From Scripts to FAQs Part I: What am I starting with?

Each term I get many of the same questions and have saved a number of these 'scripts' in a folder. They have names like 'Learning Takes Time', 'Missed Class', and 'Extensions'. There are many more that I have versions of in my head, and have yet to save in a digital form. 

With teaching three online courses this summer term I've had to type a number of these scripts and am coming to the conclusion that a FAQ would be in my best interest. This way if a student has a question on the FAQ I can refer them to it. I'm a little unsure how to set it up within Canvas, maybe a package of Pages, a Wiki, or external web pages? I'm a little excited to stretch my HTML/CSS skills as its been a while since I used them extensively. 

The catalyst for this post was a student asking the question "I don't understand this question, can you please help?" This is a great place to start, but without knowing much more I'm unsure of how exactly to help the student. This 'script' wasn't saved just yet so I wrote it down and saved it. Here is what I came up with, and will likely revise it. Any suggestions you have would be appreciated;

Thank you for your question! Really, I'm happy to help, its kind of my job. In order to help I need to know more about what you know, what you've tried, and what you expect the answer to be.

For real, when a student asks "Can you help me with this question?" I do not know what the student needs help with. Is it an algebra thing they're confused about, is it a graphing idea that they may have backwards, or is it something I've never heard of? I could spend a lot of time addressing what I think are the difficult parts of the question, but unless I know for sure, I will likely waste your time in the back and forth of writing things that I think are helpful but actually aren't. If you spend five minutes telling me what you already know, and what specific things you've tried I will be much more able to help you.

From these scripts I would hope to use them as part of the FAQs, mimicking one of my colleague's pages here; https://www.integreat.ca/OL/faqs1.html. I wrote the following last year and saved it under 'Learning as Transferring Knowledge'; 

Yes, I would be happy to answer your questions during office hours.

Your response makes me concerned that you may view the learning in this class as me transferring my knowledge to students. To be clear, the learning in this class happens when students engage with an idea, and try to talk about it. I know this is different than other classes, but I firmly believe that my understanding cannot be your understanding, and that each person understands ideas, concepts, and words when they read, talk, listen, and write about them.

My job in this class is to help students understand the material, answer questions, and create experiences that increase understanding. Note that at the core of each of these tasks is that students are engaged, and actively trying to understand the material in their own way. Learning is not passive, it is active. To be clear I am not upset or mad in any way. I understand that college courses are a shift from high school classes, and that part of my job is to help students acclimate to this new environment. My goal in this is not to be overbearing or mean, but that you understand college-level expectations so you can be successful in all of your future courses. 

Once a student engages with the course material in answering questions on an activity, from the homework, or by doing the reading, I am happy to answer clarifying questions any student has. This means that during office hours I will happily answer any question you have, no matter how 'silly' or 'simple' a student views them. Because questions are the necessary condition for learning they are all important to me.

So yes, please come to office hours on Monday with your questions. We can answer your questions together. 

 

This is from 'Learning Takes Time' which was a response to a student concern about an in-class activity not going quickly enough. Some of the specifics will be changed for a FAQ but I think there are some good things here. 

I want to be clear about my expectations in regards to activities. I do not agree that I give students activities and expect them to figure it out. I expect students to read directions fully, ask questions of their colleagues, cite evidence for what they think, and if the group cannot make progress on a question, then raise your hand for additional assistance. It would be inappropriate for me to hand you an activity, even a finely crafted one that took hundreds of hours to write, and expect you to understand the course material just by completing that activity. That is why we talk, that is why we ask questions. Through my questioning of the pictures you all drew I identified a student misconception (what a percentage represents) and I provided more detail about what a percentage represents through a mini-lecture and by completing a couple questions. My teaching is not the activity, it is not what I say, it is not what I know. My teaching is the process where I present ideas and questions to students (in an activity or verbally), and then we talk about them. This takes time.

This is under 'Missed Class'.

If you are receiving this message it means that you were not in class today. Life happens, and we should make every effort possible to attend class. If you are finding it difficult to make it to class each day, please let me know what barriers there are to your attendance and we can work on a plan for your success.

After missing class, here is what you can do to prepare yourself for the following class;

- Review the course schedule on page 6 of the syllabus for the textbook section we covered. Read through that section, taking note of any topics that seem difficult. 

- Complete the activity for that section. You can always find copies of recent activities on Canvas. 

- Try some of the homework from that section, also found on Canvas. Bring questions to the next class session, and ask them at the start of class when Mr. Weston offers to answer any homework questions. 

- Once you have tried the activity and homework, if you have further issues, go to the STEM Tutoring Center to get in-depth help or go to Mr. Weston's Office Hours. 

This article has a few good suggestions on what to do if you miss class; https://www.thoughtco.com/you-missed-class-what-do-you-do-1686471

This was in a saved announcement for a class and has some good stuff in it too. I've been saving my weekly announcements (start, mid, and end of week) for a while now, but have yet to find a consistent set of messages to send each week. 

• Procrastination is easy to do, but is detrimental to our long term goals. A question I sometimes ask if I get a little off task is "What are you doing? Is this going to help you become a better educator?" If the answer is no, then I know I probably shouldn't be doing it. You could ask yourself "Is this going to help me become a small business owner?" or "Is this going to help me become a financial planner?"
• Keeping a consistent study schedule is really difficult. One way you may want to try developing a study schedule is to open up a calendar application (Google, iCloud, Outlook, etc.) and create ten 1-hour appointment with the name 'Math Studying'. Enter in your other commitments, classes, work hours, childcare time, etc. Then try to fit these 1-hour appointments around your current obligations. Try to fit no more than three a day, and preferably no more than two in a row. Spreading out your study time will help you retain the information, keep your mind fresh between study sessions, and allow you to build your understanding slowly and consistently. Later Check-Ins will talk more about how to study.
• While I appreciate that we all have busy schedules, there is a time commitment in taking this class. From past experience I feel that some students may not understand what 10 hours of outside class studying really looks like. We will be talking about the quality of studying we are doing in the Check-Ins this week and next, but we have to budget for the quantity too. If you are concerned about balancing your commitments (as I think we all are) please complete the activity in the previous bullet. It will really help.
• Some students worry about over-complicating word problems. That can happen if we read too much into a question and think it should be harder than it is. One way to combat this impulse is to trust yourself and try reframing the question in ways that make sense to you. If you read "The amount of profits Apple made was half that of Verizon's." it isn't so clear how to write an equation about these two quantities. However if you use some random numbers, it may make the relationship concrete. "If Apple makes $100 then Verizon will have made $200." From here we can say A = (1/2)V. We will talk about more strategies on how to reframe questions in ways that make sense.

Do you type out the same responses term after term? If not, how do you manage these responses to reuse later?