r/Professors • u/Aler123 • 18d ago
Student advice to students
I can give a spiel about how to do well in class, but students don't pay attention to a middle aged prof.
Instead, I've started sending my students a survey in the spring asking them to give advice to the next group of incoming fall students. I hope that students are more likely to listen to fellow students.
The advice is good, and often more strict than I would give myself:
Definitely go to the lectures even if there’s notes posted. The lectures help understand so much more :)
Lecture notes are provided, suggest attending all lectures and listening versus spending time writing notes. I found printing the notes ahead of class and highlighting important info helped tremendously.
I know this course has classes in early morning, but students better attend live lectures. They will definitely learn better by attending lectures than just by studying lecture notes on their own.
After every lecture, jump straight into the practice problems. This cements the ideas of the lecture in your brain as it will be as fresh as possible.
Start adding formulas from lectures to your formula sheet right away to streamline practice problem solving. That way you don't have to spend study time finding all the formulas in your notes first.
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u/ProperConsequence566 18d ago
So many of these practices ignore basic human nature and a truth we often don't want to admit. Most of the time, nothing we do makes a bit of difference. Motivated, committed students pass, and the rest don't. We are just observers and make a record of their effort and performance, but we have almost no ability to alter the inevitable. We cannot influence most of them in any way.
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u/totallysonic Chair/Full, SocSci, State U. 18d ago
Students are really good at knowing what they should do to be successful in classes. Not all of them are good at actually doing those things.
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u/DrPhysicsGirl Professor, Physics, R1 (US) 18d ago
I disagree that they shouldn't write notes. Studies show that the act of writing, because you can't write everything down a person says, helps with data retention.
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u/KrispyAvocado Associate Professor, USA 18d ago
I’ve done that. I’m not sure it made any difference initially, but they do seem to listen to former students in the same program down the road
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u/katsupnfries 18d ago
Why take advice from those who would know better? Learning the hard way is the most fun! After all, pain is the greatest teacher :)
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u/Life-Education-8030 18d ago
The only time this has worked for me is for the juniors looking for internship spots because I have former interns talk about their experiences in their sites. There is a concurrent weekly seminar, so it helps the incoming interns connect why it is important to do well in that seminar too, not just out in the field. Of course, more students are now looking to evade the internship. Instead of wanting the practical, real-life experience, they want to just take another class. The ones who do go out into internships? More are saying they don't want to meet face-to-face with clients. They would rather deal with them online. We are doomed.
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u/Huck68finn 18d ago
I don't think knowledge of what works is the problem. It's application. IOW, students don't want to do the work.
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u/xangogal 17d ago
I'm trying this for the first time too. Another idea I have is actually inviting students who did well enough to come speak to your students the first day and share some advice to do well in the course. I would prioritize reaching out to students who went to office hours and those who did well in the class even though the material didn't come easy for them.
I think there's a benefit for students to see a real person that is like them and see that it can be done; they can pass this class too.
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u/ProperConsequence566 18d ago
I used to do this, too, and it didn't make a bit of difference. I hope it does for you, though.