Giving Students a Job Description

As March Madness (a.k.a. pre-spring-break-project-test-and-essay-feeding frenzy) sets in, I find myself having plenty of conversations with my students about setting goals, maintaining good habits, and keeping up with the cavalcade of work that’s rolling in. One conversation that’s always productive during busy periods like this is a discussion that highlights collaboration and how we need to define it, especially when the work load piles up and energy and engagement flag.

Our students have a job to do. So do we, as helpers. If each of us takes responsibility of our respective duties, then a successful collaboration can result. I find it enormously helpful to be very clear with students about what this means because I want them to understand what I expect of them but also what they should expect of me.

The conversation usually starts out like this:

Me: So kiddo, what’s my job?

Kiddo: You’re a tutor.

Me: Sure. That’s what they call me. But my job, the work I have to do, that’s teaching. Get it?

Kiddo: Yup.

Me: Now, what’s your job?

Kiddo: …being a student?

Me: Sure. That’s what we call you. But what’s the work you have to do? What are your responsibilities?

Kiddo:……….homework?

Me: Yes, that’s part of it. But when we’re sitting here at the table together, your job is to LEARN.

Maybe this is something we educators take for granted, but most young students I meet do not think of learning as active. They expect to be taught, rather than expecting themselves to learn.

The above script is just the scaffolding of a much deeper conversation. My goal for that conversation is to define my expectations clearly when I know I have my student’s full attention. I tell them that my job is to teach them and to teach them well. That means when I’m explaining something and they’re confused, that’s on me. What’s on them is the requirement that they tell me they’re confused (and never feel afraid or embarrassed to tell me that), so I can change up how I’m explaining things and do my job better. But in return, I expect them to do their job, too. I expect them to learn, and learning in math requires them to constantly perform three duties: Understand new lessons, Remember those lessons, and Integrate those lessons.

Say it with me: Understand, Remember, Integrate.

I’ve had this talk with at least 5 students this week. When we discuss it, I get out my fingers and tick off their job duties with the utmost seriousness. I expect them to do these three things, and they should expect me to help them. If we can do that, work together towards that goal, then we’ll have a successful collaboration.

What does this mean in practice?

Sometimes it means we have to go over a lesson multiple times before they understand what’s really happening to the values. That’s just fine, and they know I won’t get impatient with them when something is tough to comprehend. Sometimes it means we have to reverse and review older material because they’re learning something new, but they didn’t understand or remember a past skill they now need to integrate. That’s okay, too. And sometimes it means that I have to be frank with them about a skill I’ve taught them over and over again but that they’re not remembering. We then have to brainstorm new ideas for how to remember it better. Do we need a funny trick? Do we need more productive practice? What’s it going to take?

Asking them to give me feedback on my own teaching — on what is and isn’t helping them to Understand, Remember and Integrate — empowers them to participate and makes for more effective teaching and learning. Frankly, we both end up doing our jobs better.

Just last week, my student (who had been confusing decimal operations for weeks) came up with the idea to make a post-it with cartoons on it that illustrates what happens to the decimal point when we add/subtract vs. multiply, and we taped that post-it to her laptop. Guess what happened this week?

She remembered what to do with the decimal point.

On top of this, a perfect opportunity to integrate that lesson also presented itself. She was assigned a multi-step task requiring her to add, subtract and multiply money in order to decide how many game-booth tickets she needed to buy for a class carnival, how much they would cost and how much change she’d have left to spend on concessions. The best part? The problem was real. She had a class carnival on Friday night and her teacher had assigned them this task in advance of it and was requiring them to bring the correct amount of money and record what they spent and where.

Because my student had to complete this project, we got the opportunity to investigate how Understand, Remember and Integrate was working. I reminded her that she’d understood where to put the decimal points and why they moved where they did. I then complimented her on her post-it idea because she took the remembering into her own hands and found a solution that worked. And what was the result, I asked? She was able to integrate that understanding and what she remembered into a class project that was difficult and puzzling but fun, too. (If you have a student who is puzzled over the word “integrate,” you can substitute something like “use” instead.)

I think it’s important to define expectations for my students when I have their full attention, to hold them accountable to those expectations every time we meet, and to point out when those expectations are working for them, or, conversely, when not meeting those expectations is holding them back. Understand, Remember, Integrate is just one way to help them learn how to be active, self-aware learners by showing them how to do their job and empowering them to do it well.