Answering Student Questions

[Karajan]

Hey guys -- 

 

Here's a question about answering student questions.  Say it's the day before your undergrads' exam, and you're being flooded with questions from your students.  Many of their questions can be answered by either a) looking at the textbook/their lecture notes or searching online.  Do you answer those types of questions, or tell them to look up the answers themselves?  I'm new to teaching, and tend to want my students to have the answers they need straightaway, but I feel like I'm being a push-over by answering all of these questions I *know* they can answer on their own; I may even be doing a disservice to them by not forcing them to be independent and self-sufficient. 

 

What's your take? 

 

 

 

[based on a true story!]

Edited September 24, 2013 by Karajan

[St Andrews Lynx]

Can you send out a mass-email to your students, politely reminding them that the material they will need for the exam is covered in the lecture notes/textbook Chapter xx/etc  and that if they read the notes but still have a problem they are free to contact you? 

 

It would take up a helluva lot of your time trying to answer everybody individually by email - I don't think you need to do that for them. . 

[TakeruK]

When I TA'ed courses, I let my students know that I'm available for questions during office hours and while they could email me short/easy stuff, I'm not going to spend a ton of time responding to each person's email because, well, that would just take forever. I log my work hours as a TA and I literally only get about 1 hour per week to interact with students outside of class/lab. If I spend 15 minutes writing a detailed answer, I can only answer 4 students' questions. Instead, I usually limit my email contact to students to setting up appointments outside of office hours if necessary. I also let them know that they should not expect instant reply via email -- that it would take probably one business day for me to get back to them (usually I do it faster than this, but it discourages them to email me a ton of questions the night before something is due). In fact, I usually try to schedule my office hours a day or two before the due date so that there are no last minute panicky questions. I also try to not have office hours in the first week and use that extra time to have an extra office hour near exams.

 

For your exact situation, I would second St Andrews Lynx's suggestion and email the entire class reminding them that 1) if they want help, they should seek you out earlier than the night before, 2) that most of the material is in the book/lecture notes, and 3) that if they still need help finding the answer, they should go to your office hours or make an appointment with plenty of notice. 

[pears]

Tell them to look it up themselves! It won't make them better students for your class — or any other classes — if you hand-feed them answers. I agree with the gentle reminder mass email. If you hold review sessions, try to have them answer each other's questions, too.

 

Another strategy I use is to not answer student emails after 9:00 PM or before 8:00 AM. I'm usually only asleep midnight to 7:00 AM (on good nights), but that sort of helps discourage the flood of "LOLWUT" questions the night before exams.

[Karajan]

Thanks, guys.  I'm going to make an announcement in my next class about this issue, and deal with it differently next time I get the flood of emails the night before an exam... 

[dr. t]

What do people think about being very clear that you have a lot of open office hours 10-2 days before the exam, but that you're not available and will only be sporadically checking e-mail in the final two days? 

[rising_star]

telkanuru, that's totally fine. I wouldn't worry about it. I basically don't answer any student emails the day before or of an exam, unless it's about them missing the exam due to illness or something. If the answer is in their book or notes, I'll write back with one line "The answer to your question can be found in the textbook" and leave it at that. Some will then write back and ask where but, I then tell them they need to find it themselves. I don't waste a lot of time on student emails because most of the time, it really is a waste of time.

[TakeruK]

For tests and other important things, I sometimes set a deadline for questions, and this deadline is usually the last scheduled class/lab meeting before the exam. I want to make sure all of the students come into the exam with the same information, so I make the class aware that I won't answer questions like "Is Topic X on the exam?" or "How many questions?" or "Is it multiple choice?" etc. after the last class meeting, which is the last time I have to convey info to the whole class. 

[danieleWrites]

This is also a pedagogical issue. If you can, set aside some class time to address issues about studying. Don't pull out the textbook and explain how to use it to find an answer. Ask them what strategies can they think of to help study for an exam and how they use textbooks, notes taken in class, library, and internet sources. They're taking advantage of you because if you answer the question, they know what the correct answer on the exam would be. If they look it up, they don't have that same assurance.

 

What I would like to send to my students some days:

http://bit.ly/15X9wIn

[queenleblanc]

If you are TA'ing by yourself, you should definitely address the issue broadly regarding questions that could be looked up in the textbook index, or a quick review of the slides / lecture notes.  If you are being flooded with questions the day before a quiz, the very first time it happens in the semester, I would try to answer as many as I could.  Afterwards, I'd post an announcement or email that emails concerning course material on the impending exam, sent after the final day of office hours, may not be answered in a timely fashion and you advise them to contact peers, use all available textbook and library resources in order to find their answer, and only email you as a last resort, knowing that they may or may not receive an answer.  

 

As a student, if I wait to email the TA or professor the DAY before an exam, I automatically know that I'm unlikely to get a response that I need and subsequently I would rather look up the info or consult a peer than bug the TA or professor.  

 

If you are TA'ing a class full of undergrads, there will be growing levels of independence, but you will also need to facilitate this area of their learning.  You really shouldn't fuss or refuse to answer altogether, if you haven't already advised them of what their options are.  Doing so can create a very poor academic relationship between you and your students.  I agree with what a poster above said regarding setting a deadline: this is critical for their own learning as well as your sanity.  

 

Good luck! 

[comp12]

How about this one for you guys:

 

Let's say you teach a class that involves writing / creative projects / other open-ended assignments. How do you deal with THAT student who always comes in to ask the infamous question: "Here is my draft. If I hand this in, what grade would you give it?"

 

I figure by now I ought to have a repertoire of canned responses up my sleeve on how that is not an acceptable question to ask.

[TakeruK]

How about this one for you guys:

 

Let's say you teach a class that involves writing / creative projects / other open-ended assignments. How do you deal with THAT student who always comes in to ask the infamous question: "Here is my draft. If I hand this in, what grade would you give it?"

 

I figure by now I ought to have a repertoire of canned responses up my sleeve on how that is not an acceptable question to ask.

 

I think it would be fine to just politely and directly say that this is not an acceptable question to ask. Then I would make sure the entire class knows this and modify the syllabus, course webpages etc. as necessary to make it clear. I don't teach the same courses as you, but my students had to hand in long formal reports / writeups of their projects and I never grade anything unless they are actually handing in the final product. 

 

I direct any questions about how marks are awarded to the marking rubric that I provide at the beginning. If a student finds something unclear and would like me to clarify, I try to answer the question without example from the student's own work (i.e. instead of saying "well your paragraph here does / does not....." I just make up a hypothetical sentence/paragraph to illustrate my point). If I think it's something I've failed to make clear, I would clarify it with the entire class so that everyone is on the same page. Also, don't feel like you have to answer a student's questions right then and there in your office hours. If there is a tough question, sometimes I tell the student that I would need some time to think about it and then email the answer to everyone.

[dr. t]

How about this one for you guys:

 

Let's say you teach a class that involves writing / creative projects / other open-ended assignments. How do you deal with THAT student who always comes in to ask the infamous question: "Here is my draft. If I hand this in, what grade would you give it?"

 

I figure by now I ought to have a repertoire of canned responses up my sleeve on how that is not an acceptable question to ask.

 

Hum, I mean I suppose it depends on the type of feedback you're giving, and if the draft is a requirement.

 

I had a fun little incident as an undergrad where we had to turn in drafts and have a conference with the TA. The TA gave me one comment back, asking what a suffragan bishop was. Nothing else. Nor did she offer anything else at the conference so then I asked the dreaded question - so if I turned this in, I would get an A? - which she would not answer. I put it to you that THAT is horseshit. 

 

Not that this is what you're doing, but just to point out that the rule isn't totally universal.

[pears]

How about this one for you guys:

 

Let's say you teach a class that involves writing / creative projects / other open-ended assignments. How do you deal with THAT student who always comes in to ask the infamous question: "Here is my draft. If I hand this in, what grade would you give it?"

 

I figure by now I ought to have a repertoire of canned responses up my sleeve on how that is not an acceptable question to ask.

 

the first time, i wouldn't even use the wording "unacceptable" or "inappropriate." when my students ask me similar questions, e.g. "is this test hard?," i just try to sidestep it, tell them i can't really say, give them an honest but vague assessment of the test's content vs. the last, & so on. in the case you mentioned, i'd probably do the same: sidestep, tell them i can't say, then give an honest assessment of the draft as it is, & explain that students who take the time to write a draft & revise it at least once tend to do well (don't say "better" or suggest any qualification vs. others' grades).

 

any time after that, i would be more firm & straight up say "i can't give you a grade until after you've handed me your final draft on (due date), but if you want some suggestions, we can go over them now, but please don't ask for a grade again."

[danieleWrites]

How about this one for you guys:

 

Let's say you teach a class that involves writing / creative projects / other open-ended assignments. How do you deal with THAT student who always comes in to ask the infamous question: "Here is my draft. If I hand this in, what grade would you give it?"

 

I figure by now I ought to have a repertoire of canned responses up my sleeve on how that is not an acceptable question to ask.

 

I love this question! And all of its many variations. Like, here's my draft, how am I doing? What do you think of my draft? Do I need to revise more? All of them asking: what kind of grade and I looking at here so I can decide what kind of work to do on it. I love this question because it's one that they always end up regretting. They want an easy answer, and I have one that requires a lot of thinking.

 

During the time period between the day I assign the first major essay and the day the final draft is due, I hand out a print copy of my grading rubric, a 4 paragraph (one page long) essay that I paid my then 14 year old kid 5 bucks for, and we discuss what the words on the rubric mean. These are the criteria that constitute an essay in the A range, B range, and so on. I have a column that explains what an A is. It demonstrates exceptional competence, and exceptional competence is, well, a long sentence about originality, logic, ideas, and whatnot. Then more columns that break that sentence down into specific criteria. So, when the "what grade does my draft have" questions crop up, I ask them to trot out the rubric and evaluate their own writing based on the criteria. The inevitable "I don't know what you want?! How am I supposed to know if I'm doing okay!" sort of thing comes up and my reply is always: how will you know if the resume you will send to your dream job is what they want until after they've gotten the final draft? It's my job to not only evaluate your writing, but to teach you how to evaluate your own writing, as well. You're not going to email me next semester when an essay is due in another class to ask what grade you'll get. You'll have to figure that out yourself. So, what does the rubric say about your thesis statement?

[Arcadian]

I would just go ahead and answer the question, assuming you can answer it in one minute or less. I guess that depends on the course content, but for me I can usually answer emails so quickly that it doesn't bother me or take a significant portion of my time.

 

On the other hand, I rarely get student emails anyway because TAs are pretty low-responsibility at my school. So when I do get them, I'm more than happy to answer. I can see how if you had 100 students emailing you every week, it would be in your best interest to discourage easy questions. But you didn't really specify any of this information in the opening post, so I don't know.

[kateausten]

For your own sanity, tell them to look it up themselves from the start - set a precedent that they are expected to do their own research.  Otherwise, some night when you have a deadline for one of your own classes and can't answer 15 silly emails the night before their project is due, they're going to complain (maybe to your boss or maybe just to everyone who will listen around them) that they got a bad grade because you wouldn't answer their question.

 

Also, as much as I hate to fall into cane-shaking "kids these days" cliche, I find that most of my students really, really need to improve their independent research skills, so you'll be doing them a favor.  (I don't even mean academic research, I mean logging onto the course website to look at their syllabus to check when something is due.)

[Sigaba]

I made a practice of greatly expanding my office hours the week before exams, organizing study sessions, and, on occasion, distributing study guides. As the day of the exam approached, I'd ramp up the intensity of the discussions and the complexity of the questions.

 

Throughout, the focus was on how to use the exam as an opportunity to read, to think, and to write like a historian. 

 

I gave hard deadlines to students for the submission of drafts for evaluation. My comments and "blue penciling" made it clear that the task at hand was to craft a well written historiographically sustainable argument.

 

For what ever reason or reasons, I got very few "When was the War of 1812?" type questions and was never asked "What grade will I get?" (I'd like to think it was because undergraduates responded positively to heightened expectations and increased opportunities for support. But it may well have been because I come across as someone who is often grumpy.)

[Henry Hudson]

I would do a mass email reminding them that between notes, texts, and each other, they have all the study resources they need, and that you cannot answer exam-related questions anymore (ideally you would have told them in advance that the cut-off day was the final day of classes or whatever).

 

If the exam is only on the last 1/2 term or whatever, this is fair game for a reminder. 

If some of the exam format has already been described, it is fair game to repeat that: 60% essay, etc. (and that essays need clear introductions/conclusions, well-structured paragraphs, full sentences, good grammar, etc).

 

Remind them of the time and place of the exam, what to bring, what not to bring, and other basic policies (late entry, etc). Advise off-campus students to plan to arrive an hour early to allow for unforeseen circumstances and to unwind between commute and exam.

 

Remind them of policies regarding genuine day-of-exam emergencies, documentation required, etc.

 

And tell them that you will only be answering emails that pertain to directly relevant questions not addressed in the mass email and not related to potential exam content.