One-on-One Interactions and Individual Conferencing

One-on-One interactions with students can be tricky, and I think that Curzan and Damour commented on some of the more problematic ones. I've always found it strange when some students are antagonistic and seem to openly show disdain for the class. I usually think something to the effect of "if they really don't like this class, why are they in it?" But, of course, in many cases, it is a requirement for them to take it. That, however, is no excuse for rude behavior. I find that most of the antagonistic students I've had in classes don't seem to realize just how rude their behavior is-- so many students seem to think that because you're standing in front of a group that you're not as likely to notice the behavior of individuals in front of you. That's simply not true-- you see more than you'd like to-- you see every eye-roll, every smirk, and you have to train yourself as a teacher to not let it get to you. One on one with these kinds of students is even trickier. Usually they go into defensive mode--"I don't know why you don't like my writing, I showed this to my high school teacher and they thought it was good" (and I actually have had a student say such a thing to me after turning in a paper that had no thesis statement at all. Inherent in the way they approach you is the problem itself. Instead of thinking that they could possibly have done something wrong, they choose to put the blame on you-- it's your fault that they got a bad grade. I really think that there's not much you can do with these students other than to be able to point out what's wrong with the paper and explain why it got the grade that it deserved. It seems that in most of the tricky situations, it's simply best to have a clear set of rules, a clear set of reasoning to explain why certain actions have certain consequences. Whether it's setting up a clear attendance policy, and making clear that allowed absences should be saved for days when the student really needs it, or making your grading policy clear--"the criteria I gave you said that a paper without a thesis statement will get lower than a C, it's not a matter of whether I like your writing or not, it's a matter of fulfilling the assignment."

I also want to raise some questions about Individual Conferencing. I wonder how much class time we are allowed to use for one round of individual conferences. I've seen some instructors only use a week, others two weeks for one round. Two weeks seems to take out a lot of class time, but allows for a longer conference time with each student. If you tried to do Individual conferences for just one week, it would require that each conference be only ten minutes long, and would still require the use of office hours as well in order to fit in 20 students. If done over two weeks, the conference times could be fifteen minutes, but, again, that takes out another week of "teaching" time. Students would love to have all that time out of class, but it doesn't quite seem right. A part of the problem for me is that I would want the conferences to be a true learning situation, done more indirectively like a writing lab tutorial, but if you only have 10 minutes, the time would need to be more directive--"I'm just going to quickly explain the notes I made on this draft, and tell you exactly what you need to do to get a better grade on the next submission." I would like to incorporate conferences into my class, but am wondering what works best.