
  • Most onerously, I made it clear that if anyone wanted to use anyone else’s words in a blog post or comment, they had to email me before hand, explain why and get my express permission. This was Jackie Bortiatynski‘s suggestion. It generated a lot of email, but also made clear to me that many students really do have to be taught what is fair citation practice and what is plagiarism. If all the e-traffic heads off even one offender, that will have been more time efficient than bringing a student before you.
  • I reduced the workload in all Blog periods, but especially Blog Period 1. There is a strong indication that students are tempted to cheat if, close to a deadline, they find an overwhelming amount of work and not enough time to do it in. So I cut the number of required posts and comments from 5 and 13 to 3 and 10 for the first blog period, and made it 5 and 15 for the other two Blog Periods (from 6 and 16). I am not sure what I make of challenging students less in order to try to prevent a cheating few.
  • I discussed in class how much time blog posts might take, so students who left it close to the deadline would not be taken by surprise. I got the TAs to join this discussion, so current SC200 students could hear the experience of former SC200 students.
  • I added extra credit for students who blogged ahead of deadlines.
  • I added extra credit to encourage students to post in the first blog period so they would not be overwhelmed in later blog periods.
  • I said in class, and restated in an email to the class: If you ever feel even the slightest hint of temptation to commit plagiarism, don’t….. Instead, reach out to me. I am always available to discuss any circumstances that got you to the point of thinking about it. But not after it has happened. Once you have tried to pass someone else’s work off as your own, whatever the circumstances, I will begin academic violation procedures, as described in the syllabus.

These were on top of the things I did in previous years, namely I

  • discussed plagiarism in class, using examples from past class blogs of bad and good practice, and making clear the severity of the issue and the consequences of commiting plagiarism,
  • took class attendance on the day that discussion happened so we know who was there to listen to the class discussion, and
  • e-mailed the class discussing the seriousness of plagiarism, how to recognize it, avoid it, and reiterating the details in the syllabus.

Today is the deadline for the First Blog Period. So as the graders and the plagiarism software go to work, we will discover over the next week if all this has made any difference. We discovered three serious cases last year, two egregious beyond belief. I hope all my extra efforts this year lead to zero cases. And that if it does not, and I again find myself in front of you, that all this extra work means we can more efficiently and fairly penalize the offenders.

Yours,

Andrew

How to improve your learning: wisdom from the class of 2015

In the last class of last year, I asked the students to write a postcard to the person they were 15 long weeks earlier, at the start of semester. I wanted to know the lessons graduating SC200 students would tell themselves if they had a chance to go back in time and start the class again. I asked them to advise themselves on how to learn better and how to get a better grade.

Most (85%) of the advice on how to learn better on the course fell into the following five responses.

  1. Take more and better notes.
    • Focus on overall concepts not details
    • Outline notes and focus on terms
  2. Pay more attention in class.
    • Turn off phone/no texting in class
    • Sit closer to the front
    • Focus more
    • Don’t sit with friends
  3.  Ask more questions.
    • Meet with TAs
    • Go to review sessions
  4. Come to all classes.
  5. Study more between tests
    • Review notes.

Hindsight is a fine thing, of course, but it was eye-opening to me to get back from the students all the stuff I told them at the start of the semester.

I talked about all that with the class of 2016, explaining that its not just my advice but also the advice of the graduating students. We’ll see if the ghosts of students past make more of an impact than I do.

My accent: the verdict

I use the following poll to teach the students the Poll Everywhere technology.
Picture1I have asked this question of every class since 2011. I see that today’s class has the lowest ever proportion — by far — for answer C. I like this class.

(I suppose the other explanation is that my accent has Americanized)

Day 1: the impression

Hands raised in classroom

What we like to see

I am always amazed by just how energetic the class seems at the start. I thought the class was pretty responsive; lots of hands up when I asked questions, a really good sign at the beginning. I got across most of what I wanted (not classroom etiquette, which I want to do properly on Thursday). I hope I got across that this course is different from anything they’ve had before and, if they like to cram, regurgitate and want an easy A, they should go find another course. Each year I feel that more strongly. I’d prefer to teach 20 who are receptive to my way than 350 who play on their phones and moan when they don’t get an A. I implore those students: please quit my class now. There’s a wait list. Give other students a shot if you don’t want it.

My only worry was that I could already hear the whispering. The acoustics in the room are awesome. Trouble a-brewing I bet. Maybe my classroom etiquette session on Thursday will deal with it. Plan B is to randomly allocate the students to seats (thereby splitting up the perpetrators). Thursday, I’ll raise that prospect and get a vote on it, and then maybe votes later in the year if the problem grows. It should be possible to re-randomize once a month. Might be good for all of us.

Day 1: the questions

Each year, I ask students to tell me what they think is the most important and the most interesting question in science. I use it to shape what we do in class. This year, I got more diverse answers than ever, perhaps because I did it as a think-pair-square-share exercise and then used the hand of god (a random number generator) to call on students.

This is what the hand of god looked like:
hand of godA good teachable moment on what random looks like (it never looks random – note the complete absence of hits in the left hand portion). I will get back to the issue of the predictability of random later in the semester.

And these are the answers we got:

Most important scientific questions of the age:

  • How can we prevent climate change?
  • Why can’t we cure cancer? Why can’t we cure diseases?
  • What happens when resources run out?
  • How did humans come to be?
  • How many animals on earth?
  • What is deep space? What are black holes?
  • Nature or Nurture?
  • How can we regenerate cells, limbs?
  • How can we predict natural disasters earlier?

Most interesting scientific questions of the age:

  • Is flossing important?
  • What is life like on other planets?
  • What are the causes of mental illness?
  • How can we better use our minds?
  • Is it possible to reach a peak level of immunity?
  • Was the land covered by the sea?
  • Is the globe warming and is it due to humans?
  • Why do different people react differently in different situations?
  • Where does evil come from?
  • Will humans evolve in the future?
  • How can we use genetic engineering to benefit us all?

Class: please email any questions that you want to add to this list.