Why do students struggle with procrastination and poor study skills?

[Moonbear]

In case the students here thought it only happened to them, I have a bad case of procrastination right now. I have a seminar to give on Thursday morning, for a graduate level course where I'm supposed to be providing a "good example" of how to give a presentation, and I haven't even started putting my slides together. Ugh! I've been online about 2 hours, just NOT feeling like working on this thing and wondering why I agreed to do it (oh, right, because I THOUGHT I had more time this week, because I THOUGHT I was done teaching in one course as of last week, because I THOUGHT I had a current copy of faculty assignments in the courses...the other faculty in my department, including my dept. chair, also suffer from bad cases of procrastination, and these last minute changes in assignments are driving me nuts).

I'm half considering walking in without any slides and telling them what my own mentor told me once...you should know your material well enough to give a talk even if you don't have your slides (that was from the days when we had slide projectors and sometimes the AV staff or volunteers at conferences managed to drop the whole carousel and all the slides in it moments before a talk, or would have them all loaded upside-down, and were scrambling to put them right-side-up as you were giving the talk). I guess that should apply to computer gremlins eating the powerpoint file too, right?

 

[lisab]

I've come to realize my best presentations are in a casual, non-scripted, off-the-cuff style. In fact, I'm not going to use PowerPoint for the next few talks I give...I think I'll do better without it.

But I have faith in you Moonie, your talk will be just fine...it's always the deadline that gets the job done !

 

[turbo]

You don't always need slides or graphics. If you want to make a point graphically, you can whack out a couple of axes on a blackboard or whiteboard and make your point. Lectures worked really well for a long time. Did Newton have digital aids?

 

[dlgoff]

Any way you could just pour out your knowledge in front of the old fashioned chalk board?

Edit: dang turbo. beat me to the punch.

 

[Moonbear]

No, chalk boards wouldn't be sufficient for this particular talk. I wish. I need to show some actual results with graphs, error bars, etc. Afterall, I'm supposed to be demonstrating how to give a seminar, not just spending an hour talking off the cuff.

But, I'll probably be fine. I think I'm not so motivated because I've given similar talks so many times before that I'm bored with the subject, so just need to grab a bunch of slides from those talks, add in a different set of background slides to illustrate some points I want to make about critically evaluating controls, and selecting the right animal model, which are not things I usually give in seminars not meant for students, and it'll be ready. Still, I keep wanting to just go grade homework instead...which really tells me how much I'm not enthusiastic about this particular talk.

 

[waht]

You are procrastinating right now. Perhaps this thread should be closed to help you focus on track.

 

[WhoWee]

You are procrastinating right now. Perhaps this thread should be closed to help you focus on track.

Ahh, you beat me to it...EVOOOOOOO - close this thread - please.

 

[Astronuc]

Well, I and others had to qualifiers on a chalkboard. Five faculty members could ask us any problem from dozen+ courses we had during upper level and MS program. They'd simply pose a question or have describe some theoretical aspect of a nuclear reactor operation, and we have to write a PDE or a set of PDEs (nuclear diffusion/transport theory, heat transfer, fluid flow including 2-phase, . . .), describe bc's and ic's and then work through to a solution. You either knew it or you didn't.

But then again, color slides are so much nicer for showing trends in data, especially 3-D plots of x,y, many z.

I too dislike giving the same presentation, and I've finished some presentations either the night before, or the morning of, or during the talk just before mine.

 

[Proton Soup]

when you can't get started, sometimes it helps to begin at the end and work to the front.

 

[Pengwuino]

In case the students here thought it only happened to them, I have a bad case of procrastination right now. I have a seminar to give on Thursday morning, for a graduate level course where I'm supposed to be providing a "good example" of how to give a presentation, and I haven't even started putting my slides together.

March out and say "Here is a list of things NOT to do in a good seminar" and just point to yourself

 

[Moonbear]

It's okay, I figured out now what I'm going to do to make this talk different. I gave one this summer that has most of the data I need, and another last year that has the rest, so I can yank out data slides pretty quickly to put it together (with the one this summer, I put my slides together in a day, and then only looked at it and rehearsed the morning of my talk, and it went very well anyway...actually, I got a lot of very positive comments on the talk and it inspired a lot of discussion with people after the session was over).

I decided to fill in the rest of the time I have actually talking to the students about things they often have to rely on individual mentors to convey, not always with the same quality, which is how to actually put together a good presentation. That's something I can prepare quickly and have fun doing. I can put in a slide with some hideous colors and tell them not to distract their audience with unnecessary colors...use color to highlight key points, not just because you have a million to choose from. Same with things like animations. I can turn and talk to the board/screen to make sure they understand to talk to the audience, etc. So, I'm going to blend some research and some actual advice on how to give a presentation...essentially, spell out the thought process of what to put into slides.

Okay, now I'm excited because I'm going to have fun doing this differently than I usually give a seminar (that's the fun of giving one to an audience that is primarily students).

Sometimes procrastinating out loud works to quit procrastinating. Even if I didn't take the advice to do it all as a chalk talk, bantering about "old school" talks did help get some ideas into my head about all the old advice people have given me along the way that has improved my own talks. Unfortunately, I don't know the classrooms well in the building where I'm giving the talk, so can't rely on easily accessing the board while a screen is down, but will keep in mind keeping that as an option if the room is set up right. I'm not going to give the whole talk as a chalk talk, but I might think about a point that is easily demonstrated on a board and use it to show them that they don't HAVE to be slaves to PowerPoint for every talk they give.

Okay, thanks folks, time to go get busy putting together a talk.

 

[Moonbear]

March out and say "Here is a list of things NOT to do in a good seminar" and just point to yourself

You read my mind!

 

[drizzle]

I bet there’s something behind this whining?


don’t worry you can handle it, it’ll be a piece of cake .

 

[Cyrus]

I have a file for you on presentations that I got from an email from my department. PM me your email address and I'll forward it your way.

 

[Cyrus]

Hmm, try this:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=ed91437725b1a13cc2b435915e8821d7e04e75f6e8ebb871

 

[GeorginaS]

I love the idea of demonstrating what not to do by doing precisely that, Moonbear. Sounds like fun! I want to come watch.

 

[Andre]

I've come to realize my best presentations are in a casual, non-scripted, off-the-cuff style. In fact, I'm not going to use PowerPoint for the next few talks I give...I think I'll do better without it.

The very worst speech I ever gave was one where I started with (what I thought was) a funny joke. So I made the joke...nothing.

maybe a suggestion for the next speech,

Ladies and gentlemen good ..*appropriate part of the day*..; As you can see, I did not switch on this magic light contraption, because I have come to the conclusion that I'm better off without. I kept noticing that the audience used to have a hard time deciding where to look, to that big beautiful light show, or to me.

[Especially males,]

[But in the end most of them decided to study the inside of the eyelids.]

So to save you from that dillema, there is no dog and pony show so you all can watch me.



Well it was worth the try.

 

[Borek]

I've finished some presentations either the night before, or the morning of, or during the talk just before mine.

Have you never finished your presentation during YOUR talk? It is called improvisation

 

[Monique]

Have you never finished your presentation during YOUR talk? It is called improvisation

How about giving a presentation and not having a clue what your own next slide is going to be. That's a classic case of not being prepared.

If I had to take a presentation course, I'd like to know how you can best warm up an audience to participate with you. I've had to give a (pretty dry) genetics lecture to students, four years in a row (explaining the formulas of recombination and genetic mapping). It is really dependent on the students how much you get out of such a presentation. I really try to get them to think and come up with the solutions themselves, but last time I only got blank stares for every question I asked.

In that case you really don't know whether they understand what you're talking about or whether they're just too shy to come up with an answer in front of a large group of people. I just continued to answer my own questions and spell it out for them, but it would have been better to get some feedback from the group.

 

[Moonbear]

If I had to take a presentation course, I'd like to know how you can best warm up an audience to participate with you. I've had to give a (pretty dry) genetics lecture to students, four years in a row (explaining the formulas of recombination and genetic mapping). It is really dependent on the students how much you get out of such a presentation. I really try to get them to think and come up with the solutions themselves, but last time I only got blank stares for every question I asked.

In that case you really don't know whether they understand what you're talking about or whether they're just too shy to come up with an answer in front of a large group of people. I just continued to answer my own questions and spell it out for them, but it would have been better to get some feedback from the group.

Now, THAT I can help with. If you think the lecture is dry, nothing is going to convince the students differently. So, one starting place is to work on acting skills to sound more enthusiastic.

To address lack of responses to questions, first try allowing an uncomfortably long silence for them to answer questions. Sometimes they start to "crack" if you do that, and once they get in the habit of realizing you expect them to answer, they'll pay more attention and participate more. If you always answer for them, they will take the easy way out and just sit there until you offer the answer. One of the other faculty I work with tries to ask students questions in lecture, but she never waits long enough for them to respond. If she doesn't get an immediate response, she answers for them, and they just turn their brains back off again. Once she does this a few times, even the really enthusiastic students who usually answer questions give up, they assume all the questions are rhetorical.

If nobody is willing to try and you've given them enough time to think about it, give them some choices of answers, something to help them narrow the options to just two or three choices, and then ask the class to vote by raising hands (I always make the last choice, "Who can't decide?". Even shy students will raise their hand as part of a group. If nobody participates, you are stuck with an apathetic bunch of students. If most of them know the right answer, they are a shy bunch. If a lot give the wrong answer or vote they don't know, then you know they are not understanding the material well enough to answer questions.

 

[Borek]

You may also ask an indivdual student to start them reacting - once they know sitting quiet won't help they will be less reluctant to take part in the discussion. After all it is better to say something when you feel like you know what you are talking about, than to say 'yyyy' when asked by surprise

 

[Monique]

Now, THAT I can help with. If you think the lecture is dry, nothing is going to convince the students differently. So, one starting place is to work on acting skills to sound more enthusiastic.

I do try to make the subject less dry, especially by incorporating the examples that need to be worked out (instead of me just giving a monologue). At the beginning I start out by making them understand why the lecture is important and point out the people who have won Nobel prizes for working in the field. Furthermore I've incorporated some simple cartoons to have some visual stimulation. I do agree that enthusiasm is key, but that is where the problem of the students not responding comes in. How do you maintain enthusiasm when in your head your thoughts are racing "what should I do, there's no interaction".

To address lack of responses to questions, first try allowing an uncomfortably long silence for them to answer questions. Sometimes they start to "crack" if you do that, and once they get in the habit of realizing you expect them to answer, they'll pay more attention and participate more. If you always answer for them, they will take the easy way out and just sit there until you offer the answer.

I tried that the first few times, which is very uncomfortable if you don't really know how to best handle the situation. I just waited and tried to read their faces to see if there was someone I could point to who might know the answer. I did pick a student out a few times, but I didn't want to be that mean and forceful the whole time. I also tried giving them options (to make the question easier), but I didn't do the raise of hands. I'll try that the next time. At least now I know to have a plan B ready and to be careful that they don't take the easy way out (toughen up a little).

 

[ViewsofMars]

You may like to consider beginning your lecture by explaining your enthusiasm for your chosen profession by highlighting the joys of it, and then incorporating the funniest and/or stupidest thing you did. :)

Moonbear, best wishes to you. Hope your lecture is a success.

 

[Moonbear]

You may like to consider beginning your lecture by explaining your enthusiasm for your chosen profession by highlighting the joys of it, and then incorporating the funniest and/or stupidest thing you did. :)

Moonbear, best wishes to you. Hope your lecture is a success.

I'm actually planning to open by explaining to them the strange twists and turns career paths can take, but that good presentation and communication skills are essential for any of them.

I don't really have any "funniest" or "stupidest" stories to share. I know people who have had those stories...the ones of spilling water all over themselves when giving a first talk, or dropping the entire carousel of slides, but I've managed to avoid those things so far. All my funniest and stupidest experiences are personal, not related to anything professional. Even when I HOPED for technology to fail, I was never given such a reprieve. That was my first presentation to my department as a grad student, when I was the guinea pig to try the new projector that connected to a laptop to show slides...it was a contraption that went on an overhead projector. With only minutes before I was about to give the talk, our IT guy told me that when he tested it, it sometimes crashed and couldn't be easily restarted, so did I have transparencies as a backup? I had JUST enough time to run upstairs, print out my slides, and run to the copier to make transparencies. Then it dawned on me, in those few last minute jitters before giving that talk...if the computer crashed, everyone would feel sorry for me, and if I screwed up anything in my talk after that, they would just assume I was flustered by the computer glitch, not because there was anything unprepared in my talk. Darn thing refused to crash on me! But my talk went okay anyway.

 

[turbo]

Good luck, MB. As it turned out, my initial (in a training company environment) and later (one-man show) forays into advanced operator training for boiler operators, turbine-generator operators, etc in the pulp and paper industry got me LOTS of contracts in the south. I was instructing older (usually) guys who had done that work for 30+ years, and some were understandably offended by the notion that they should understand WHY they had to do things in a certain way as opposed to following a cookbook approach. I'd always get one or two senior operators that wanted to show their a$$es, and it was my job to acknowledge their experience, allow them to display it, and then offer an example or two that explained WHY the cookbook approach worked and how it could be improved with an understanding of the physics behind boilers. Black Liquor Recovery Boilers are among the most dangerous and unregulated monsters in industry, and I owe much of my business to BLARBAC, that would refuse to offer favorable insurance ratings to mills that didn't offer recurrent education for their operators.

Teaching adults is not easy, and regaining and keeping control gracefully (without insult or prejudice) requires diplomacy. I wrote (partially) and taught a course on electrical safety to DuPont Industrial Electrical supervisors. DuPont offered "early-out" retirement to supervisors and was swamped by lots of replacements that had OK work experience, but little technical training. I had the entire first week's class in-hand in the first hour or so, and the next week's class came in quiet as lambs and ready to take notes and ask questions.

Our Tampa training facility wasn't far from the causeway between Tampa and Clearwater, and that offered some easy access to bars, Mexican restaurants, etc. It is entirely possible that the interest and compliance of the first week's students were improved by my recommendations for after-hours activities, but I hope not.

 

[turbo]

BTW, One of my favorite Rocky Kolb talks started after he had been subjected to a 3-4 minute introduction, and he started by saying "in the limited time left to me..." Great hook!

 

[GeorginaS]

Tell us how your now-not-procrastinated presentation came together, Moonbear.

 

[ViewsofMars]

Moonbear, that’s nice to know your talk went well. Let us know how this one goes.

Ah, expect the unexpected. I recall a projector going on the blink during a very important meeting. It took 45 minutes to get the hotel to replace it.

I’ve been to many meetings with a Board of Trustees and Fellows. The Chairman of the Board normally gives a presentation followed up by world-renowned scientists, of which some are also on the Board, that give lectures after dinner. They have shared at the meeting some of the funniest and stupidest experiences with the Board and invited guests, besides making a few funny remarks during the slide presentation. (Everyone laughs.) Nevertheless, the lectures were educational and the meeting a success. The good news is at the last meeting attendees contributed ten million dollars towards science.

 

[Moonbear]

Everything went well. I only got myself turned around on one slide, but quickly recovered. I started to say one thing, then it dawned on me that I was saying it completely backward, so stopped, and said to the students that it's very easy to accidentally say the wrong thing when you're standing in front of an audience, even when you know what you're talking about, so if something doesn't seem right as you're saying it, it's okay to pause a moment, think about what you're looking at and correct yourself. The point being that you should know the subject well enough to make a correction on the fly if something starts feeling wrong.

Maybe in my next career I should be a politician. I'm getting good at giving speeches off-the-cuff.

Edit: Oh, but I'm still enjoying a martini to celebrate now...and brace myself for next week when my students get their exam grades back. I already have preliminary scores (need to fix a few things that were wrong on my key...even I can't fill in bubbles right when I'm tired...and based on questions during the exam, need to give some credit for a couple alternative answers where the wording of the question or answer was throwing them off, not their knowledge of the subject), but even with those corrections, there are some really horrible scores on this first exam. I was expecting it though, based on things they still couldn't answer in the labs this past week...if only they listened, I gave SO MANY hints! This one is the wake-up call that they can't wait until the last minute to cram in this subject. But by next week, when they get their scores back, I'll need to stock up on tissue boxes and brace myself for the onslaught of complaints/pleas for help. I expect a large increase in office hours attendance (they can still redeem their grade with steady improvement, even if the first exam was a bust).

 

[ViewsofMars]

Moonbear, congratualtions! You deserve the martini. I've made career changes before so wouldn't be surprised if you might become a politician.

I read on another topic about your "nursing students". You are busy teaching them? Well, if that is the case are you training them how to deal with E/R doctors? I worked in E/R part time when I was 20. (That was a long, long time ago.) It lasted about three years. The money was excellent. I have so many true stories to tell ... I can't stop giggling. Then again the nightmare situations. Unexpected happenings when the loonies come in at midnight accompanied by a police officer or a confict shows up in an ambulance then rolled into E/R with a gun pointing at people. One doctor ... did the stupiest thing during a code blue...I dare not tell! Of course there are always sad and surprising situations. An example was a young girl whose boyfriend put a small coin turtle in her because he was upset with her. She wasn't aware of it until after the surgery. She almost died. (I'm sure you are smart enough to figure out where he implanted the turtle.)

People are born in hospitals, die in hospitals, and cared for in hospitals. Of course, there are malpractice lawsuits, etc, etc, etc. I've never been in a lawsuit though I have known a few that have.

Moving toward a more joyful experience, those male doctors in E/R were to die for, which only proves my memory is still intact! :!) And I have many friends in the medical profession whom I highly respect.

I wish you the best in life.

Take care,
Mars

 

[Moonbear]

Yes, I'm very busy teaching the nursing students...or trying to teach them, as it feels tonight after seeing their exam scores. Though, I think only one scored so badly as to be dug into a hole that may be impossible to climb out of; I need to do the math pretty quickly so I can advise if withdrawing is the most viable option; we always lose a few on the first exam when they realize that they aren't just going to coast through nursing school. The rest are going to have to work their behinds off to pull their grades up the rest of the term, but they are all still in a range where they can still get Bs. And of course, there are plenty also well in the clear for getting As. This one was a hard exam to get a fire lit under those who think they can get away with just cramming the night before the exam.

 

[GeorginaS]

Sounds as if your presentation came off well, Moonbear. And see? Another example of not just telling but showing too. And you didn't even mean to do it.

I find that's a (I want to say 'penetrating' way but I feel as if I ought to have another word) convincing way to deliver information. People get to hear about it and watch it in action too. It doubles up the times you've made the point and gives people a way to solidify the information in their mind.

A friend of mine frequently employs the storytelling or example method to put information into context for her students. We frequently brainstorm at work or write incidents down as good examples to work into lectures. Sometimes that backfires on her although one of my favourites was hard to anticipate, I think.

Not too long ago she was talking about how to negotiate a settlement to first-year college students. (Remember, I'm in Canada, and "college" here isn't the same as "college" in the US where "college" is synonymous with "university". "College" here non-academic post-secondary school that isn't trade school.)

So my friend was explaining to the young folks before her (early 20s crowd) about how you have to weigh out the consequences of accepting a possibly lower settlement on some deal but take into account that, should the issue get litigated, they might lose out entirely. She said, "A good thing to consider is: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." She was met with blank stares. One student put up their hand and wanted to know where the birds came from all of a sudden. My friend pointed out that, surely, they must familiar with that expression. Apparently not.

As they were furiously taking notes, someone asked my friend to write the bush thing on the blackboard. She tried to explain the general concept behind the saying, she got more questions about it and the whole lecture got derailed with commentary about birds and bushes. She assured her class that it didn't matter, it wouldn't be on any exams, don't worry about, forget she ever mentioned it.

The following day, my friend walked into class and asked if there were any questions before they began that session. Someone said, "Yeah, can we go over that bird thing again? I didn't quite get it."

We laugh pretty hard about that story now. At the time, my friend was entirely flabbergasted. So we polled all of the 20-something people we know personally and asked them if they were familiar with the expression. The vote came back, "no". So. Lesson learned. I think.

 

[Borek]

In Polish it would be "sparrow in the grasp is better than pigeon on the roof". Gonna ask people if they know what that means

 

[Monique]

The following day, my friend walked into class and asked if there were any questions before they began that session. Someone said, "Yeah, can we go over that bird thing again? I didn't quite get it."

Gee, did that person have a board in front of its head? I have another variation: It's better to have one bird in the hand than 10 in the sky

 

[Moonbear]

The following day, my friend walked into class and asked if there were any questions before they began that session. Someone said, "Yeah, can we go over that bird thing again? I didn't quite get it."

We laugh pretty hard about that story now. At the time, my friend was entirely flabbergasted. So we polled all of the 20-something people we know personally and asked them if they were familiar with the expression. The vote came back, "no". So. Lesson learned. I think.

I think it all comes back to listening skills. Okay, so you've never heard the expression before, but once someone tells you "it's just an expression, it's not important and not on the exam," you move on. When they're furiously writing notes without ever letting the information even pause in their brain on the way from eyes and ears to pens and paper, they completely miss the points being made and focus on trying to memorize details.

I expect this in freshmen, who have varying high school backgrounds, and who generally could get through high school by just memorizing and regurgitating, and often without even studying much because things were repeated so many times. But, I'm still trying to figure out what's going on in freshman courses here that they have managed to get to sophomore year STILL without learning study skills, or even realizing that their study skills are lacking. I only wrote a few questions that I intended to be really hard...they were there to sort out my A and B students. They seemed to think even my easy questions were hard.