TAC Workshop: Community in the Classroom

On October 24 Dalia, Ann, and Heather led a workshop about making connections in the classroom. We chose this topic because all three of us feel that strong connections between the instructor and the students (and between students and other students) help to create a positive classroom environment in which better learning can happen. We had five attendants who were great participators and all had some really insightful things to say.

In developing this workshop, we ran into the issue that "connections" can be a nebulous concept, so our first exercise involved attempting to define connections. In order to help do this, the workshop leaders explained why we're personally interested in the topic, and the participants told each other why they were attending the workshop. One person said he thought connections involved mutual relationships. Another felt that connections are made by really getting to know your students. Another said he was at the workshop because he needed to build stronger connections so that his students would feel more comfortable and motivated.

After our participants had an opportunity to share their views about what it means to make connections and why they are important, we moved on to the next activity: TRUE/FALSE statements:

True False	Frequent student-instructor contact in and out of class is the most important factor in student motivation and involvement. [1] [2] [4]
True False	Good learning, like good work, is collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated. [1]
True False	Sharing one’s ideas and responding to others’ rarely improves thinking and deepens understanding. [1]
True False	Students’ intellectual and personal development is not improved by positive student-faculty contact in the informal setting (outside of classroom). [4]
True False	When instructors are demeaning it has little effect on the classroom climate. [3]

The purpose of the activity was to present research-based findings on the importance of connections in the classroom using an interactive/ hands-on approach. After giving participants a few minutes to think about these and share their responses with the person next to them, we had a whole group discussion. Statement #1 generated a good discussion. One person pointed out that we should also think about the "quality" of student-instructor contact, rather than only frequency. We also discussed strategies to make these stronger connections (such as staying after for a few minutes, replying to emails promply to increase communication etc.). The group was small, but very lively and seemed excited about the topic. We also passed out the "7 Principles for Good Practice..."

Chickering, A. & Gamson, Z. (1987). “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” AAHE Bulletin, 39, 3-7.
<http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm>

Even though the 7 principles are out dated, they are still frequently cited and used for example in studies on how to make stronger connections in online classrooms. Overall, the article is short, very practical, and supported our arguments on why connections were important. Therefore, we feel they left with a good reference about undergraduate teaching and making connections.

After the true-false section, Heather led an exercise in which the participants identified common classroom problems that arose because of negative or lack of connections. We had some great discussion in this section, especially when people were able to share their own experiences. One (very common) problem that a participant volunteered was "distracted students, especially those distracted by Facebook/texting/web surfing/etc". Almost everyone in the room has seen this and so we got a lot of suggestions about how to deal with this problem, including:

Being a more dynamic speaker (which would improve the connection between instructor and student)

Have students do more small group so that they are actively engaged (which would strengthen student-student connections)

Physically moving around the room so students in the back are now in front

Interject phrases like "this will be on the homework" or "what I just said will be on the exam"

To end the workshop Ann introduced five scenarios that may come up in the classroom that one could resolve by building connections between students and with students. Because there were five participants we had each participant choose a scenario that they would like to present and they recapped the scenario and gave their solution to it. We then discussed other options to these solutions. The five scenarios were:

1. Your class just received their first midterms back. At the end of the class period one student approaches you to express concern over their grade and the potential effects it could have over their ability to get into graduate/medical/professional school. What do you do and say to this student?

2. You are leading a discussion section that heavily relies on student participation. But your students won’t speak up. What are some things you can do to get your students to participate more?
   
3. You are teaching a class with a culturally diverse (gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, etc.) student body. You notice that only one type of group answers questions you pose to the class. What can you do to connect with the other groups and get the different groups to participate?
   
4. You grade the first class assignment or test and everyone does poorly. You are frustrated because no one comes to your office hours and when you ask them if there are any questions, no one answers. How do you ensure your students do better on the next test?
   
5. Your students keep falling asleep in class and seem sluggish during discussion. However you know the students are doing relatively well because the test scores are about what you’d expect. How can you motivate your students and keep them awake? What are some factors out of your control that may be causing students to fall asleep?

For scenario 1 we discussed the student's attitude when bring the problem to you and how that affects our desire to help the student. Much of what we discussed involved explaining to the student why they got the grade they got and how they could give a more full answer for future tests. However we also discussed how we could use that opportunity to help students more fully understand the application process to higher education to help relieve the anxiety of the students.

We discussed many tools to use for scenario 2, but as a former TAC once said in regards to problems in the classroom, "The solution is small group work!" Often having students work in small groups removes the pressure. But having students have prepared questions or discussion points before coming to class OR having students take a few seconds to write down their thoughts may also be beneficial.

Scenario 3 elicited the most discussion with the focus being how to make international students feel comfortable participating. We were lucky to have two international TAs participating and they brought up that culture can be a major issue in students being quite, but also how we as instructors interact with ESL students can have a huge impact. One participant pointed out that when instructors spend an extended period of time trying to clarify a question posed by an ESL student it puts the student on the spot and makes other ESL students less likely to to ask a question less they also be put on the spot. We decided as a group that the best way to handle these situations is to try to clarify the question only once or twice, the answer what you think is the question is and check in again to see if you answered their question. This takes the pressure off the student (i.e. rather than saying, "you aren't understandable") and puts the focus back on the instructor (i.e. "was I able to answer your question?")

The participant who presented scenario 4 reacted to it by saying, "This makes me feel like I did something wrong if my students are doing poor and not asking me for help." This is probably a thoughtful teacher's worst nightmare. We discussed how we may inadvertently be intimidating and how we can ask our students if we are. This could be anonymous evaluations you do yourself or by asking a TAC to come do a Mid-Quarter Interview.

Lastly scenario 5 was mostly covered in Heather's section so we reiterated things to do with students to engage them more. This also included for really early classes have all the students get up and jump up and down a little in the middle of class to get their blood flowing.