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[comp_queen]

Hi all,

I feel like I'm paying my cosmic dues for the absolutely terrific group of adult students I had in the spring semester.  I'm currently teaching an accelerated, cohort-based group, all of whom are older than I am, and they don't seem to be able to comprehend the simplest of written or spoken instructions!

A couple weeks ago, I ended up not getting two students' assignments, because they placed them in a different spot in the (very large) room than the one I had specifically pointed to and TWICE asked students to leave them!

Today, I get an e-mail from a student who is upset with me for "changing" a deadline when I simply made the offer--via an e-mail to the whole group--that anyone who wanted to submit a draft in addition to the one submitted in class for MORE comments could do so--never try to do a nice thing and all that!

I responded politely to the student, but directed her back to the language of the original e-mail--how dare she respond as though I said something I expressly DIDN'T say?

How do others deal with this?

[conjugate]

With patience and tact, is how I respond to this.  I know, I can explain to my students three or four times how I would like their homework turned in.  I tell them, put your name just here, place it face-down with the top towards me.  I get it folded in half with the name on the outside, I get it folded in half the other way, I get it with the name in the middle, and more variations than I could shake a stick at, if indeed I felt like shaking sticks.  In one ear and out the other.  Sigh.

[cc_alan]

With patience and tact, is how I respond to this.  I know, I can explain to my students three or four times how I would like their homework turned in.  I tell them, put your name just here, place it face-down with the top towards me.  I get it folded in half with the name on the outside, I get it folded in half the other way, I get it with the name in the middle, and more variations than I could shake a stick at, if indeed I felt like shaking sticks.  In one ear and out the other.  Sigh.

I have a similar problem with homework. I give some credit for homework to encourage the students to work the assigned problems. I make them put it in a spiral notebook, table of contents, and the pages numbered. I used to have  a problem getting a number of students to do something so easy.

I think the problem is that students typically see the issue only from their side (the same can go for instructors, too!) and when they deviate, they don't see it as a big deal. So what if the student turns in the homework on looseleaf paper? They don't see it as a management problem for the instructors and it's the reason we all have various policies. We need to manage the load.

I explain this to the students on the first day and tell them that if they don't follow the homework policies, they will get no credit for the assignment. Their homework notebook is turned in every week or so and I take a couple of minutes to scan their work. The first time it's turned in, I take a set number of points off if it isn't done properly. After that, they get nothing.

My dean used is also a math instructor and he told me how he handles the same problem you describe. If they don't do it a certain way, they get nothing.

Tact and patience is fine as long as you set limits for typical situations.

As to the op's post, I keep all emails and use them for "difficult" students. Make sure things are clear and try not to take offense. I had a student a few quarters ago who was very rude in a number of emails. He eventually was given permission to do a late withdrawal because his mother had been recently diagnosed with cancer and he had to get a third job to make more money to help his mom.

Alan

[fishbrains]

Our culture doesn't instill a desire to read in people, so everyone scans and just goes with what they know. We all do this; after all, when is the last time you actually read an email from administration word-for-word?

I teach online, where this "scanning" can be a debilitating problem for some students. I'm not shy about making it a goal to get my students to re-learn how to read emails, literature, etc. word-for-word. When they fail to read properly, I'll copy and paste information and resend it, I'll forward my own emails to them, or I'll simply tell them that they are obviously not reading my emails at a college level. Of course, when they catch me doing the scanning bit, I have to take my medicine like a big boy.

Also, most students in general are used to being "good enough," as opposed to excelling in activities, so they don't always see why such exacting specifications are so important (not that formatting papers is a vital activity, but learning to meet requirements or interpret directions IS a vital activity).

This scanning and lack of desire for precision can be a frightening experience for aging instructors if they have quite a few nursing students at their CC like I do!

In short, be polite, be firm, but don't take in personally.

[spork]

Sometimes you get a cohort of adult students who, let me phrase this politely, have developed a group entitlement complex.  Their inability or refusal to follow directions is not THEIR fault, it's the INSTRUCTOR's fault.  In my previous job, I had a really bad experience with a night adult class.  Students in the class didn't like being forced to read, so a few cooked up a story about me making statements that I never made, and they each called the program office to complain to the dean.  Luckily for me it was plain to administrators that the allegations were false (the students' phone calls were exactly the same, word for word).  But the students were never disciplined -- my former employer was completely tuition driven, and every dollar counted.  Which is why the night adult program was devoid of content and its degrees were worthless.

[untenured]

I've had this problem too.  If there are no consequences for failure to follow the rules, why follow them at all?  No doubt students have been prepped in other classes that deadlines are optional and details about handing in papers are not followed.

Once semester I docked points for every paper handed in did not conform to technical requirements (i.e. not stapled, 10 points off).  Compliance rate for the next paper skyrocketed.

Untenured

[eternal_adjunct]

I teach these non-trad adult students almost exclusively, and I have problems like this all the time.  For example, I like my attachments titled a certain way when they submit papers, tests etc (last name followed by the initials of the assignment, eg., SmithT1, etc).  Until I started deducting points for not doing this (5 points right now), the compliance rate was about 25%.

I figure that most of them (like most of us) only follow directions when they have to.  If it seems more convenient to do something different, and there is no obvious or likely penalty, then why bother?

The trick with adults, I think (well, anyone I guess), is to phrase it in a way that most of them will understand.  That's why I tell my students that things like penalties for wrong attachment titles and late papers are there to compensate for my inconvenience.  After all, they can understand not wanting to be inconvenienced, and the little penalities help them to remember.

[conjugate]

I teach these non-trad adult students almost exclusively, and I have problems like this all the time.  For example, I like my attachments titled a certain way when they submit papers, tests etc (last name followed by the initials of the assignment, eg., SmithT1, etc).  Until I started deducting points for not doing this (5 points right now), the compliance rate was about 25%.

I must have different adult non-trads.  Mine are mostly significantly more mature, and are going back to college because they know how important the degree is to them.  They want to learn the material, not to get the grade.  At least lots of them.  I get a few who still seem lost.