Teaching Frustration

[Akiva]

I have a horrible time getting my students to pay attention and do work, both in the classroom and in distance learning. One very common thing: I give the students 20 minutes to do something; 18 minutes later a student asks "What are we supposed to be doing?"

On Tuesday I spent about 20 minutes going over an essay assignment that's due on Friday. Today's Warm Up question was to rewrite the essay prompt in their own words. Even after both of those things, I had a student ask what they're supposed to be doing.

At least some of this is distance learning, but it's true in the classroom too. I've seen how much effort other teachers get out of their students, and mine is far less. I have no idea how to achieve that. And this is just one example showing how, despite teaching for 14 years now, I seem to be incaple of doing it.

[bralbovsky]

I don't know how old the kids are, but they have to be taught how to do that. If nobody ahead of you has done it, they're not going to know how to start.
For group stuff, always either assign roles or have the group pick them, that's first. You can even record this, so you can keep track of patterns.

For individual stuff, and group stuff after roles, teach them how to break tasks into steps. 20 minutes is fine, but either suggest a checkpoint or divide the task for them the first few times. These processes are more important than most of the content we teach. If there's something that should be working but isn't, I first assume they just missed it, and try to design it into future activities. It costs less time (and frustration) than spinning your wheels.
I'd absolutely consult with you on specific things if you're at all worried, but with help or without, I'm sure you can pull it off.

I find my Chinese students are great at independent work, but groups confound them. They're great at memorizing, terrible at making connections, so I make them do group presentations, and begin by explaining the why and the patterns to everything, lots of models and examples. We can chat about the process of identifying what they're lacking, but it's tricky. It's like discovering someone only has one kidney or is missing an enzyme. They look fine, but only some deep probing will diagnose what's wrong, before you can even really begin a solution.

[Akiva]

I'd absolutely consult with you on specific things if you're at all worried, but with help or without, I'm sure you can pull it off.

That's the problem--I can't pull if off. I've tried those things, and they don't seem to fi the problem. I honestly don't know why, but I am really bad bad this job. And I've been doing it long enough that I should be better at it, but I'm not. So this was more an expression of frustration; I don't know as you (or anyone else) can help.

[Phoebe]

Remote learning is sometimes very difficult for kids. I don't think you can judge much that's happening right now in mid-pandemic. So perhaps you could go back to harsh self assessments next year, but you're pretty much disqualified from making them now because everybody is in a barrel of s***.

[Akiva]

So perhaps you could go back to harsh self assessments next year, but you're pretty much disqualified from making them now because everybody is in a barrel of s***.

I wish I could do that.

[Phoebe]

You should assess yourself harshly for assessing yourself harshly, is that what we're saying now? That somehow did not work out properly! I know it's probably impossible to stop doing it. But I do think cognitively it is helpful to talk yourself through what is a realistic criticism and what is an exaggerated self-hate criticism.