I'm following up on the thread re: students not completing the pre-reading material. 

I think Naomi Lowe has a good idea when she says she plans of illustrate the disconnect between 1) students' grade expectations, 2) the results of her survey that indicate that they're not reading and 3) the reality as it manifests itself in the grade book. 

I agree, too, with the suggestion of helping them develop better reading strategies. The SQ3R method mentioned a couple of times in this thread is a good tool. In addition, it might be helpful to remind students of how much time they should expect to devote to the pre-reading, particularly if you're teaching students who are transitioning in from high school and/or have a heavy set of personal or professional responsibilities outside of school (work, family, etc.). While I teach the occasional 300 or 400 level class, most of my courses are at the 100 level, so many of my students are just getting acquainted with what's expected of them in a college classroom. I've found that they sometimes have unrealistic expectations about how much time and effort they've have to put in to truly digest the reading material. In my syllabus, I lay out the classic advice that students may expect to spend about 2 hours in outside of class work for every hour spent in the classroom. but I also tell them that the 2 hour figure could be higher or lower depending on the density of the content. If they come to me and tell me they're having trouble with the readings, we start by talking about how long it's taking them. I have a colleague who recommends keeping a reading log when students express this problem. In addition, there's a reading worksheet from Utah State that might be helpful in getting students to appreciate the amount of time they might need to put in to complete pre-reading.

Helping students appreciate expectations about reading and giving them tools to read/study more effectively is not just something that benefits the TBL classroom. It's a gift to our students and to colleagues who will have the same students in future classes.  

Shawnalee A. Whitney
Associate Professor of Communication
Department of Journalism and Communication
University of Alaska Anchorage
[log in to unmask]
 
From: Team-Based Learning [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Naomi Lowe [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 1:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ways to Modify TBL

I have a problem with my Psyc 100 students not reading this semester and making activities difficult to perform. I gave an anonymous survey and found most of them are not completing the reading, yet still expect to earn an A or B in the course. According to my grade book most are failing. I plan to show them a graph of these results, hoping to widen their eyes to any delusions they currently have.  We will see if it helps...

Naomi Lowe
CSU, San Marcos

On Sep 19, 2013, at 12:44 PM, "Carla Lupi" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

We have had issues with crafting appropriate reading assignments in our dense medical curriculum.  I am not sure how transferable these concepts may be to other fields, but we have found that clear alignment of reading to the session learning objectives is an important and necessary start. Faculty can sometimes include, for instance, an entire chapter because it contains the necessary prior knowledge but is not limited to that knowledge. Another successful strategy we increasingly use is a study guide to the reading. The truth is, outside of reading for pleasure or general knowledge, very few of us  read without a question to answer. Study guides provide those questions. They are particularly useful when it is more difficult to craft learning objectives specific enough to guide reading, and your learners are not skilled at seeing the forest for the trees. Some may argue that this is spoon-feeding – it can be done at that level (lots of details but no concepts). But if questions are really about new concepts for the student, I think it's simply a valuable aid to learning.



Carla Lupi, M.D., F.A.C.O.G.
Assistant Dean for Learning and Teaching
Associate Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology
Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
11200 SW 8th Street, AHC-2, Room 458
Miami, Florida 33199   

           


From: Karen Peterson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Karen Peterson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 14:04:08 -0500
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Ways to Modify TBL

Ron,

I agree that you should not modify your course due to student complaints about reading load.  They need to read the material for your class in order to succeed, and it sounds like you are not being unreasonable at all in your demands.  Students need to make a hard adjustment between high school and college, but they can learn how to read and retain material, and they should do that in order to succeed in college.

Karen Peterson
English
University of South Alabama
Mobile, Alabama 36688


On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 9:35 AM, Carson, Ron <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I’m concerned that my students are bombarded with too much reading from all their courses and are unable to adequately prep for TBL.  Unlike other courses, my entire course depends on students reading their text. In TBL, reading is the foundation for all that follows.

 

So, how can I modify TBL?  Student have very little to read for my class, but in the spectrum of all other classes, it’s a ton of information.  Currently, the class meets for 1 hr on Monday and 2 hours on Wed. The do iRATS/tRATS and discussion on Monday and then we have application exercises on Wednesday.

 

I’m looking for any suggestions about how to modify my class.


Thanks,

 

Ron Carson MHS, OT

Assistant Professor

Adventist University of Health Sciences

671 Winyah Dr.

Orlando, FL 32803

(407) 303-9182

 




--
Karen Peterson
CASLCE Director
English
251-460-6148