Haha The first day my two asked 'what do we do if there isn't enough room to write the answer?' Extra sheet of paper never entered their heads.
I found myself trying to imagine a teacher with 25 kids all asking similar questions, it almost pushed me over the edge!
I still get that
in college. That's the reason I started teaching labs instead of just doing lecture classes. "Get out a piece of paper, put your name at the top right corner" is, apparently, very difficult to remember to do. Knowing to get a new paper if you run out of room is apparently hard to remember to do.
You know what works? Doing it over and over and over and over again. First time, very simple instructions. Then, add one. Put your FIRST and LAST name on the paper. In the upper RIGHT hand corner. Don't vary that. Make them do it with the page in portrait mode all the time. Make them use margins. Then add in the date under their name. Tell them they have to remember to do all of this (without being prompted) on their own.
Some day. So that when you say, "Get out your paper and get ready," they actually get more than one piece of paper, put their names on the tops of them, etc. Without you saying any more.
Because otherwise I will have to do that when they are 18-19 years old. I'm not kidding - it takes about 3 weeks to be able to say, "Get your paper ready in portrait mode," OR "get your paper in landscape mode." And guess what I have right now, in my stack of work?
Papers with no names on them. Yep. At the end of the term (and only at the end), I'll get emails from students who say, "I know I turned that in, why didn't I get a grade?"
Welp, I throw away 1-2 assignments weekly for 16 weeks. I have no clue whose paper these are. A couple of people are absent, a couple don't remember to write their name. I am still walking around the class at mid term pointing at upper right corners and asking why the name isn't already there.
"Because I will put it on later."
Me: "But this is a lab. I need you to put your name on FIRST as I have now said dozens of times. How can I trust you with delicate fossil casts if you can't follow instructions??"
Of course, there are other reasons I want that name there first. Good ones. But it really is just about following instructions in terms of the course rubric.
I've been trying to do some experiments on these kids. About memory. I'm learning some interesting things about the non-compliant ones. They really aren't good at remembering what we call "neutral information." If anyone wants to know more about that, just ask. Hahaha.
