Notes on Teaching and Learning

There are many studies, some linked at the end of this post, which argue for the benefits of eliminating (or at least limiting) laptop use in the classroom, advocate for old-fashioned hand-writing as a superior note taking practice to that of electronic transcription of lectures, and argue that college students are just too prone to distraction to be able to police themselves on technology use. There are also those such as Rebecca Schuman who argue that restricting laptop is infantilizing to students who should be learning not only the lecture material but also how to navigate real world situations in which they will not have someone to regulate their attention.

I personally allow my students to use their laptops in class because I believe that we all need to embrace the fact that technology is networked into our lives now and that learning how to integrate technology into our daily practices is a necessary tool. Instead of banning laptops, I suggest that we put more thought into how to better integrate them into our classes.

BREAKING UP A LECTURE

Most of the studies discrediting laptops as classroom tools focus on note taking in lecture classes. Consider the following quotation from the New Yorker: “The act of typing effectively turns the note-taker into a transcription zombie, while the imperfect recordings of the pencil-pusher reflect and excite a process of integration, creating more textured and effective modes of recall.” While that’s a fair point, it doesn’t address the fact that note-taking is just one part of learning.

Whether students are taking notes by hand or via laptop, it is important that time is spent in class for students to reflect on and respond to the lecture so that students may better understand and synthesize key points. In other words, the issue may not necessarily be with note-taking but with the lecture format itself. Long lectures without pauses for deliberate review or reflection can often lead to distraction. After all, isn’t doodling flowers on one’s notebook the old-fashioned equivalent to surfing Facebook during class? Distraction can happen with or without technology; minimizing distraction and increasing attention should be our priority.

DIRECTLY USING TECHNOLOGY IN YOUR COURSE

There are many ways to harness possible distraction into an activity that uses technology effectively. Here are two options:

Google Docs

Have small groups of students use Google Docs to write a collaborative piece. This could be a class reflection, a clarification of a key point, or anything else that might benefit from collaboration. Students can then discuss what they wrote with the class.

Poll-Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is a website that allows students to electronically send in answers to questions that you create. You can create quizzes, reflection questions, etc. and view the answers anonymously or even in graph form.

MOVE AROUND THE CLASSROOM

If you are still afraid that students will be peaking at other websites when they should be working, make it a habit to move around the space in the classroom. Make them feel that you are very spatially aware and present and they will be less likely to surf the internet – both for fear of being caught and because they will feel more engaged and connected with you. This suggestion, incidentally, also reduces the amount of flower drawings that might pop up on traditional pen and pencil notes.

FURTHER READING:

“The Case for Banning Laptops in the Classroom.”  http://The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-case-for-banning-laptops-in-the-classroom

“The Laptop and the Lecture” Study at Cornell University http://www.ugr.es/~victorhs/recinfo/docs/10.1.1.9.9018.pdf

Studies on how Handwriting increases learning: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614524581

“In Defense of Laptops in the Classroom” http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/06/in_defense_of_laptops_in_the_college_classroom.html

This post was written by Catherine Sims Kuiper, Graduate Associate of the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning.

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As new instructors it can be particularly difficult to establish appropriate boundaries in the help we give our students. This happens for a variety of reasons, but most often because graduate students who are new to teaching can feel a need to prove their worth to their students. It’s helpful to keep in mind that your students are already disposed to look up to you as an instructor and to assume that you are in a position to help them. The important choices you will need to make – in conversation with your professor and any other TA’s for your class – are in establishing how much and what kind of help you should make available. Note that some professors will have very clear expectations they expect you to follow, while others will leave you more flexibility to establish your own guidelines. Regardless of your situation, you should have a clear idea of how much help you are prepared to offer at the beginning of the semester and to lay this out for yourself and your students by clarifying what exactly your office hours are for. While there is of course much to be said about the ways in which you can best support your students, here we focus on managing expectations and workload as you aim to balance your TA work with other duties.

Here are some helpful guidelines for structuring office hours, focused on managing your own time while cultivating a good working and mentoring relationship with your students:

• Clear Communication. Whatever specific rules you establish for your office hours, make sure that your students are aware of them. Decide on a time and location and on how flexible you can be with making additional appointments to fit your students’ schedules. You may wish to offer students the chance to vote or fill out a calendar poll, so that they have input into which of your available times become official office hours. Once you have come up with a plan that suits your needs as an instructor and a student yourself, communicate this to your students at the start of the semester.
• Set Boundaries Out of the Office. You do not need to be available to your students 24/7, and in fact it’s better for them not to form a habit of depending on you to do this. Consider establishing certain hours for responding to student emails (and communicate these hours to students!); if you do receive a question late at night, wait until the following morning to respond.
• Create Structure. It can help to have an agenda in mind for a meeting with a student so you can budget time accordingly. If you have a number of students who need to discuss an assignment with you, plan ahead to allot sufficient time for everyone while still keeping to your own schedule. Additionally, keeping to a pre-arranged schedule will help you know when you’ve fulfilled your obligation to your students.
• Know Your Limits. You are here to teach a particular course, not to spend endless hours coaching your students on how to study or how to write. If giving input on writing or studying begins to occupy too much of your time, be aware of the different campus resources such as the Writing Center or Academic Services, which are available to help students cultivate the different skills they need to succeed. Even more importantly, don’t offer help you’re not qualified to give. The University Counseling Center (UCC) offers counseling services to students who are struggling with mental or emotional burdens that might come up in office hours. You are welcome to suggest that a student visit the UCC, or even offer to walk them to St. Liam’s Hall if you believe their situation is urgent.
• Cultivate Good Habits. You need to follow your own rules as much as your students do! Make sure you are prepared ahead of time for contingencies that include referring students to other services, keeping to the time allotted for your office hours, and appropriately limiting your responsiveness to emails.

Maintaining these kinds of boundaries and structures around your office hours will help you find a balance that allows you to best complete your research, coursework, and other teaching duties, while still offering the individual support your students need.

Instructors commonly value deep learning, in which students are authentically engaged in the course material, have natural curiosity, and possess intrinsic motivation for the work.  Some of our students bring this intrinsic motivation and associated tendency toward deep learning with them to the classroom.  Other students find more motivation in external factors, such as grades or the approval of other people. As people passionate about our disciplines, we hope that all students—regardless of where they begin our class—will leave with a greater interest and enjoyment in the subject.  What can we do to promote and preserve the motivation of all students who enter our classrooms?

Here are several tips, targeted especially for the early weeks of the semester, to start off on the right foot:

Target the appropriate challenge level.  Students respond best to tasks slightly above their current skill level.

• Assess students current knowledge during the first week (or two) of the semester to help you construct assignments at the appropriate level. You might survey students about their past experiences, reasons for taking the course, and concerns about the subject.  Another option is to give a diagnostic pre-test at the beginning of the semester to gauge students’ knowledge and abilities in course topics.
• Be flexible during the course to respond to students’ growth as well as their challenges. Varied assignments help maintain interest and target different skills.

Be accessible and enthusiastic in your teaching style.

• Learn and use students’ names. 
• Get in the habit of chatting with students before class begins. I know it seems awkward at first, but once you and your students begin to know one another, it gets easier.
• Show enthusiasm in a way that is authentic for you. You might communicate your passion about the material or make appropriate self-disclosures about your own challenges and triumphs as a learner.

Begin the semester with low-stakes assignments.

• Early, encouraging feedback supports students’ beliefs that they can do well and offers them opportunities for improvement.
• Begin scaffolding larger assignments now to reduce anxiety and build new skills over the course of the semester.

Build in choice to increase intrinsic motivation.

• Students who are allowed some degree of control in their learning tend to be more self-directed, take greater ownership of the work, and devote more effort to the learning.
• Allowing students to exercise some personal choice in designing their assignments enables them to connect the course to their interests and concerns.
• Smaller ways to incorporate choices into the classroom include: allowing students to select partners for labs or activities, soliciting student feedback on which topics or questions they want to focus on (especially in review, tutorial or discussion sections), and offering options between different assignments or exam questions.

Connect the course material to the real world.

• It can be tempting to begin a course with a theoretical approach before moving to applications, but this approach can lose students’ interest and make it more difficult for them to understand the information.
• Use real-world examples in your teaching to demonstrate the value of the knowledge and help make the information stick.

Provide support outside the classroom.

• Offer recommendations and information about appropriate academic, professional, and wellness support services on campus.
• If your class sizes allow, consider requiring all students to visit office hours early in the semester. You will get the opportunity to know your student and their motivators better, and the student will find it easier to seek your help or advice in the future.
• Treat your students like individuals outside the classroom. Say hello when you see them around campus.  Encourage them to join a broader intellectual community by inviting them to relevant department lectures and events.

Additional reading and sources on motivation:

Bain, Ken. What the Best College Teachers Do. 1st edition. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Kirk, Karin. “Motivating Students.”   On the Cutting Edge: Strong Undergraduate Geoscience Teaching.  http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/motivation.html

Kyndt, Eva et. al. “The Direct and Indirect Effect of Motivation for Learning on Students’ Approaches to Learning through the Perceptions of Workload and Task Complexity.” Higher Education Research & Development, 30, no. 2 (2011), 135-150.

Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. “Motivating Students.” https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/motivating-students/.

I have a confession to make: I have a very difficult time learning students’ names. I know that research shows it is really important for building a supportive and inclusive classroom, and I know that it makes discussion and other interactions with students much easier. And I remember being impressed with the outstanding teachers who learned every student’s name on or before the first day of class. But it still takes a long time for me to remember who’s who. It can be embarrassing and anxiety-producing to have to ask for a student’s name multiple times, especially later in the semester, and learning a student’s name is indeed an important and worthwhile task. If you are looking for some tried and true techniques for overcoming the name barrier, here are a few quick tips for those of us who could use a little extra help putting names to faces:

• Print your Online Photo sheet. At the University of Notre Dame, all individuals listed as an instructor for the course have access to Online Photo through InsideND. You can print a sheet that lists students’ names and information alongside a photo of them. Study the sheet ahead of time, and make flashcards with the students’ photos if needed. If you are a teaching assistant and do not have access to your course’s Online Photo, ask the primary instructor to print one off for you. With this sheet, you might take roll for at least the first few classes (either formally or before class begins).
• Use name tents. On the first day of class, bring paper and sharpies and have students make a name tent to place in front of them. You might ask them to continue using the nametag for the first few classes, but try not to become too reliant on the paper to do the job for you! (There will come a point in the semester where a student will not have a name tent in front of them.) Instead, combine this technique with one or more of the others listed to commit the names to memory.
• Break the ice. Icebreakers are a common way to start the semester, and for good reason! They set the tone for a collaborative classroom environment, and they also help with learning names. Try an icebreaker that will reveal an interesting detail you can associate with that student. Or try a variant using the students’ names: one of the most useful ones for me is the Alliterating Adjectives icebreaker. This exercise asks students to come up with an adjective that describes themselves that starts with the same first letter of their name (example: Friendly Francis).
• Have your students write their information down. Before students leave on the first day, have them write down some basic information for you to remember them by, including the name they prefer to be called and the phonetic spelling if needed. (This is also a great way to collect any other vital information about your students.) With this reference, you can be sure to have the correct details without worrying about remembering everything from the already-busy first day.
• Use names often. Ask students to give their name each time they speak, and call students by name in class whenever you can. This allows you to memorize a few names at a time. (This is a good tip for large classes.)
• Plan to test yourself early on. When we want students to complete an assignment, we give them a deadline. Similarly, set a deadline for yourself to know all of your students’ names. The best way to do this is to pick a day to find each student in class and hand back an assignment or quiz. (Hint: students will help you find where they are sitting to make sure they get their assignments back, so if you do not have every name down exactly, this tends to be less awkward than going around the room to publicly quiz yourself on student names.)

Even if you incorporate all of these tricks into your teaching, don’t expect to be perfect right away. Give yourself permission to make mistakes; in fact, let students know that you may have a difficult time with names, and they will appreciate your hard work to learn them. And while you are learning student names, make sure that the students are learning each other’s names (and how to pronounce them correctly) as well. Soon you will be well on your way to a personal, collaborative, and successful classroom environment!

Additional Resources:

• “The Importance of Learning Students’ Names” – Glenz
• “Getting Names Right: It’s Personal” – Igwe
• “Learning Student Names” – Middendorf & Osborn

And see our other previous posts on planning for the start of the semester:

• “7 Tips for the First Day”
• “Rock the First Day!”
• “Communicating Mutual Expectations”
• “Tips for the Second Week of the Semester”

Course Instructor Feedback can be a very useful tool to help strengthen our future pedagogical practices. Unfortunately, it is sometimes hard to productively interpret and incorporate the feedback, especially since the numeric averages can often leave instructors feeling confused and worried that they are not living up to department standards. Below, I offer some tips on how to affectively deal with feedback in a productive way.

• Do Not Place Your Self Worth on Numbers

Every teacher has encountered an over-achieving student who performs just short of perfect on an essay, receives and A- and schedules a mini-panic attack with the instructor during office hours because they feel like a failure for not achieving their high school norm of an A on everything. In fact, students will often be heard defining their selfhood by their grades: “But I am an A student” is a common rejoinder in college classrooms, especially at Notre Dame where there is a large amount of pressure placed on students from internal and external factors to excel at the highest level.

One of our jobs as instructors is to dispel the myth that grades are equivalent to some sort of quality of personhood and to emphasize that learning from mistakes is much more important than defining oneself by perfection or lack thereof.  I say this, but then again, I know I make these value judgements about myself based upon quantitative feedback. I remember once having students fill out informal evaluations at the end of a class and discovering one had actually went a step further and playfully graded me on my teaching. The grade was a B+, a grade that I normally emphasize as “very good” to worried students who have been displaced from their A pedestal. Indeed, a B+ is, by definition, very good. Yet, I remember being disheartened and thinking, sadly “Oh no! I am only a B+ teacher.” I obsessed over this so much that I overlooked all of the praise and helpful criticism from both this student and others. I fell into the trap of defining myself by the grade.

After mid-term evaluation reports were disseminated this semester, another instructor told me that they were a 4.3 as a teacher and wondered if this was normal. Again, the number, rather than the feedback, stuck out most to this person. I told them that the number actually sounded quite positive to me, especially for their first-time teaching, but that if they really wanted to know where they stood in relation to the rest of the department, they should ask the program coordinator for an average. Even then, however, the results are subjective. Unless your numbers represent an extreme aberration from the average, the small divergence of points between one instructor and another may be due to many factors external to a specific instructor’s abilities, including the race and gender of the instructor, as well as how each student measures the different between a 4 and a 5. What’s the difference between very good and excellent? Well, it really depends on how you define each term.

The most important thing to remember is that, while the number will be used toward administrative purposes and matter at job interviews and promotions, the real value of the feedback is to learn what you could be doing better and make your teaching stronger for next term. Also, I would bet that every teacher has at some point in their career received the one oddball series of lowest possible marks from at least one disgruntled student who trolled them on the course evaluations. That happens. If it is an aberrancy, treat it as such. Do not let it define your value. If you get a number of low scores, go to the written comments and try to figure out what may have gone wrong.

• Focus on Specific Qualitative Feedback

This is where students will articulate specifics on what they thought worked and what they might have wanted to be stronger. Admittedly, these are often hard to interpret as well because students do not always explain exactly what assignment made them feel a certain way. This is why asking specific questions on the CIF, or distributing an extra, informal CIF in class, is always important. CIFs will nearly always include an option for the instructor to add a number of their own specific questions so that they may receive a more tailored report. I suggest adding 2 or 3 specific questions of your own so as to not overwhelm students with too many questions. Ask questions pertaining to a particular assignment or activity. Think about what you struggled the most with over the semester and use this as an opportunity to have the students provide you feedback on this portion of the class. Do not think about evaluations as students critiquing you but rather as students helping you achieve your goals, the same as you do for them.

• It’s Not Too Late to Receive Feedback

I am aware that some of the advice I am providing, such as writing your own CIF questions for the students, is coming a bit late now that CIFs had to be completed yesterday. However, that does not mean that you cannot still solicit feedback from your students. Feedback should never be seen as just an administrative requirement. Rather, always take control of the feedback yourself and create a conversation with students. During finals week is the perfect time to send students a few questions by e-mail and ask them to kindly respond if they have time. You likely won’t receive feedback from every student but you will receive feedback from those who honestly have something to say. Sending an e-mail asking for some additional feedback will also demonstrate to students that their opinions and the course truly matter to you and that you did not just stop thinking about the course because you have had your last class.

• Breathe, Relax, and Reflect

So when you finally receive the feedback from your students in the next few weeks, remember: breathe. They are not a character judgement. The numbers are not measures of your self-worth. The reports are merely the product of your student’s opinions and they, for the most part, want to help you. Especially if you frame the feedback as a way for them to make the class better. Always emphasize that they are involved in the process of your class. Doing so will help them create better, more invested feedback, and remind you that this is not a measure of your ability but a conversation that will help you better reflect upon and strengthen your teaching.

Please also know that Notre Dame’s Kaneb Center is always available to sit down with you to help interpret your feedback and create a plan to incorporate it into your future teaching.

• Further Reading

Advice from Harvard’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning on How to Interpret CIF Feedback: http://bokcenter.harvard.edu/interpreting-feedback-and-evaluations

The end of the semester is approaching, and students and faculty alike are starting to look ahead to finals week, as well as the holidays and the upcoming year. While looking ahead, it’s also important to look back at the courses that have yet to be completed. The end of the semester is an excellent time to get students thinking about what they’ve learned and what they can take away from your course.

In previous posts, we’ve discussed how to grade effectively at the end of the semester, reflect on your own experience teaching the course, and conduct review sessions outside of your normal class period. In this post, we outline a few strategies for how to reflect on and review major course concepts within your regular course meetings. Here are five quick techniques to consider:

• Ungraded Quizzes. Your final exams are scheduled, but that doesn’t mean that they are the only learning assessments you can use. Consider giving your students an ungraded quiz to give them a sense of their own learning and allow you to determine which concepts or topics you may need to review with greater depth. For example, write one or two broad questions from each week or unit of the course to quiz students. These make a great precursor to a review session or way to review materials from early on in the semester.
• Anonymous Questions. At the end class, have students write down anonymous questions that they have about the course and any materials or concepts that you’ve covered. In an email to students or during the next class period, offer your response to those questions. This allows students to pose questions that they may not feel comfortable asking or may not have time to ask in class. Use this teaching technique once at the end of the semester or throughout to ensure that students have an opportunity to get their questions answered.
• Planning Ahead. As you begin planning for final exams or papers, have students plan out their studying or writing process. For example, have students look through their notes and write down the sections that they should review with greater depth. Or, have students come up with an outline for their final paper. If time permits, you may choose to meet with students to discuss their preparation for any final assessments.
• Most important thing you’ve learned. Ask your students to reflect on and write about the most important thing that they’ve learned in the course. Encourage them to think about how their thinking changed as a result of learning this concept. This allows you to determine which concepts students are taking away and whether your learning goals were accomplished.
• Learning Reflections. During one of your final class periods, have students reflect on the learning process throughout your course. Have them write a letter to themselves about what they’ve learned, or have them address the letter to students taking the course the next time you teach it. If addressing the letters to themselves, ask students to write about how they will take this new knowledge and apply it to their lives or future coursework. If addressing it to future students, ask them to discuss strategies that helped them be successful in the course and what they might have done differently if they had known then what they know now.

Leaving time for review and reflection ensures that students do not leave behind all of the new knowledge and skills they have learned. Practicing regular evaluations of learning leads to greater retention, higher levels of thinking, and improved learning outcomes. And as your students are reflecting and reviewing course material, be sure that you are doing the same! So before you start looking forward to things to come, be sure to take time to look back at your goals and accomplishments in the classroom this semester.

Additional Resources

• “Teaching Tip: Ending a Course” – Ball State University
• “Managing the End of the Semester” – Peter Connor
• “Five Tips for Wrapping Up a Course” – Margaret Walsh

After this year’s divisive election, the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Teaching and Learning disseminated a helpful document on how to discuss the aftermath of the election in the classroom. They respected that this is clearly a sensitive, complicated topic and that some people would not feel comfortable with or capable of discussing it and therefore provided alternative options for those who wanted to acknowledge the election and the high emotions engendered by this election season without engaging in an in-depth discussion. 

I was glad to have such a resource, since I wanted to provide my students with a space in which to share their feelings about recent events but did not know how to do so. I feared I would not be able to be bipartisan enough even though I truly wanted everyone’s voice to be heard. I did not want to erase my feelings but rather wanted to make sure that they did not overshadow anyone else’s who had different political views from me. I truly wanted to come together in solidarity, no matter which candidate each of us voted for. The University of Michigan’s document solidified my feelings that this was a conversation that was necessary to have in the classroom.

My pedagogical approach can often be a bit meditative. I tend to give students time for their thoughts to naturally flow individually so that they can be confident in the thoughts that they share with the class. I simply had my students reflect on the election on paper as I provided some guided questions that they could choose to answer or not. Then, we had a class discussion, in which participation was voluntary.

At first, students of a particular political persuasion felt much more empowered to speak, voluntarily offering information on who they voted for. When only one side of the spectrum was clearly being offered, with several students remaining silent, I decided to offer my own feelings, which diverged from what many of the students had expressed thus far. I stated directly who I voted for, just as the students had done, and shared my feelings. I did this while emphasizing that my voice is only one of many in the classroom and that I did not intend for what I said to sound dismissive of anyone else’s opinions. Afterward, a student who had not spoken shared thoughts similar to mine and explained the rationale behind these thoughts.

I wish I had enabled all of the students to share their opinions but I also respect their wish to remain silent. I did not want to force anyone into a debate. In fact, I did not want it to be a debate at all. I just wanted to share our feelings with one another and we did that. I just hope that the students chose to be quiet and that they did not feel uncomfortable sharing their thoughts. I wanted the classroom to be a safe space and tried to do this to the best of my ability. That is all we all can do.

I think it is necessary that we carve out class time for processing political and social events such as the election. The election and other social happenings are integrally important to all our disciplines. This is perhaps most evident in fields such as history, political science, and sociology, which deal directly with such material. Social and political relevance, however, extends even to fields that may not be as obvious. Government grants for example play a large role in determining what types of scientific research will be supported and how this research will be used and the outcome of an election can radically affect who and what gets afforded grants. Some social issues are more relevant to some disciplines than others, so I am not advocating for stuffing the classroom with the world as much as possible, but only for making sure that enough of the world is present so students are aware of how the material they are learning in class plays out in it.

Though the election occurred weeks ago, there is still time to integrate it into your classroom discussion. I hope that my experience doing so proves helpful. I have also included the link to the University Of Michigan’s advice on discussing the election below.

Additional Reading:

Information on discussing the election from The University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Teaching and Learning: http://www.crlt.umich.edu/node/93815

Maybe your class is scheduled mere hours before the freedom of Thanksgiving break.  Or maybe it’s a Friday afternoon right before a home football game and the sounds of the marching band drift through the windows.  Or maybe most of your students had a big exam in another class earlier this morning.

These distractions are not excuses for students to slack on their work, but even in our classes that are usually well-prepared, lively, and engaged, our students occasionally come to class inattentive or unprepared.  Especially if you are a TA or a guest lecturer in someone else’s classroom, you likely had no say in structuring the course optimally for student preparation and participation.

These tips can help you recover from those one-time situations when a normally energetic group of students falls short.  However, if your students are often unprepared or unwilling to participate, these quick fixes are no substitute for a thorough reconsideration of how you structure your course, conduct class daily, and reward work and participation.  (Contact the Kaneb Center for recommendations or to schedule a consultation.)

What can I do to salvage that class period?

• If the problem is not already clear, try to understand why students are not engaging so that you can adapt your class accordingly. Your approach may differ if the students tried to read but genuinely did not understand the material, versus a situation in which they chose not to complete their work.
• Give a mini-lecture if your students struggled to understand the material. A mini-lecture helps provide context, define the major points of a topic, and set up the class to begin more detailed analysis. Just be careful not to spend too much time talking yourself, or students will stop expecting to participate themselves.
• Use an active learning activity such as think-pair-share or a mini class debate. These kinds of activities can 1) give students time to do a portion of the work, 2) help them articulate their answers or misunderstandings, 3) give shy students confidence to speak to the larger group, and 4) engage students by requiring them to take a position on the material.
• Take a smaller bite of the material. Especially if your students have not done the work, you may still be able to teach the major points you want to cover by doing a close-reading, tackling a case study, or practicing with a concrete example problem.
• Take a backup activity folder with you to every class. Keep on hand the materials for at least one activity that you can pull out at any point during the semester when a class just stops for whatever reason.  It might be a critical thinking activity, case study, or synthesis exercise.
• But by no means do the work for the students.  Do not let one bad day of discussion or tutorial turn into a pattern by showing students it is okay to not do their work.

What can I do to avoid that situation altogether?

• Plan ahead in the schedule. You know certain days will be more prone to distraction than others.  Take into account events at the university, the workload of other courses if many of your students are within the same major, and other assignments due in your own course.
• Remember that it takes more effort to keep track of multiple assignments or readings. It’s easier for students to digest one 20-page reading than it is for them to keep track of four five-page readings.  In the same vein, do not expect students to complete a heavy reading load when they also have high-stakes exams or papers scheduled for the same day.
• Reinvent the standby of showing a movie on the day an essay is due, but commit to using the film or clips for active learning.  Stop the film at key moments and ask students for their predictions or analysis. Give students a guided note-taking worksheet that will help them use the film in a subsequent assignment or discussion.
• Make the work you assign important. Smart students will devote more time their most important work, so make homework required for students’ success in your course.  Tie readings concretely to assessments or structure the class so that students who have not read will be unable to participate or contribute effectively.

Additional Reading:

On designing meaningful assignments, see Walvoord, Barbara E., and Virginia Johnson Anderson. Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment in College. 2 edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009.

On conducting class and engaging students, see Bain, Ken. What the Best College Teachers Do. 1 edition. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004.