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ALL IN A DAY’S WORK*
Richard M. Felder and Rebecca Brent
It’s a typical day in your class. As you lecture,
several students stroll in during the first 10 minutes of the class and one arrives after 20 minutes. It is the earliest she has arrived all semester.
a number of students are absorbed in the campus newspaper.
two students are having an animated conversation, punctuated by laughter. All heads around them are turning to see what’s going on.
one student has his head back, eyes closed, and mouth open.
a cell phone rings.
You are not thrilled by all this, but you’re not sure what to do about it.
We sometimes present this scenario in our teaching workshops and ask the participants to brainstorm possible responses to any of these behaviors—not just good responses, but good, questionable, and terrible responses. Here are typical suggestions.
- Ignore it.
- Lock the door.
- “YOU TWO SHUT UP!”
- Fall silent and wait.
- Throw chalk.
- Set off a firecracker.
- Flap your arms and cluck like a chicken.
- Ask a question.
- Leave.
- Set fire to the newspaper.
- Talk to the offender outside class.
- Review the rules.
- Start an activity.
- Throw the bums out.
- “That looks like an interesting conversation over there—why don’t you share it with the rest of us?”
Next, we suggest that the best response depends on whether the offending behavior is disruptive or non-disruptive—that is, whether or not it distracts the class’s attention from your teaching—and whether it is a first offense or a recurring one. Non-disruptive behaviors include sleeping (without snoring), reading, or slipping into the back of the room late. You may not like it—seeing students asleep drives some instructors crazy—but it is not distracting to the other students. (Watching someone sleeping just doesn’t have that much entertainment value.)
- (^) Chem. Engr. Education, 34 (1), 66–67 (2000).
Disruptive behaviors include talking or otherwise making noise, or coming in late and promenading ostentatiously up the aisle.
After making these distinctions between different offending behaviors, we tell the participants to get into groups of three or four and try to reach consensus on the best response for each category. We collect their nominations and then propose ours. Sometimes several groups nominate our responses; often none do.
You might enjoy making your own nominations before we tell you ours. In your opinion, what is the best way to deal with
(a) a student sleeping in class whom you have never seen sleeping before? (b) a student who sleeps in almost every class session? (c) two students talking and laughing who have not done so before? (d) two students talking and laughing who do so frequently?
First indicate what you would do in class when you observe the offensive behavior, and then add what (if anything) you would do outside class. Hint : One of our nominations is not included in the 15 listed ones.
Best response to non-disruptive behavior
If you do anything in class to address a non-disruptive behavior, you turn it into a disruptive one. Our suggestion for what to do in class about a sleeping (or reading or unobtrusively late) student is, therefore... nothing. If the student is a first-time offender, forget about it. If you notice the same student sleeping every period, you may continue to ignore it, or if it seriously annoys you, you might express your annoyance outside class and ask why he is doing it. If he is bored, knowing that his sleeping bothers you may get him to work harder at staying awake. On the other hand, if he is holding down a 40-50 hour/week job while going to school or is working the night shift, warn him that he could be missing important information and then stop worrying about it.
Sometimes someone suggests initiating a learning activity to get students’ attention. We are staunch believers in active learning, but we want to use activities when they fit, not just because we happen to see someone sleeping.
Best response to disruptive behavior
Ignoring disruptive behavior is not a viable option. If you allow disruptions to proceed, they will become increasingly widespread and frequent until the class is out of control.
Our nomination of the best response requires some preliminary explanation.*^ Speech communication experts tell us that there are three categories of responses to objectionable behavior: aggressive, passive (indirect) , and assertive. Yelling at students, throwing things at them, and throwing them out of class are aggressive responses. Doing anything non-aggressive
- (^) We are indebted to Rebecca Leonard of the N.C. State University Department of Communication for the analysis
that follows.
