CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT
Creating a safe, positive classroom environment is key to effective teaching and learning.
Consider how an instructor might keep students motivated, and how to prevent, detect and deal with cheating, plagiarism and other infractions of academic integrity. Examine what constitutes professional conduct and civility in an academic setting and how to deal with breaches of both. Information is also available on how instructors might create and maintain a diverse, inclusive and safe classroom environment for their students.
MOTIVATING STUDENTS
Few teachers would disagree with the view that motivated students are easier to teach and that they learn more. As teachers, we hope that all of our students come to the classroom excited to learn for the sake of learning and that our teaching will inspire them to great heights of achievement. We are then disappointed if our students seem more interested in knowing what is on the test or argue for an extra point or two. In reality, our students bring to the classroom a variety of motivational drives and a wide range of demands on their attention, commitment, and time. Our students today face the challenge of prioritizing and being self-disciplined when family, friends, extracurricular activities, and work all vie for their attention.
Effective teachers know their students come with a natural desire to learn. They also realize that students come with a belief that the teacher is responsible for tapping into that natural desire by providing a classroom environment that fosters a motivation to learn and an excitement that continues from the first day of the semester to the last.
Many students believe that good teachers do “motivate” them (Svinicki, 2004) and these teachers tend to receive high student ratings on items such as: the instructor motivated me to do my best work; stimulated my intellectual curiosity; encouraged me to express my opinion or experience; and emphasized learning rather than tests or grades. The following are some strategies “good teachers” use to motivate their students.
PLANNING FACTORS
Determine course goals and learning objectives
Spend the time to identify course goals that will promote significant and enduring learning. Discuss these goals with your students so they understand them, appreciate their importance, and know ways in which to succeed.
Plan three important task dimensions
Difficulty: More difficult tasks are achievable with specific short-term goals. Determine the range of what students can do independently vs. with help or guidance from their teacher or peers. It is important to provide support; e.g., breaking down the tasks into steps, modeling, coaching, and prompting.
Relevance: Help students find personal meaning and value in the material.
- Find ways to help students put the material to use.
- Capitalize on students' existing needs.
- Find and use examples that are meaningful, interesting, and relevant to students' lives and/or future professions.
- Discuss or demonstrate interesting “big problems” or current issues that specialists in your field find challenging.
- Plan special field trips, guest speakers, and other events that promote a natural interest in the material.
STUDENT INTERACTION FACTORS
Know your students
In addition to their names and experiences, determine their skills and knowledge. One way is through the Classroom Assessment Technique (CAT) Background Knowledge Probe (Cross and Angelo, 1993). This strategy uses short simple pretests to determine students' prior subject knowledge and their readiness to proceed to the next level.
Create a welcoming learning environment
Make students feel comfortable and important. Identify specific ways to let your professional enthusiasm show through. For example, explain your research to students or describe ways in which your field is relevant to recent news.
Set and communicate expectations
“Research has shown that a teacher's expectations have a powerful effect on a student's performance” (Davis, 1993). Be enthusiastic, set realistic and appropriate goals, and provide adequate challenges. Inform your students of these goals and strategies for success in your course.
Encourage students to interact positively with one another
A classroom should be open, positive, and receptive to discussion and disagreements. Cooperative learning fosters intrinsic motivation and plays a role in developing critical thinking skills when students are required to explain and teach each other. In addition, students develop a sense of community and commitment to each other.
STUDENT ASSESSMENT/FEEDBACK FACTORS
Provide feedback
Feedback must be frequent, early, constructive, explicit, and tied to effort. The feedback must provide information about where students did well as well as ways to improve. Make comments about the task or performance, not about the individual learner.
Increase the probability of success
Reduce test anxiety using strategies such as dropping the lowest test score, providing practice exams, and aligning homework, assignments, and exams on difficulty and content levels. In addition, provide help through review sessions and study guides.
Use appropriate grading
Utilize an absolute or mastery standard of grading rather than a relative scale (“grading on the curve”), which tends to foster competition and low self-efficacy. Using grades to punish students reduces intrinsic motivation, such as taking away points for missed or late papers.
Provide some choice and control
Allow students the opportunity to make choices and experience the consequences of those choices. Let them have options on class projects and in choosing some topics for the course. Provide them with a sense of autonomy.
READINGS
- Cross, K. P., & Steadman, M. H. (1996). Classroom research: Implementing the scholarship of teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Cross, P., & Angelo, T. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Davis, B. G. (1993). Tools for teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Salisbury-Glennon, J. D., Young, A. J., & Stefanou, C. R. (2001). Creating contexts for motivation and self-regulated learning in the college classroom. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 12(2), 19-35.
- Svinicki, M. D. (2004). Learning and motivation in the postsecondary classroom. Bolton, MA: Anker.
DEALING WITH CHEATING
PREVENTING CHEATING
Instructors can reduce the incidence of cheating by paying specific attention to how they communicate their expectations to students, how they prepare their exams, and how they administer their exams. The following sections provide guidelines on these three points.
Advance communication
- Whatever decisions you make regarding academic integrity, it is imperative that these decisions be fully communicated to students, TAs, and exam proctors.
- You can communicate expectations by making a clear statement on the first day of class, by including this statement in the course syllabus, and by repeating it on the class day before an exam and again as the exam begins.
Test preparation
- Create a test that is fair to your students. Some students use an instructor's reputation for giving “unfair” tests as an excuse to cheat. “Fair” means that the exam covers the material that you said it would cover, that students have enough time to complete the exam, and that its instructions are clear.
- Help students control anxiety by discussing the test procedures and outlining the material to be included. Handing out old tests or providing sample questions also reduces anxiety.
- Write new tests each semester, whenever possible; at the very least add new items. By doing this, students are less likely to use past students' exams to gain an unfair advantage.
- Prepare more than one form of the exam. You can have the same questions on each form, but (1) present questions in a different order on each form, or (2) vary the order of the response alternatives. Where calculations are involved, you can modify values within the same question on different forms so that responses are different.
- Pre-code answer sheets and test booklets by using a numbering system so that the number on each test booklet matches the one on each student's answer sheet.
- To eliminate cheating after the exam has been returned to students, mark the answer sheets in such a way that answers cannot be altered; e.g., by using a permanent felt-tip pen.
Test administration
Most cheating on tests in large classes occurs when students are allowed to sit wherever they choose. It should be no surprise that cheaters choose to sit near each other. Cheating may be greatly minimized by using the following procedures:
- Number seats and tests and then assign students to sit in the seat with the same number as the number on their test.
- Systematically hand out alternative forms, taking into account students sitting laterally
as well as those sitting in front and in back of each other.
- Immediately attend to any suspicious conduct by the students. If the conduct is suspicious (but not necessarily conclusive), you should move the students to other locations in the room. This is most successful when it is done immediately and with as little disturbance as possible. Doing so also helps to avoid embarrassing the student being moved, who may be innocent. State ahead of time that you plan to follow this practice whenever something suspicious occurs, and that you do it as assistance to all students involved. When making this statement, stress to the students that your asking them to move is not an accusation of cheating. A statement such as this frequently helps reduce the disturbance element and assure innocent students that they are not being accused of wrongdoing.
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If you suspect a student of cheating during an exam, let them finish the exam in case youdiscover the student was not cheating.
HANDLING CHEATING
Charging students with cheating is never easy. However, the following suggestions should make it easier. If faculty members do not fulfill their responsibility for maintaining academic integrity, it makes it difficult to charge students with infractions of academic integrity. Here are some suggestions for handling cheating:
- Be certain that you are acting fairly and objectively and that you have all of the facts.
- Become familiar with the policies so you know the procedures to follow.
- Keep written records of the description of the cheating incident and the actions you and others subsequently take.
- Speak with (1) your department chair to learn about departmental practices, or (2) other faculty, especially those in your department, to see what they have done and what the results were when they charged students with cheating.
- Become familiar with the sanction alternatives and at what level students' appeals leave departmental jurisdiction.
- Be able to justify the sanction chosen by attempting to match it with the level or type of cheating that has taken place.
- When your proctors and teaching assistants wish to make a charge of cheating, learn the facts surrounding their charge, and support them in pursuing appropriate action.
- Do not make threats to students that you or the institution cannot back up. For example, do not tell students that you are going to “flunk them and kick them out of school.” Section 4.3.4 of the Faculty Handbook states an “F” may be assigned to a student in the case of academic dishonesty and/or plagiarism at the discretion of the instructor, as clearly defined in the course syllabus, due to the severity of the student’s actions and disregard for the learning objectives of the course. By being knowledgeable about the Code, you can be better assured of commenting appropriately to students.
- Remember that a system for appealing sanctions has been established for all students, and you are responsible for understanding and respecting that system.
PROCEDURES FOR ENFORCING THE CODE
Once a student has been formally charged with cheating according to the Student Code, campus procedures for infractions of academic integrity are set in motion. When a student decides to appeal the charge, it is important to continually communicate with your department head as the appeal process moves through its stages. Knowing what is in the Code is essential. Listed below are some additional thoughts.
- All students on this campus (and most institutions of higher learning) have the opportunity to appeal charges of cheating.
- Prepare yourself for moments of uneasy feelings. These are common and do not mean that you have made a mistake or are being unreasonable. These moments may also occur well after the entire procedure is over.
READINGS
- Cizek, G. (1999). Cheating on tests: How to do it, detect it, and prevent it. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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Lang, J. M. (2013). Cheating lessons. Harvard University Press.
- McKeachie, W. J., & Svinicki, M. (2014). Teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
- Wankat, P. (2002). The effective, efficient professor. Boston: Allyn Bacon.
DIVERSITY & CREATING AN INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM
Inclusive teaching means "teaching in ways that do not exclude" according to the University of Washington's website on inclusive teaching, and “Teaching for Inclusion: Diversity in the College Classroom,” an online resource from the Center for Teaching and Learning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These resources provide sound advice on ways to create an inclusive classroom.
- Show interest in interacting with all students, and not just a particular group of students (for example, students from a particular social or ethnic group, or students who sit in the front row).
- Make students feel that they belong in your class. Avoid suggesting that certain backgrounds and life experiences disqualify them from being taken seriously as learners.
- Get to know your students as individuals rather than as representatives of particular groups or assuming they are all the same.
- Never ask a student to speak for a whole group (e.g., for women, for Hispanics, for Muslims).
- Accommodate different learning styles and promote collaboration among students.
- Do not let injurious statements pass without comment.
- Allow students to disagree with you or others, but within guidelines that promote a safe learning atmosphere in the classroom.
- Reflect diverse backgrounds on your syllabus, in your readings, examples, and in other materials such as visual aids.
- Depersonalize controversial topics and structure assignments to let students choose topics with which they are comfortable.
READINGS
- Adams, J. Q. and Welsh, J.R. (Eds.). (1999). Cultural diversity: Curriculum, classroom, and climate. Macomb, IL: Illinois Staff and Curriculum Developers Association.
- Cannon, L. W. (1994). Fostering positive race, class, and gender dynamics in the classroom. In K. Feldman and M. Paulsen (Eds.), Teaching and learning in the college classroom (pp. 301-306). Needham Heights, MA: Ginn Press.
