Friday, January 22, 2021

The Ideal Student

Time to turn the tables by defining the ideal student.  Of course, not everyone is going to have the same picture in mind, but let's start somewhere.  Saying my kid is the sweetest isn't going to get us anywhere because it's just a persuasive definition.  We must use concrete qualities.

We start with respect.  Respect encompasses many things.  Students need to learn that to get respect, you need to give respect.  So respect starts with showing up on time for class - that goes for teachers as well!  Students being late is a big pet peeve for many teachers that I know - parents can help out a great deal by making sure their kids get to bed earlier so they can arrive on time and are ready to learn.  Here are 2 references on how much sleep do kids need:  Today's Parent and Healthy Children.  Class management is the teacher's responsibility, but students can make this easier or harder; students can show respect by not interrupting when others are talking; everyone deserves their time to participate.  The more respect that is shown; the more time everyone will get to participate.  Respect is something that students are not fully aware of, so it is incumbent on the teacher to explicitly state them.

"You get what you give."  Teachers are like performers.  When performers get feedback from the audience, the performance gets better.  It's the same with a lecture!  If nobody asks a question during a lecture, it's tough for the teacher to be excited and keep going.  It never hurts to ask "why?"; it usually leads to more personal answers rather than something out of a textbook.  Here are some questions to try but make sure that it's applicable:

  • "Why are we learning this?"
  • "Who discovered this?"
  • "What can we do with this?"
  • "Is there another way?"
  • "How has this helped you in life?"
  • "Sorry, I don't understand."

One caveat is to be genuine when asking the question.

The other pet peeve for teachers is cellphones. If the school has a no cellphone policy, then this isn't an issue.  No matter how disciplined we are, a cellphone will likely distract and impact the learning.  Here is an article that states the impact:  CNBC.  Breaking the cellphone habit early will help when we keep a job later - employers don't want to see their employee on their cellphone while on the job!  And for when we get our driver's license, it will also help us avoid distracted driving.

Some students will argue with teachers about marking; this is generally not a good direction (unless it's multiple choice) because this implies the teacher is not correctly doing their job.  It is okay to ask how to answer a question better or what can be done to improve understand or to make arguments clearer.  If your answer is correct, then the teacher will notice their own mistake.  I have had a few professors who have told the class that if they ask for a mark correction that they will re-mark the whole test and the mark may go down.  In reality, for high school, a couple of marks out of probably hundreds of marks is going to be less than 1% and most teachers will boost the letter grade if it is on the boundary.

Of course students have time pressure like everyone else, but ideally work habits need to be consistent.  Students need to start the assigned work as soon as possible after a lesson is delivered.  Firstly, it will verify that the lesson is understood.  Secondly, it will verify that we can apply the lesson.  Lastly it will help with learning/memorizing; it's called the Spacing Effect.  There may be temptation to complete the assigned work, but RESIST; save some it for the next day to utilize the Spacing Effect.  If you complete the assigned work, it is almost as bad as cramming because your memory needs to be refreshed until the lesson is completely learned.  If something is learned, it will always be there ready to use.  If something is crammed, it will always have to be re-crammed in order to use.  It is a fallacy to think that cramming is more efficient than learning; learning will save you more time in the long run.  Also, teachers want students to learn and not to cram.

Being the ideal student is not magic; it's just doing the things that help learning.  If there is difficulty making studying a habit, forming a study group is usually helpful as long as it is not just a social gathering.  And THAT concludes this post!



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