It’s that time of year when spring fever is sweeping through classrooms and hallways. For students (and let’s be honest, teachers too) it can be a difficult time to focus and stay motivated. In some parts of the country, the climate is finally warming, which makes staying indoors less appealing, but spring fever can be a distraction even in warmer climates.
In the college classes I teach, this is always the time of year when I get tired of my own advice and feel like I’m repeating myself. And if I feel that way, I can’t imagine what my students think.
That’s why I think it’s the perfect time in the semester (or school year) to pause and reflect, and try to use what we’ve learned about our students so far to focus on what’s really important for them to learn. Here are my strategies for doing just that and getting to the end of the school year.
Work smart and not hard
In George Orwell’s classic Farm, Boxer is a literal and figurative workhorse whose motto is “I’ll work harder!” Too often, teachers suffer from what I call “boxer syndrome.”
Early in my career as a writing teacher, working harder was my solution to everything. There was no hurdle canceling my weekend plans wouldn’t clear, or so I thought. If a student didn’t improve after my feedback on his initial assignment, I would offer twice as much detailed feedback on the next one. If a class lesson didn’t go as expected, he spent three times as much time planning the next session. The result was overwhelming my students (aka death by a thousand teacher comments) and overplanned class sessions with no room for spontaneity (death by PowerPoint).
I think about this this time of year, particularly when I notice that certain students are not making progress with their writing. Instead of wasting time making the same comments and pointing out the same mistakes, I’ll try to figure out why the message isn’t getting through. Perhaps there is a cultural or generational barrier. Or the student doesn’t care about improving and is happy with the grade they got last time. Or their busy work schedule doesn’t allow them to spend the time they know they need to improve.
Adjusting my approach based on what my students know helps me do my job better in less time and my new motto is “I will work smarter”.
Reassess, reassess, reassess
With most college semesters more than half over, it’s a good time to pause and take stock of what’s working well in your classes and needs to be expanded and what could be cut.
We all have ideas that sound good on paper but don’t work in practice, and it’s okay to admit this when updating your syllabus requirements. In an online writing class I previously taught, I had a requirement that each student post something related to the craft of writing once a week. However, as the semester progressed, the posts became less substantial and it was taking me more time than I expected to moderate. I also heard from several students who found it to be an unproductive waste of time. I removed the course requirement so both the students and I would have more time to focus on course content that was working well.
Being open to change at this point in the semester can really pay dividends.
Listen, listen, listen
There’s nothing worse than sitting down at the end of the semester reading course evaluations and learning that what you thought worked well in a class was exactly what students hated the most.
To prevent this, several instructional designers I’ve spoken with told me they conduct course surveys throughout the semester to get real-time feedback on the student experience. I admit I was nervous about doing this. What if students hate everything or only complain about the non-negotiable elements of the course workload?
Despite these misgivings, I started using a Google Form at the midpoint of many of my classes. I pride myself on spending a lot of time engaging with and responding to student work, and the student response showed me that time was well spent. On the other hand, my students were frustrated by some of the limitations of group discussions on the online platform we use. And while I don’t have a solution yet, I’m exploring using Slack or some other communication tool to facilitate faster and more meaningful peer-to-peer communications.
Duplicate one-to-one communications
Whether you’re teaching in person or online, there’s nothing quite as effective as a one-on-one session with a student. While these definitely take time and can be difficult to encourage in large classes, I think they are one of my favorite parts of teaching and help me remember why I’m doing it in the first place.
These connections also offer a good return on your time investment. A single one-on-one session of about 20 minutes is worth 50 emails back and forth. Especially at this time of year, the one-on-one meetings help revitalize and inspire me, and are another way to focus the work we do for the rest of the semester around what will really help students reach their writing goals and meet their goals. with the requirements for my classes.
I find that these meetings can be just as effective whether they take place in person, over a video call, or through a traditional phone call. The important thing is to foster that one-on-one relationship with students and learn about their goals, their struggles, and their passions, both in class and beyond.
Take care of yourself
Taking care of yourself is important, even as work intensifies as we move toward the end of the school year.
Two years ago, after my wife and I fenced our lawn, I made the mistake of skipping my half-hour morning walks with my dog in the name of efficiency. Ultimately, I did less, was less healthy, and fell far behind in my listening to podcasts and audiobooks.
It was a good reminder that what makes us happiest and most efficient isn’t always intuitive. I remember something Dr. Laurie Santos (opens in a new tab)a cognitive scientist who teaches Yale University’s popular “happiness” class, she told me a few years ago when I interviewed her.
“We think happiness is about taking care of yourself and being selfish and treating yourself, but actually happy people tend to be more other-focused,” she said. “They do random acts of kindness, they give more to charities, they volunteer more of their time.”
Teachers are always doing things for other people, but sometimes it’s nice to do something outside the scope of our job. As I like to say, be selfish and help others.
Here are some of Tech & Learning’s recent articles to help you get to the end of the school year:
