Motivate Schmotivate

We're three weeks into the semester, and already my students are, like, totally done with the whole college thing. Morning classes suck, afternoon classes make you sleepy, and why on earth do we have a paper due in three weeks? Oh, and let's not forget that train is a totally acceptable excuse to show up to class late, and rolling at your eyes at any new assignment is just another way of expressing that that independent thinking your instructor is always prattling on about.

We are only in week four people. Week four. And already teaching has become like pulling teeth. Actually, if only it were like pulling teeth, then none of us would feel any pain, and it would all be over really quickly.

Students who don't care are possibly the toughest crowd to teach. There is no response to questions, they don't listen and then ask you to re-explain something your cocker spaniel could understand ("Read chapter four for the next class, and then you will also need to start on...", "Wait, you mean we have to read chapter four?"), and start packing up their stuff ten minutes before the end of class. I've tried my usual tricks to motivate them; joke, use strange examples ("So, an example of a hypothesis would be: Men always end up cheating"), bring in audiovisual material ("Let's analyze this banned commercial of Mr. T shooting snickers at an effeminate white man walking down the street to get a clearer grasp of this specific stereotype"), and all I get is crickets, or in the latter case, "Well, it was just really funny.". Funny. Three years of expensive college education, and all they can come up with is "funny".

Now I've given this some thought, and I think the reason bored and unmotivated students bug me is because in the last ten, fifteen years college campuses have wholeheartedly embraced the "engaged learning" concept. Engaged learning, or whatever pretty name you want to give it, was a backlash against the old professor droning on in front of a dusty chalkboard, without any attention for his or her students. Engaged learning involves "dynamic student-instructor interaction!" (read: fielding lots and lots of questions about everything unrelated to the subject matter), "Rendering material applicable and concrete!" (read: lots of examples, or if you're feeling a bit snappy, dumbing it down so everyone gets it), "Multiple learning opportunities" (read: lots of assignments to make sure even the laziest students have a chance to pass), and "The use of advanced educational technologies" (read: you have to use powerpoint/smartboard/blackboard/moodle/wiki if you ever want to get promoted).

Don't get me wrong, as someone who spent hundreds of hours in large lecture halls listening to mumbling professors and trying to decipher their cryptic notes on the decades old chalkboard, I appreciate engaged learning. I'm convinced it's a better learning experience for the student, as well as the instructor. After all, if given the choice between droning on and using examples to get students to understand the material, I prefer the latter. But it all falls apart if the students don't cooperate. Which they haven't. They've been bored, resistant, sullen, and unwilling.

So, I think it's time for one of my scary speeches. One of those speeches where I remind them that everything they do now prepares them for that future they can't wait to start. And that the less they do now, the more that future will suck. I think I may even tell them that if they think this class is boring, they should wait until their first entry-level job, the one they will need to take because they couldn't be bothered to maintain a 3.0 GPA in college. Yes, I think it's time to use the fear tactic. After all, I did not get my PhD in motivational studies.