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[mountainguy]

I'm a doctoral student teaching a class for the first time (Argumentation and Debate), and I'm having a rather difficult time with it.

My students are supposed to turn in their argument briefs (sort of like an annotated bibliography) later this week. I've been getting a high number of e-mails from students saying they don't understand the assignment and asking for clarifications about very basic details that are explained in the assignment guidelines (available on my blackboard site). A few students have shown me drafts of their argument briefs, and most have been completely off-the-mark so far.

I'm not sure what to do--I've been over examples with them in class, I've invited them for the past two weeks to come by during office hours with questions, and they just don't seem to be understanding it (or wanting to understand it). Does anyone have any suggestions?

[trentsands]

A few approaches...

1) You can accept them as is and grade them understanding students generally had difficulty understanding the assignment.  Then you can move on and hope you'll do better next time.

2) You can accept them as is and grade them as you would, but offer additional help to revise and improve the assignment for an increased grade.  This way students who want to learn it or students who sincerely didn't understand the assignment (rather than just being lazy) get a chance to improve and learn.

3) You can do an about-face and recalibrate your syllabus to provide additional in-class instruction on the assignment and postpone the due date.  This seems drastic, but sometimes, especially early in one's teaching career, a person overestimates students' base skills and knowledge and doesn't provide students with adequate preparation for an assignment.  Accepting fault and making adjustments is okay and the need to do this will decrease over time.

These suggestions assume, of course, that your students have seriously misunderstood the trajectory of the assignment.  If it is clear they merely aren't doing the work you clearly assigned them to do, have at 'em.

[prytania3]

Trentsands gave good recommendations. He also said:

3) You can do an about-face and recalibrate your syllabus to provide additional in-class instruction on the assignment and postpone the due date.  This seems drastic, but sometimes, especially early in one's teaching career, a person overestimates students' base skills and knowledge and doesn't provide students with adequate preparation for an assignment.  Accepting fault and making adjustments is okay and the need to do this will decrease over time.

I've been teaching for twenty years, and I still do this if I need to.

[philoctetes]

Have you placed the examples on the website? That might help.

But it looks like you will have to spend a bit of class time on it, not a big deal. Just go over it again. Give them some more examples and until the next class to rework them.

The fact is that many of your students may have got it right, but you are only hearing from those who don't get it. Or those that are unsure and rightly checking with you.

[fiona]

The syllabus change may be a good idea.

What sometimes happens when you're new to teaching is that you over-explain a task. You combine simple instructions (do this--do that) with theory (do it because it involves the Kaklakapuchi Theorem, invented by Pickleberry Grunion in Amsterdam in 1812).

Students at an early level are often confused by (and not interested in) abstract or theoretical information. You may be giving them that, when all they want and need are simple how-to instructions.

I never wanted to understand how a stick shift worked, for instance. Just wanted to know how to get into third gear.

The Fiona