What you can learn from your students’ responses to assignments.
By: Tawfique Soboyejo
Tags: Teach For All, Teaching, Teaching And Learning, Education, Teach For Nigeria

Hi Changemakers, I’m going to be starting a series of things I’ve learnt from my students, either by direct observation, accidental discovery and the ones they are eager to share with me.

So, here’s the first episode. Episode 1: What you can learn from your students’ responses to assignments.

The image above perfectly captures most student’s views about what assignments are, rather than what they should be.

If you were to walk into most classrooms and ask the majority of students to summarize what they think about assignments in one word, you may probably get words like hard, stressful, complex, tiring, confusing, frustrating, boring and many other synonyms.

Right from childhood, assignments have been made out to be these scary monsters that must be defeated so as not to be punished or scolded by teachers, parents and to top it all, being jibed at by peers for being that one student who could never finish up assignments or even start to begin with.

I’ve been there, believe me, I’ve been both students. I’ve been that one kid who detested and dreaded assignments with every fibre of his being, I’ve also been that kid who looked forward to doing assignments and even demanded that more be given.

Yeah, you’re probably asking yourself right now.

How could that be?

Isn’t that being contradictory? No, it’s not.

The difference was the person giving the assignments and the way and manner in which it was given. I’ve always been the kid who loved introspection right from childhood and I often questioned why I always loved doing assignments in a particular subject and ended up short in another. I was getting frustrated at myself as to why I couldn’t channel the same energy I used for getting through and getting great scores in one subject across all.

I never got that answer right there and then, and it was probably the only time in my life I enjoyed doing assignments (P.S. I only just figured it out after I became an educator myself).

Right after that, it was always the same all through, from primary education right up to the university level. I could argue that the root of my procrastination and anxiety is rooted in that.

When I first entered a classroom as an educator, the first thing I told myself was never to project myself unto my students and to appreciate their uniqueness, because I have one habit that has stuck with me for a while, seeing the elements of myself in other people.

I really couldn’t help it much though, as I was instructed by my H.O.D. to make sure I gave my students “Take Home” assignments every Friday. As Friday came and I began to write the assignments on the chalkboard, I could not help but notice the gloomy expressions on some of my students’ faces and it reminded me of myself a little bit, despite all attempts to not draw a connection or correlate their experiences with mine, as I wanted to treat my students as unique individuals with their own special capabilities.

Well, it just goes to show that we’re not that far apart as humans, little variations in behaviour maybe, but at the root, we’re way more similar.

Before I start waxing philosophically and derail the whole conversation, let’s get back on track.

So I gave them the assignments, and despite the “supposed” ample time given to my students to complete the assignments, some of them came up short, some didn’t even bother to start.

As it is natural, the first reaction you’d feel as a new educator might be infuriating, because you, and only you, are aware of the effort you put into setting these assignments and the efforts required to grade them. Your students don’t.

It’s one of the reasons why as an educator, emotional intelligence is extremely important. Keep in mind, I was just freshly posted to this new school, so I was just getting to know my students.

When the school closed, I called a couple of them with whom I was getting acquainted, so this sample size wasn’t exactly an accurate representation of the whole class, but it gave me an idea.

I called Emmanuel and Mosunmola, the two most vocal students in my class, to help me quiz the people I called as to why they defaulted with their assignments. I watched them respond from a corner and noted each and every one of their complaints.

Here’s a couple of reasons they gave at the time:

Lack of electricity at night.

Regular running of errands for parents and neighbours.

Lack of understanding of what the assignments were about.

Some were oblivious of the fact that there was even an assignment to begin with.

Lack of interest.

No adult to guide with assignments at home.

Absence from school on the particular day the assignment was given.

Stolen book. Hence, no place to do the assignment.

Having to hawk goods from morning till evening and then passing out from exhaustion at night.

And a host of other reasons I can’t really mention due to confidentiality, but you get the picture.

Bottom line, there were loads of excuses.

I took all of these into account and reduced the number of assignments given. Despite that, it was nearly the same result, the groups of students who turned in their assignments only increased by 3. So, I knew that wasn’t the solution to the problem at hand.

I also tried setting differentiated assignments for each group of learners, ranging from the higher fliers to the approaching grade level students, these also caused a gradual spike in assignment turnovers, but it was unsustainable and time-consuming as that would mean, different corrections for different pupils in the class. That would also cause long term segregation which is the last thing you’d want in a group of little children, as unity is required for mutual growth and success of group activities.

So I reverted to the initial way of setting assignments, but this time, I made sure to make the assignments inclusive for all types of learners. At this point, I was already familiar with a lot of my students, their backgrounds, behaviour, learner type.

I’ve also had regular phone calls with some of their parents/guardians. I talked to them about cooperation, education and the welfare of their wards both within and outside the walls of a school.

When we started with the use of group activities as an essential part of learning in the classroom as advised by my Coach, Afeez Iyiola, I made sure to also use this as an opportunity to get student-friendly assignments by allowing each group to submit questions to be answered by other groups.

This was immensely helpful as it not only helped with more than enough simplified and easily understood questions, it also made the students develop a keen interest. They started looking forward to their questions being chosen as part of the assignments and those whose questions got chosen cheered and became some sort of celebrity.

I watched closely and observed that the students began approaching one another for explanations about some of the questions. It was then, I realized I also needed to work on being approachable. It was time to drop the stern face and always put on a smile.

I also did a little bit of pairing for students who lived close to one another to brainstorm and help with constant reminders about assignments. As one person defaulting meant you probably didn’t love your neighbour as yourself.

Students who turned in their assignments very early were given Love claps for their efforts.

With the application of all the above, there was a huge spike in the students who submitted their assignments, but there were still a couple who complained of certain reasons that were beyond them, rendering them incapable of doing these assignments at home.

I always encouraged these groups of students to take about an hour or an hour and a half to ensure that they at least do some parts of the assignments before heading home. That way, they’re never left behind.

To make the whole idea more appealing, the final trick was the idea of rewards and incentives, but the rewards shouldn’t be immediate, as it was going to descend into a validation/status signalling game.

It was to be given at the end of each month to students who were punctual, turned in their assignments early and scored at least an above-average score in their assignments.

Killing three birds with one stone.

You won’t believe me if I told you that the whole reason I wrote this was that I stumbled on a YouTube video of a man who was showing educators a game to make assignments way more fun in the classroom and I watched with amusement and admiration with a little hint of “Oh, I should have really thought of that”.

No regrets whatsoever though, I’m definitely going to incorporate his idea into my classroom when school resumes.

A quick recap for helpful tips to make your students interested in assignments:

Be empathic.

Be inquisitive, investigate the reason for the lack of interest.

Be approachable and friendly.

Set inclusive and fun assignments.

Use group work and team bonding to encourage the students.

Use rewards.

Encourage them regularly.

Allow the students some sort of control by making them responsible for some of the questions. And lastly,

Be patient with your students.

Really, really excited for school to begin. Can’t wait to get back into the classroom.

Hopefully, you’ll find one or two tips that may be beneficial to you in this long epistle.

Have a nice day.

Taofik Soboyejo.

Fellow, Teach For Nigeria.