TITLE: Tactical Decisions That Affect Students
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: February 03, 2012  4:46 PM
DESC: 
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My
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2012-01.html#e2012-01-31T16_01_05.htm">
   recent post</A>
about teaching with authenticity and authority is about
attitude.  Some teaching behaviors happen in the moment.
They are tactical decisions in response to specific
events, but they, too, can have long-term effects on how
our students see us and on how well a course proceeds.

A conversation with a colleague this week reminded me of
a situation I've encountered several times over the years
with faculty from across my university.  Many have a lot
of experience teaching yet seem to make a particular bad
tactical decision.

Our university has a policy -- approved by the faculty --
that students are not to be penalized for missing class
to participate in university-sanctioned events.  These
often involve representing the school in athletic and
other extracurricular activities such as debate, but
sometimes they relate important on-campus functions
involving scholarships and the like.

Many faculty have attendance policies in their courses.
For instance, they may take roll each day, and if a
student misses more than four class meetings, then the
student's grade in the course is reduced.  These faculty
genuinely believe that class participation is essential
and want to encourage students to take attendance seriously.
Because they have a large allowance for absences, many
do not distinguish between "unexcused" absences and
"excused" ones.  That simplifies bookkeeping, and in the
end it almost never matters to the student's final grade.

Still some students worry that they'll end up with
unexpected reasons to miss the allotment of "free" days.
When they have a university-sanctioned activity, they
want the professor not to hold it against them.  Don't
worry, the prof tells them, it's unlikely to affect your
grade, and if it does, I'll reconsider.  Still the
students worry, and point to the policy that they should
not be penalized for the absence.

When I have talked to faculty in these situations, often
in my roll as a faculty rep on my university's athletics
advisory council but sometimes as department head, I am
surprised by the faculty's responses when they learn of
the faculty-approved policy.

"My attendance sheet is a record of fact.  I cannot mark
students present if they are absent."

Couldn't you treat the sheet as a record of unexcused
absences?

"No.  It also indicates that students have participated
in class that day, and at what level.  If they are
absent, then they have not participated."

I am careful in these conversations to respect their
autonomy and their control over the classroom, and the
conversations go quite well.  They understand the student's
concern.  They readily acknowledge that the absence is
unlikely to have an effect on the student's grade and
assure me that they have assured the student as much.
They just don't want to mess with their systems.  And
they are baffled by the student's continued unhappiness
with the result.

This baffles me.  If attendance or absence on that one
day is unlikely to have an effect on the student's grade,
what is the advantage of falling on one's sword over such
a small issue?  And, metaphorically, falling on one's
sword is what happens.  The student is disenchanted at
best, and unhappy enough to grieve the action at worst.

I have come to see such situations in this way:  "unlikely
to have an effect on the student's grade" creates an
element of uncertainty.  As teachers, we can bear the
uncertainty, or we can leave our students to bear it.
There may well be good reasons to leave uncertainty in our
students' minds.  We should ask ourselves, "Is this one of
them?"  If not, then we should bear it.  Tell the student
clearly, "This will not affect your grade", and make
whatever change in our system of recording or grading
needed to make it so.

The result of this approach is, most likely, a student
with a positive outlook about us and about our course.
The lack of fear or uncertainty frees them to learn better.
The student may even think that the prof cares more about
the student's learning than about his or her system.

Of course, all bets are off for repeated offenders, or
for students who exhibit patterns of disengagement from
the course.  Students have to be invested in their own
learning, too.

This scenario is but one of many in which instructors are
required to make tactical decisions.  The effects of bad
decisions can accumulate, in a single student and in the
class more generally.  They then have negative effects on
student attitude, on the atmosphere in the classroom, and
on teaching and learning.  The good professors I know
seem to reliably make good tactical decisions in the
moment, and when they err they are willing and able to
make amends.

The decisions one makes in such situations is a direct
result of one's general attitude, but I think that we can
all learn to make better decisions.  It is a skill that
teachers can learn in the process of becoming better
teachers.
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