Some advice

[hekebolos]

Hello everyone,

Second year grad student here, and it's my third quarter as TA. I've been teaching the same class since I've begun, but for some odd reason, this quarter seems abnormally difficult.

I'm responsible for teaching essentially a vocabulary class designed to help students in the sciences break down and decipher the meanings of technical words. Needless to say, the textbook is dry; students are provided prefixes, bases, and suffixes, and example terminology. A ton of rote memorization is required just by the sheer nature of the course. It is not scientific, but takes an incredibly philological approach. This, I'm sure, irks some of the students. It's offered by the Classics (Latin and Greek) department, and immediately there's a disconnect.

Since my first quarter, I've learned quite a bit about trying to shift around each lesson. I've tried to draw in material unrelated to Classics to make the content seem more relevant and useful, and this was received well in previous classes. There have been: word construction exercises, articles drawn from the sciences whereby they have to define terms in context, activities where they can create "names" for fictional diseases/creatures, drills/vocabulary discussion (so they can understand how terms are used and provide historical background if available), lectures on Greek medicine/medical theory, and games. In previous quarters, particularly over the summer, students were engaged and rather "loose." This quarter, however, there is hardly any participation even in the more creative activities or the games (except when there's extra credit). Usually, I'm not concerned with these "blank stares," but it's been coupled by a couple of students who tend to make snide comments about the material to whomever is sitting next to them. Even the announcement of competitive games is greeted by eye rolls.

Does anyone have any advice on how to make vocabularly building more engaging? I'm willing to accept that it might just be the class, but I'm running out of ideas.

[SeriousSillyPutty]

Kick out the pre-meds; that should solve your problems.

But if you can't do that... Hm. The games and fictional stuff are what I would have tried. I was reminded of the game I made up for a biology friend's baby shower, where we had to match the name of the baby animal to the name of the species, but the species names were in Latin. (So we had to match the faun with the Odocoileus virginianus ... which was funny once you know it, b/c white tail seems to translate as virgin anus... but I digress.) What was interesting was that next to the mother-to-be, our astronomy friend did the best because so many of the names correspond to constellations/astronomy signs.

But if the students are acting "too cool for school" it's hard to say. When I would teach after school classes for kids, there would be a few whose parents made them sign up, and they were bound and determined to be unhappy just to prove their parents wrong; it seems like these college kids are doing the same thing.

How are they performing in class? Maybe you can channel their desire not to participate? I had a math teacher who would give us a quiz over stuff we hadn't done in class yet. If we got 100%, we didn't need to do the homework that night. Could you give them quizzes that aren't for grades, but are for a get-out-of-class free period? Like, if on Monday they can prove they already know the stuff you'll be working on all week, and if they don't care about extra credit and such, then they can skip class without any penalties or hard feelings. Maybe if they felt they had a choice, then they wouldn't feel so bound and determined to prove to you that they didn't want to be there.

Alternatively: Jolly Ranchers. There's a whole book called "Punished by Rewards" about how you shouldn't incentivize learning with gimmicks, but I'm okay with it. One time at work someone organized a "Throw Back" lunch where we brought in all the classics from our childhoods in the 90s (Gushers fruit snacks, PB & Js, Lunchables, Capri Suns, fruit by the foot, etc.) and then played a game of Heads-Up-Seven-Up. We had officially allowed ourselves to be kids, so nobody was acting too cool to play along. If your students are trying to establish that they're too grown-up for games, maybe you can go all out into throw-back mode, have a time warp to 6th grade and winning Jolly Ranchers, and call it good.

Sounds like a frustrating situation, especially since you know that what you're trying has worked before. Good luck!

[wildviolet]

It sounds like it might be the students--sometimes you just have a bad bunch! On the other hand, candy always works for me (even with the college seniors I'm teaching this semester). Seriously, it sounds like you're doing all you can to liven up the class given the content and nature of the course.

Edited November 17, 2012 by wildviolet

[Arcadian]

That sounds like an awful class. I can't blame the students for being hesitant to participate. If I were you, I'd just bear with it, and be understanding with the students. Make it seem like you're on their side, you get that the class is lame, but here we are, so might as well make the most of it.

[Tolman's Rat]

I don't know if this is at all accurate - but it is quite possible that you have become so familiar with the material, and become so bored of it, that you are passing off those messages subliminally to your students. I TA'ed a required stats course for two years, most students had zero interest in taking it, so it was my job to boost them up and make it more fun. My second year doing it, I found more of my students disengaged and rolling their eyes. I realized that I had to get back to being passionate about it - even if it meant making an ass of myself - in order to get students re-engaged. Make stupid jokes, no one will laugh but they'll respect you and see that someone is enjoying it. Try and begin the class with more casual discussion, not necessarily course-related. Just try to re-engage them in the environment of the classroom. If what you're doing has worked before, it's either the way you're doing it, or just the class.

[Gary in CA]

Kick out the pre-meds; that should solve your problems.

 

That could work in every department.  Brilliant!