If you have been teaching for any length of time, you have certainly had a student say to you, “Just tell me what you want” in relation to your expectations on an assignment. Often we think of this phrase as an example of student laziness. (It’s one of those “will this be on the test?” kind of phrases.) We also take this phrase to mean that the student doesn’t want to find her own answers, but instead, wants us to provide the shortcut or the systematic solution to the assignment. Maybe students do sometimes want to take the short cut or want the easy answer. However, this utterance could mean something else. When a student says, “Just tell me what you want,” the student could be speaking from a place of great frustration.
We often want students to think for themselves, to try new avenues, to create their own knowledge. We want them to learn something. We sometimes like to provide students latitude in assignments that will allow them to be innovative in their treatment of a subject. This pedagogical strategy encourages student growth and responsibility. However, the problem with these types of assignments—even though they are forward thinking and student-learning-focused—is that students can be afraid of them … because they are afraid of us and how we’ll evaluate their efforts. They know they have to do work, but if we are unclear about the expectations for that work, students can assume that we are equally unclear about evaluation.
In other words, if students know what we want them to do and they understand how we will evaluate their efforts, they are more apt to do the work we assign. They’ll take chances, and they’ll do so without much complaint.
If we want students to take chances, they must be able to trust us. If we have proven ourselves untrustworthy in prior classes, with previous assignments, in other encounters, frustrated students begin to say, “just tell me what you want.”
What follows are a few questions that can help us determine (1) if students can trust us, and (2) if we are setting ourselves up for the “just tell me what you want” whine. Some of the questions are not related to specific assignments, but they can be indicators if students can trust what we tell them.
- Have I met my office hours? (If not, have I left a note or alerted students to the change?)
- Is my syllabus online or otherwise available other than on the first day of the semester?
- Do I return student work in a reasonable amount of time?
- Do I require a textbook, and am I using that book?
- Do I respect my students and the knowledge they bring to the classroom?
- Have I set clear guidelines about assignments, even if the assignment is broad?
- If I have strict syllabus policies, do I enforce them equally and fairly?
- Am I creative or innovative in my approach to the subject? (Am I modeling the kind of behavior/actions I wish to see in my students?)
- Have I been clear about how interpretive or creative takes on assignments will be evaluated? (Am I sure I’m not evaluating harshly, for example, if I disagree with the student’s interpretation of the assignment?)
Of course, these questions are not exhaustive, and there are many ways we can display our (un)trustworthiness. It’s important to recognize that when students are frustrated, we are often to blame.
How about you? How do you keep students from asking you, “just tell me what you want” when you assign them work? Please offer solutions to this problem in comments below.
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15 Responses to Handling Student Frustration
drjeff - January 27, 2011 at 3:34 pm
This is a really good post. Hear what is behind the student’s words, then think about it. Chances are, a student’s not frustrated in every class, so what are you doing (not) differently? Well done.
leingang - January 27, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Grade student work with a rubric, and tell them the rubric. Then you are telling them what you want in a constructive, detailed way.
11248633 - January 27, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Rebecca Cox has an excellent book on this subject–The College Fear Factor: How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another.
philosophy - January 27, 2011 at 5:06 pm
My responses to the most of questions are Yes, except I’ve never understood the “office hours” business. My students are welcome anytime I’m in my office, which is, as I tell them, lots more than the “official” hours we’re required to post.
I give a good many short (1 paragraph or 1page max) written assignments, and emphasize that what I expect is an honest, thoughtful effort – not necessarily a “right” answer.
dboyles - January 27, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Billie–I don’t know what you teach but do know no one size fits all. Here is my response as someone who teaches cut and dry science content, particularly with regard to such questions during exams.
I refuse to answer any questions during examinations for several reasons:
1. The question is usually “I don’t know what you want” [for THE answer]. That is, the student is unprepared for the exam and wants an edge. I state on my syllabus I answer NO questions during exams, nor immediately before them. Otherwise the student pushes their responsibility onto myself.
2. It is my job to proctor exams closely and in a large section class when I am answering questions for an individual student, cheating can occur when my attention is diverted.
3. All students have the same questions before them.
4. It would be impossible to answer every individual’s question anyway.
mrmars - January 27, 2011 at 6:48 pm
dboyles,
You have a good point when you say that other students could be cheating while your attention is diverted by a question asker during an exam, and its also (usually) true that everyone in the class has the same test questions before them. However, everyone in the class doesn’t have the same vocabulary or reading skill. Because I want my exams to measure what the student has learned about the subject matter, and not whether they can decipher my vocabulary and syntax, I encourage them to ask questions if they are confused about what I’m asking in mine. If the answer they seek would involve giving away the answer to the question, I (politely) say as much and decline to say more.
I doubt that a cheater will gain much in the time it takes me to respond to most questions (usually there are few), especially in light of the fact that when I’m proctoring that’s what goes on, no reading, grading other material, and so on.
On the other hand, most of the time when I get the “just tell me what you want” response it’s not during an exam, but in response to asking students to pick a topic for a required term paper. I usually tell them it has to relate to the course topic, can’t duplicate the material I’ll cover (outlined on the syllabus) and, be on a subject in which THEY have an interest. ” Can I suggest some topics” they ask? Sure, but I won’t. I want them to pick something they want to write about; I’ll help refine their choice and so on, but that’s all. Some kids evidently aren’t interested in much and/or have a low tolerance for puzzling such things out. Hence the frustrated response. My job then becomes one of convincing them they they probably do have some related interests (beyond the next party and computer games), and that thinking a little harder about the problem won’t cause their head to implode.
lizziebear59 - January 28, 2011 at 6:44 am
Bravo Mr. Mars,
Your points are very well stated especially about wording of questions on exams being difficult for those with different reading -ie. levels such as English Language Learners (ELL). I teach Anatomy & Physiology and one of the questions I used included a ” baseball player winding up for a pitch” which confused a very intelligent ELL, had I not deciphered the question during the test she would have gotten it wrong.
mbelvadi - January 28, 2011 at 7:14 am
It is an unfortunate reality that as we use assessment tools that are inadequate proxies for measuring actual learning in the class (like writing a lengthy term paper that barely touches one of 16 different major class topics, and make it count for 40% of the grade), students attempt to “game” the system, that is, to succeed at the proxy rather than the underlying goal that we had in mind (something about “learning?”). The best students are very, very good at such gaming. It seems to me that the student pleading “tell me what you want” is admitting defeat at the “gaming game” and also breaking the cardinal rule that no one is ever supposed to admit out loud that such gaming is going on. So I think your bullet list is the right advice, although maybe not for the reasons you intended – following it means you are clearly laying out for the students how to play the grade game successfully with you. And really, that’s only fair, to give them a competitive level playing ground with the students who are better able to read between the lines of the game’s rules.
ianative - January 28, 2011 at 8:41 am
I’ve found that if I have a clear idea in my own head regarding what I want students to be able to do (as a result of taking my class) I do a better job of explaining that to students. Notice that I didn’t say, “What I want my students to learn…” ‘
The only way to really measure learning is to have that individual DO something — calculate, design, critique, analyze, compare, explain, etc. Until we can peer into someone’s brain and see all that knowledge, we can only infer that they’ve learned something by observing their behavior.
mathieso - January 28, 2011 at 8:51 am
It helps to step back from that one assignment. An assignment is part of a learning sequence. Perhaps the best response to the “tell me what you want” request depends on what you expect the student to have learned at that point.
Let’s assume that when you create an assignment, you have in mind what acceptable solutions look like. You write a grading rubric for the assignment. Maybe you list characteristics of a good solution, and assign points to each one. This reduces subjectivity in grading.
So, you could just give the student the rubric. The students will know the grading standards. Students will certainly be happier if you give it to them. It reduces uncertainty, and hence anxiety.
Let me suggest that you should not give them the rubric, at least not always. Why? Because the rubric is scaffolding.
Scaffolding is something that makes it easier for students to do a task. Training wheels on a bicycle are scaffolding. The would-be cyclist can concentrate on steering and pedaling. Later, you can remove the training wheels, and they can learn to balance.
An important part of scaffolding is that you *take it away*. Scaffolding simplifies the task when students are first learning it. But if they are to perform real tasks, you need to remove the scaffolding at some point.
A grading rubric is scaffolding. It makes the task easier, by giving hints as to what a good solution will be like. That’s fine at the beginning of a course. Students are new to the topic, and need reminding.
Part of learning is knowing how to evaluate your own work, to learn what “good” means. It’s important in task transfer, that is, knowing how to apply concepts learned in class to problems that present themselves outside of class. Always giving detailed rubrics undermines students’ learning of “good.”
In the later parts of your courses, working out what “good” means for a particular assignment should be *part of the assignment*. Don’t give students grading rubrics for those assignments, because you don’t want them to have that scaffolding.
This approach will not minimize student anxiety, of course. That will be a problem for students towards the pathological end of the anxiety avoidance distribution. I don’t want to minimize the importance of that. It’s one of the many trade-offs in learning and teaching.
Kieran
http://coredogs.com
missoularedhead - January 28, 2011 at 12:37 pm
I have found that when a student asks me what I want, if I ask them what they *think* I want, I get a couple of answers, either “I think you want XYZ”, which is, again usually, pretty close to what I am looking for. It’s the students who answer “I don’t know” that take the time.
They fall into two camps: the students who either a) haven’t read the syllabus, book, assignment, etc. and b) don’t want to, and the students who are truly confounded. As for the first camp, well, at some point, your education is your responsibility, not mine. If it is clear that they haven’t done the work, I will give them some general pointers, such as ‘well, reading the book might help here’ (I’ve already gone over in my class HOW they should be reading), or ‘is there anyone in the class you could work with?’ and leave it at that. If they can’t be bothered, really, why should I do the work for them?
But the second group takes more. I will go over things with them, sometimes painstakingly. If they are really having trouble with one aspect — writing, reading, etc., I will recommend campus resources. A lot of first year students, especially those fresh out of high school, are used to a certain amount of handholding, and I gradually ease them into the idea that they, not their teachers or parents, are responsible. It takes time, but if they put in the effort, so will I.
sherbygirl - January 28, 2011 at 12:59 pm
In our class, we read about the philosophers and the sophists. I ask the students which they think it is better to be in a free write, so only for me. We talk about what makes a philosopher and what makes a sophist, etc. And then I ask them how they think they approach their studies: in the quest for truth and knowledge, or are they just trying to “win”? While just about every student admits that it is better to be a philosopher (or that they themselves aspire to be like a philosopher), they quickly realize that the way they approach school is more like a sophist, only interested in “winning” their grade.
The course is built in a way where I reward an honest effort in order to get them to express their own ideas, try different methods, and just feel comfortable enough to actually ask questions in class. It seems to work.
billiehara - January 28, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Thanks for your really smart comments, everyone. I appreciate how you handle the “just what do you want” question in your classes. It’s interesting the different perspectives that come from various disciplines. What this post tries to do– indeed, what ProfHacker tries to do– is find solutions to common issues we have with students. And it becomes so very easy to blame the students for these “issues.”
However, we must take a moment to look at ourselves. What is it that **we** do that frustrates students? Maybe not anyone who has commented here, but out of the professoriate worldwide? Surely there is *someone* who could do a better job. :-)
Just yesterday (after this post published) I asked two classes of pre-service teachers what professor behaviors frustrated them. Hands shot up all over both rooms. I won’t detail their responses here, but most of the complaints were legitimate (professor skipping class without notice but having a strict attendance policy for students, for example). These are behaviors that frustrate students, and they are behaviors that we (as professors/instructors) could/should address…or at least recognize. Whether we address these concerns or not is an entirely different matter, but the “problem” isn’t always the student.
Sometimes, it’s us.
tomm8798 - February 1, 2011 at 12:14 pm
WOW — how refreshing. Understanding and acting on the student perspective will get us on the way (finally) to increase learning, graduate rate and time, and student retention.
csd512 - February 1, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Billie, I agree with your question pointed back at ourselves…”what is it that **we** do that frustrates students?” The most effective way to answer that is to find out what will make the students higher education experience better – and we can do that by asking the students directly for their feedback. Give the students a voice. The behaviors that frustrate students can then be addressed and therefore make a better learning experience for current students, a less frustrating experience for professors and a school of choice for new students.