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[polly_mer]

I'm sure I'm not the only person who gets many "what do you want?" queries.  I'm not talking about a reasonable clarification of instructions, topics, or the like; instead I'm thinking about the students who are strongly implying "Just tell me step-by-step in exquisite detail what to do to get an A".  However, when the assignment is to practice critical thinking that level of hand-holding is inappropriate and I have to convey that message to the students.

How do some of the wise forumites here phrase "I want you to think.  I'm not looking for one RIGHT answer; I'm looking for evidence that you have made some tiny effort to connect something from this class with your life, with other classes, with books/movies/television, or indeed anything that hasn't been spoonfed to you.  Some answers are definitely wrong, but a huge variety of right answers exist"?

I need more variety in my responses and I'll bet folding money that some folks here have great ones.

[prof_cj]

I just got a few of those emails about the upcoming Major Assignment, a critical response paper w/citations. Nothing long, 5 pages.

"Prof_CJ sir I don't know what to do for the paper im drawinga blank on what to write about. What do you want if you tell me that might help." - verbaitim

My response is typically two-fold;
A) "See me in class" (via email)
B) "I've explained multiple times what the paper is, I've given you guys ample time to prepare, warned you to be prepared, told you about the resources available, and offered to review your first draft. I can't write this paper for you or tell you what to write about. I'm sorry, I'll see you the day after tomorrow when the paper is due."

[voxprincipalis]

I don't know if I always count as wise, but for the record:

I try to answer these questions in person if possible rather than by email, since you can keep prodding the student if it looks like they're not going where they should.

The conversation usually starts with "What would you want if you were me?" and if they say "I don't know," then I say, "Yes, you do. Think for a minute. What would you want to see if you were the person grading this assignment? How would you know whether the goals of the assignment had been met?" and at some point this segues into, "The assignment is not itself the goal. The goal is for you to think about X, Y, and Z, and to come to some deeper understanding of them. The assignment is just the mechanism by which you show me you have been doing that kind of thinking. Since I can't get inside your head and poke around in there, there has to be some vehicle we use to record that kind of thinking. The assignment is that thing. I don't care if you actually write 1,000 words -- all that is doing is testing your ability to count to 1,000, and that's not the skill I'm looking for. But it is a characteristic of the kind of vehicle you will need to carry your thoughts. If you have been doing the right kind of thinking and synthesis, you will probably need about 1,000 words of room to convey them. That's just how much space those thoughts take up when you put them on paper. What other kinds of characteristics should this vehicle have to demonstrate that you have mastered X, Y, and Z?"

... and gradually I get the student to reconstruct the assignment.

This usually works for me.

VP

[obprof]

When my students say things like that I think they are pretty overwhelmed. If it's at all possible, I try to get them to come to my office where we work on an outline together. It sounds like hand-holding, but it's more me asking open-ended questions and writing down points about what they say (e.g., under "introduction" heading I might write down "identify topic" or "explain why topic is important". Together we generate an outline.

Amazingly, some have never written an outline before writing an essay.

[geonerd]

When I get those questions from students I start by asking them to give me one or two sentences that explains the purpose of the assignment or lab. As succinctly as possible, what is the goal? What are you being asked to accomplish? I find that most of my geo students get stuck because they don't see the end goal.

Once they can articulate the end goal, then I ask them to make a strategy- what's the best way to reach the goal? At this point I use something very similar to obprof's outline. I ask the student to write down: What data will you need and why? What observations will you make and why? What experiments will you run and why? For every task in your strategy, explain why you are doing it and how each piece of information will be used to answer your questions. Once they have a strategy, the next step is "That looks good! Now execute your plan."

[mountainguy]

I like Geonerd's suggestion about having the student work backwards from the end goal to figuring out the process steps of the assignment. I'm willing to wager that most of the "just tell me what to do" students would realize after the first time that you're not going to spoonfeed them the solution.


The variation of this kind of student that drives me crazy are the "I don't understaaaaaaand" who clearly do understand and just don't want to do the work.

[phydeaux]

The "what do you want?" question always takes me back to my grad-school days. One of my officemates was asked something along those lines, and he replied "I want you to think clearly and write well." This was back in the 1990s and probably wouldn't fly in this age of intricately detailed instructions and rubrics, but it was certainly elegant in its simplicity.

[polly_mer]

It sounds like hand-holding, but it's more me asking open-ended questions and writing down points about what they say (e.g., under "introduction" heading I might write down "identify topic" or "explain why topic is important".

For the record, I'm absolutely ok with helping students through the process.  Students don't have to wrestle alone, but I am beyond tired of the students who won't even try something the first go, but somehow manage solid B work on things once I stand with my arms folded and stare at them.

I was hoping for a magic bullet that gets students to either admit they need help with process or makes them go away quickly since they were simply trying to get out of doing the work, as MG mentioned.

Anyone have anything catchy or is the process simply to walk students through until either they have the "oh, yeah.  I can do it!" moment or give up on trying to make me cave?  I seem to have a lot of hope-the-prof-will-cave students this semester and I'd rather spend my walking-through-the-process energy with students who will benefit and need that kind of help.  Interestingly, many of those latter students seem willing to say upfront, "I've got no clue, but if you could point me in the right direction, then I'll give it a shot".  It's the solid B's who want to avoid the work yet get an A that are annoying me.

[libwitch]

I have a colleagues who gives instructions for a paper that boil down to "state a hypothesis, provide evidence and argue it.  The length is exactly as long as it needs to be to make your argument and conclusion. Evidence presented must be appropriate for a scholarly research paper."  To a class that is largely freshman in political science.

I have no idea what sort of grading rubric he uses, but I love it.  I spend too much time trying to find *stuff* that helps students jump through hoops of requirements and take students away from learning about their project. And it reminds me of the papers I used to get assigned in college.

The "what do you want?" question always takes me back to my grad-school days. One of my officemates was asked something along those lines, and he replied "I want you to think clearly and write well." This was back in the 1990s and probably wouldn't fly in this age of intricately detailed instructions and rubrics, but it was certainly elegant in its simplicity.

[cgfunmathguy]

Polly, I'm guessing that these are our (yours, mine, and Anakin's) "shared" education students. These students never really get past the "Please spoon-feed me everything I'll need to get an A from you" stage. Oh, some do, but most don't. I've described my problem-solving journals before on another thread. The basic thrust was "Solve the problem and tell me how you did it. Along the way, tell me how you might change the problem to make it harder or easier." It's not that hard. There was a rubric given so that they knew how it would be scored. I heard "...but I don't know what you want..." so many times that I thought it might be tattooed on my forehead. One class finally got it, and I'm still not sure what was different to make that happen.

[zuzu_]

Detailed rubric. Win-win. Clear expectations, fast and fair grading, significant reduction in grade grubbing.

[cgfunmathguy]

Detailed rubric. Win-win. Clear expectations, fast and fair grading, significant reduction in grade grubbing.

Oh, if only. My grubbing (and frequency of "...but I don't know what you want...") increased when I went to a detailed rubric. I stuck with it, but the issues were actually worse, even after I went over the rubric in detail one day.

[marigolds]

I don't know if I always count as wise, but for the record:

I try to answer these questions in person if possible rather than by email, since you can keep prodding the student if it looks like they're not going where they should.

The conversation usually starts with "What would you want if you were me?" and if they say "I don't know," then I say, "Yes, you do. Think for a minute. What would you want to see if you were the person grading this assignment? How would you know whether the goals of the assignment had been met?" and at some point this segues into, "The assignment is not itself the goal. The goal is for you to think about X, Y, and Z, and to come to some deeper understanding of them. The assignment is just the mechanism by which you show me you have been doing that kind of thinking. Since I can't get inside your head and poke around in there, there has to be some vehicle we use to record that kind of thinking. The assignment is that thing. I don't care if you actually write 1,000 words -- all that is doing is testing your ability to count to 1,000, and that's not the skill I'm looking for. But it is a characteristic of the kind of vehicle you will need to carry your thoughts. If you have been doing the right kind of thinking and synthesis, you will probably need about 1,000 words of room to convey them. That's just how much space those thoughts take up when you put them on paper. What other kinds of characteristics should this vehicle have to demonstrate that you have mastered X, Y, and Z?"

... and gradually I get the student to reconstruct the assignment.

This usually works for me.

VP

This is good.

I often will workshop the assignment prompt--assign HW of walking through the steps, imagining what they'll need to do to perform them, and make some simplified version of a gantt chart (what has to be done first? What comes after?) They bring this in and compare with their group mates for a few minutes, then I'll take any questions that weren't cleared up.

Sometimes walking them through the creation of the rubric together in class, backwards, starting from objectives helps too.  They do know what the assignment is measuring and with nudging they can talk about what should and should not happen to show that the goals were met.

It takes a long time, but it might be worth it for the Ed students, since they have to make rubrics and things anyway.  I do it because part of my job is teaching them to read assignment prompts in other classes and figure out "what the professors want."

[academic_cog]

I was hoping for a magic bullet that gets students to either admit they need help with process or makes them go away quickly since they were simply trying to get out of doing the work, as MG mentioned.

Anyone have anything catchy or is the process simply to walk students through until either they have the "oh, yeah.  I can do it!" moment or give up on trying to make me cave? 

I have actually just stood there and laughed with my hands on my hips and then said, "ok, seriously, go do the paper now," a couple times, but I think that depends on the personality of the student (and also, I'm not a permanent instructor here, so I don't care what students think if I can't be renewed.)

For most "permission to pee" students (OMG thanks whoever on the fora coined that term for the anxious students who need hand-holding!) I put on my most sympathetic voice but really really push for them to bring in a draft and talk it over with me. "If you bring in what you've started, I can point exactly to what I am looking for and what is not the best results." Sometimes students actually finish once they get on a roll, and with the rest, it pushes off the complaining till later.

Ooh, I almost forgot ---- I stole from the Jedi mind tricks thread the idea of putting "final draft" on the syllabus when I actually mean a rough draft, and then bleed red ink all over the papers and in an act of "generosity" allow them to resubmit it as a revision.

[dr_alcott]

Not a magic bullet, but here's what I do: during class, before the first major assignment is due, I have a "So what do I/we want to see in this kind of assignment?" chat. After we go over the assignment, I ask them to tell me what I'm looking for, and I put the good answers on the board. Sometimes they need a little pushing to get to the good answers.

On a related note: I'll never forget my first semester of college when someone asked our professor how long our first paper should be. He told us an anecdote about someone asking President Lincoln how long a man's legs should be in proportion to the rest of him. Lincoln apparently replied, "Long enough to reach the ground." Then the professor grinned at the student and said, slowly and clearly, "Your paper must be long enough to reach the ground."

I've stolen that. Many times.