I’ve been meaning to write this entry for a while, but of course, as a teacher with faith in her students, wanted to keep giving kids a chance. One of the biggest issues we had this fall with transitioning to this new curriculum was how to deal with students who were resistant to this new method of teaching. Initially some of the comments were centered around trying to understand why this change was made. Clearly, even with, what, by this time in the year, was probably hours of discussion, these students would not see the power of this pedagogical decision for many reasons. There were some students who simply needed to readjust their defintion of success in mathematics. Some students really had a learning style that did not fit with this type of teaching. Overall, though, many of these students have come around by this time and have seen the benefits for them, either in their own growth or at least in some way, in their grades.

It’s the tough cookies that are still getting to me. This is what I call the 3 or 4 students out of the 5 sections that we are teaching who are just being tough. The typical characterization of this student is a student who is actually quite bright, but has chosen in their academic career to just not work and get by on their smarts with OK grades. They have also kept up an attitude that has given them a certain reputation with their classmates in order to show them all they this individual simply doesn’t really care and can’t be bothered working for this class. We’ve all seen it and dealt with it in many classes in our careers.

However, in this course, it is different. The tough cookie is really a hard one to handle. The problem being that problem-based learning really requires a great deal of investment on the part of the student. When this does not happen, learning is impeded and often stifled. PBL needs the student’s investment for many reasons. For one, there is an assumed amount of effort on the learner’s part in struggling with the problem on a nightly basis. Struggling in a good way of course, where they simply jot down ideas and formulas that might lead them, with further discussion, to an answer. Without the attempts on the learner’s part, there is no regular practice of independent problem solving skills, which I believe is a necessity. Further, without regular practice of independent problem solving skills, it is difficult for the learner to track their own progress.

One of my tough cookies, I’ll call Tara, is a talented athlete and pretty bright girl, but it is difficult for her to admit to me that she enjoys solving problems. She has good retention of her algebra skills from last year, but she continues to keep up this “I-really-don’t-care-what-you-think-of-me” attitude in order to perpetuate her “too cool for school” reputation in and out of class. Tara is a great example of a tough cookie, who on the inside is really intrigued by problems and knows she can do it, but has not made the important investment in order to see progress.

I am going to continue watching Tara throughout this year and see how she reacts to certain ways that I interact with her. The other day she came to class with no work written on a problem except for copying the diagram that was given in the problem booklet. Our conversation went like this:

me: “You know that you are supposed to write something for every homework problem.”

Tara:”I did”

me:”You just copied the diagram from the booklet – no new ideas or information from you. You should have at least labeled the diagram with values you knew or label something x for the variable you were trying to figure out.”

Tara: “Of course, I knew that, you could just ask me.”

me: “I really don’t have time in class to ask every student what they meant to write on their homework when there’s nothing written there.”

(I walk away to check the next student’s homework)

Tara: (under breath) “Jesus Christ”

me: (touching her head softly) “Yeah, we’re both pretty demanding”

I often try to use humor in situations where students are frustrated. I know that Tara’s reaction is not an example of what she really thinks of the class. It is merely her way of venting her own frustration with herself. I wish she would come and talk to me outside of class, but I know that’s way to much to expect from her right now. I will keep working on her and see what happens. Until then, we can lead a horse to water, but cannot make them drink. But maybe there’s still hope for her yet…