3 ms·

+1 for cold-calling. What is "safe" cold-calling?

by kevmo 8y ago

therein 8y ago
It's of course the kind of cold-calling where you will never have to worry about type-safety or memory-safety. You will never endure a dangling pointer, a use-after-free, or any other kind of Undefined Behavior.
sdenton4 8y ago
I find it better to develop strategies for 'safe' handling of student input than to resort to cold calling. If a student feels embarrassed because of a response, then not only will they never raise their hand again, but neither will anyone else. The best way to do this is to try to identify the good part or motivation in a student's statement, regardless of anything wrong that might be in there too. Provide positive reinforcement on that part, and then turn the question back to the group again, with that extra foothold that the first student provided. Example: Me: "If we wanted to look at every relationship between these objects pairs of these objects, how many relationships would we have? Student A: "N squared!" Me: "Sure that's a good start; there's N squared possible two-ples you can form. But I think you may be overcounting a bit; can anyone suggest a way to cut it down?" Student B: "You don't need to pair objects with themselves." Me: "Great; so how many are we at, then? Student B: "N^2 - N". Me: "Awesome; I feel like we can still cut it down more. Any more ideas? Anyone want to try a small example?" etc etc... --- Other bits of advice that come back to me with some writing: * Provide seeds for ideas, and let the students fill out the flesh. * Keep the conversation moving around the room. Try to engage a variety of voices. * Provide at least some positive feedback for everyone who participates. Modulate for effect: eg, bigger praise for more complete, well communicated answers, or for people contributing for the first time. * If the Super Student blurts out the final answer, take it back to the class and ask if anyone can explain it in more detail. * Choose good questions. It's easy to ask a question that only you know the answer to... Mix up easy and hard questions, and use the easy questions as a way to 'onboard' quieter students. Do it well, and there's always going to be enough hands to avoid cold calling. If I genuinely get no hands on a question, it generally means I've asked a bad question; rephrase and ask again. (And on day one, I have a dumb joke where I have everyone "raise your hand if you have a hand" and then do 'reverse' hand raising...)
- bpye 8y ago
  In my experience, as recent student in the UK, even with that style of questioning people are reluctant to give answers. Certainly it is better than some lecturers that will just pick on people to ask though.
  - sdenton4 8y ago
    Totally. There's a relationship between the teacher and the classroom, and the students come in with a lot of expectations based on prior classes, too. A big part of the job is building and maintaining that relationship, and changing the expectations in your classroom.
- degrews 8y ago
  > The best way to do this is to try to identify the good part or motivation in a student's statement, regardless of anything wrong that might be in there too Your example sounds very reasonable to me, but do you think that this is ever taken too far? Coming to the US as a student from Europe (not the UK), I noticed that some instructors (mostly TAs) took this effort to give a "positive" response to any answer in class to quite an extreme. I can think of many instances where a student's answer showed a very serious lack of understanding, and the instructor would say something like "okay, that would be one way to think about it, but how about... " without every correcting the student. Two negative consequences I saw were 1) a lot of missed opportunities for correcting students' misunderstandings 2) students seemed overly sensitive to any kind criticism (I had a German friend who was a TA and had quite a bit of trouble with this) Again, none of this is incompatible with your advice, I just wanted to take the opportunity to see if anyone has noticed this as a common problem.
  - hueving 8y ago
    Yes, there is a risk there. You need to make sure that you put some phrase in there indicating that the student's answer wasn't really right. Just saying "that's one way to think about it" without clarifying that it's not quite correct for reason X will definitely do more damage than good. The trick is telling them they're wrong without making it sound like you are calling them stupid.
mathattack 8y ago
It means there’s no shame for a wrong answer. You aren’t grading the response. (I’ve seen classes where participation grades were based on getting facts correct rather than group discussion)

+1 for cold-calling. What is "safe" cold-calling?

by kevmo 8y ago

+1 for cold-calling. What is "safe" cold-calling?

It's of course the kind of cold-calling where you will never have to worry about type-safety or memory-safety. You will never endure a dangling pointer, a use-after-free, or any other kind of Undefined Behavior.

sdenton4 8y ago

I find it better to develop strategies for 'safe' handling of student input than to resort to cold calling. If a student feels embarrassed because of a response, then not only will they never raise their hand again, but neither will anyone else. The best way to do this is to try to identify the good part or motivation in a student's statement, regardless of anything wrong that might be in there too. Provide positive reinforcement on that part, and then turn the question back to the group again, with that extra foothold that the first student provided. Example: Me: "If we wanted to look at every relationship between these objects pairs of these objects, how many relationships would we have? Student A: "N squared!" Me: "Sure that's a good start; there's N squared possible two-ples you can form. But I think you may be overcounting a bit; can anyone suggest a way to cut it down?" Student B: "You don't need to pair objects with themselves." Me: "Great; so how many are we at, then? Student B: "N^2 - N". Me: "Awesome; I feel like we can still cut it down more. Any more ideas? Anyone want to try a small example?" etc etc... --- Other bits of advice that come back to me with some writing: * Provide seeds for ideas, and let the students fill out the flesh. * Keep the conversation moving around the room. Try to engage a variety of voices. * Provide at least some positive feedback for everyone who participates. Modulate for effect: eg, bigger praise for more complete, well communicated answers, or for people contributing for the first time. * If the Super Student blurts out the final answer, take it back to the class and ask if anyone can explain it in more detail. * Choose good questions. It's easy to ask a question that only you know the answer to... Mix up easy and hard questions, and use the easy questions as a way to 'onboard' quieter students. Do it well, and there's always going to be enough hands to avoid cold calling. If I genuinely get no hands on a question, it generally means I've asked a bad question; rephrase and ask again. (And on day one, I have a dumb joke where I have everyone "raise your hand if you have a hand" and then do 'reverse' hand raising...)

bpye 8y ago
In my experience, as recent student in the UK, even with that style of questioning people are reluctant to give answers. Certainly it is better than some lecturers that will just pick on people to ask though.
- sdenton4 8y ago
  Totally. There's a relationship between the teacher and the classroom, and the students come in with a lot of expectations based on prior classes, too. A big part of the job is building and maintaining that relationship, and changing the expectations in your classroom.
degrews 8y ago
> The best way to do this is to try to identify the good part or motivation in a student's statement, regardless of anything wrong that might be in there too Your example sounds very reasonable to me, but do you think that this is ever taken too far? Coming to the US as a student from Europe (not the UK), I noticed that some instructors (mostly TAs) took this effort to give a "positive" response to any answer in class to quite an extreme. I can think of many instances where a student's answer showed a very serious lack of understanding, and the instructor would say something like "okay, that would be one way to think about it, but how about... " without every correcting the student. Two negative consequences I saw were 1) a lot of missed opportunities for correcting students' misunderstandings 2) students seemed overly sensitive to any kind criticism (I had a German friend who was a TA and had quite a bit of trouble with this) Again, none of this is incompatible with your advice, I just wanted to take the opportunity to see if anyone has noticed this as a common problem.
- hueving 8y ago
  Yes, there is a risk there. You need to make sure that you put some phrase in there indicating that the student's answer wasn't really right. Just saying "that's one way to think about it" without clarifying that it's not quite correct for reason X will definitely do more damage than good. The trick is telling them they're wrong without making it sound like you are calling them stupid.

mathattack 8y ago

It means there’s no shame for a wrong answer. You aren’t grading the response. (I’ve seen classes where participation grades were based on getting facts correct rather than group discussion)