Why I’m Failing & How to Change

Things are going awry in my tech writing course this term. Somehow students are struggling with assignments—not understanding the purpose, working on topics that don’t fit the assignment, mixing up the genre conventions, and more. I’m not happy. Students aren’t happy. I need to figure out why, and that means that I write to think it through and determine what I can do to make it better. So here goes.

What It’s Not

It’s Not Students

I’m not a fan of blaming students. It’s easy to say that students aren’t reading the assignments or buying the textbook. Likewise it’s not that they have pandemic fatigue or the fault of online learning. When the majority of students are struggling, there has to be something bigger going on. It’s not reasonable to argue that 80% of the class is at fault for what’s going wrong.

It’s Not Ungrading

I use an ungrading approach, with grades of either Complete or Incomplete. Students have to reach a certain level of effort by attempting a number of drafts, completing a number of logs and class activities, and so forth. It’s possible to pass the course without getting everything perfect. Taking risks and trying the projects is more important than perfection in my philosophy. That said, putting in strong effort and working to improve is also extremely important.

With the range of what is possible, a devious student could aim low with the knowledge that they could easily do better later. Sure, that could happen. But it’s not going to happen with 80% of the class. Most students are trying to improve. Their logs show me the work that they do. Giving students the chance to try again just isn’t at fault. They want to get it right the first time, but they appreciate the chances to try again. Bottom line: I don’t believe that so many students are trying to game the system.

What It May Be

I Don’t Feel Good about My Assignments

To fit the requirements of our PTW program, I have adopted assignments I don’t like. They’re okay. They just don’t sing to me. They don’t excite me to read what students have to say. I have written them. They’re not adopted from other teachers. But they still don’t fit me. They don’t feel like activities that will be fun or interesting to students. They’re not full-on busy work, but sometimes they feel like it. And if they feel like busy work to me, I’m sure students are feeling the same way.

I Am Trying to Connect Things that Don’t Fit

Assignments and activities that have smooth connections provide students build on consistent content knowledge and related audiences. With this approach, students aren’t asked to learn new content while they are also learning new genres and writing strategies. Following this philosophy, my assignment sequence follows the same issue and connected assignments through the entire term. To connect things further, I have tried to create assignments that build together toward the final longer project (a recommendation report). For example, students write instructions for someone else to gather the primary data they will use in their recommendation report, with the goal of making duplication and validation of their research possible. The instructions end up discussed in the methods section of their recommendation reports and included in the report appendices.

While the philosophy of connecting projects and using a consistent content focus work, the assignments aren’t connecting well. I can see the connections, but I don’t think students do. I’m forcing things to connect that don’t fit well together. It’s an awkward structure, which seems to make the goals of the assignments harder for students to understand.

I Am Not Succeeding at Transparency

Transparency in what we do in the classroom helps students understand the projects and ultimately do better work. In my assignments, I try to explain why we are doing all the different activities we are in the class. Based on ideas from Small Teaching and from Small Teaching Online, I structure activities so that they include a section titled, “Why I Want You to Do It,” where I explain my goals. Perhaps I’m overexplaining and the information gets lost in the sea of words that is their assignments. Maybe I’m not explaining enough so the connections and purposes of activities are not clear.

What to do?

For This Term

1. Acknowledge the problems.
2. Loosen expectations on assignments with wide confusion. Genre required; focus can be flexible.
3. Create one-page fact sheets for the remaining assignments. Focus on the bare basics.
4. Create one-page cheat sheets for genres. Stress difference between assignment requirements and genre expectations.
5. Add options where possible (e.g., making up peer review).

For Next Time

6. Incorporate changes from above (i.e., fact sheets, cheat sheets, additional options).
7. Get rid of the awkwardly connected writing assignments. They aren’t working.
8. Streamline the assignments so there is less information to dig through.
9. Add assignments that feel fun or interesting, that will result in better student buy-in.
10. Look for prior knowledge (e.g., instructions are like lab reports?).

 

Image Credit: Fail by mrsdkrebs on Flickr, used under a CC-BY-2.0 license