Completionism Perversion and Profit
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The music I was listening to when writing this.
I have an earlier post where I started this series of some of my operating assumptions approaching teaching in a real-life classroom after the COVID lockdowns. My assumption is that students see and feel the classroom quite differently than our pedagogy would assume, and some changes need to be made.
As the term is progressing, I am already seeing my hypothesis coming back in an altered form. Here’s what I initially came up with at the start of the term:
Visual Stimulation is Required
Students expect completion equals quality
Interaction in class is unnecessary
Class is a solo experience
I’m wondering about the first one, now that I find they are a bit more engaged when I use the board and not the powerpoint slides. Although the whiteboard is a visual aid, it’s not the type or kind of visuality that I assumed would be essential.
As for point two, I do believe that students think that if they complete an assigmnent on-time, or even during the course of the semester, that assignment should get an A. The highest grade is what one gets for finishing the work assigned.
The reasoning behind this is unclear, but I see a couple of different ways to make the argument for this work from the student point of view. The first is the argument from bad assignment design. It goes like this:
“This assignment is forced upon me, makes little to no sense in relation to really anything going on in the class or elsewhere, I don’t understand why we are doing this, I just need to get it done to get the points.”
This argument is based on a warrant of justice in equality. If the professor doesn’t communicate a sense of care or caring then why should I care? If the professor is unclear about the assignment’s connection to the class, the world, life, or even itself, then completion is the aim, and I should be rewarded. That’s the only think that is fair and just.
The second argument is a bit difficult but it has something I think to do with the idea that effort itself deserves recognition. This is not the boomer favorite argument that kids today all got too many participation trophies and therefore can’t function without serious recognition for basic tasks.
I see this argument as very capitalistic – I did what you asked me to do so pay me – but additionally and more interestingly I see this argument as a perversion of a claim that method matters – a twisted version of “show me your work” but taken quite literally.
I had a couple of students over the past year really get infuriated and perplexed that turning in assignments that didn’t meet the lowest requirements on the rubric in multiple categories didn’t pass. “I did it” was the refrain. It seemed impossible for them to understand that you could do all the assignments and fail the course.
A more direct and applicable explanation of how method is evaluated might be the solution here. As an experiment I go over the rubric a few times with the students and talk about how to improve quality. I also allow students to redo assignments if they made a low grade. What’s funny to me is that for most students a C or a B is a low grade and pretty much unacceptable, but sometimes when an assignment is redone it’s hard for me to see the difference in the two attempts. Perhaps their interpretation is still rooted in “getting it done” as the source of points.
Thinking of this as a perverse interpretation of a method-centric assessment modality is a great way to find inroads for addressing it. Yes, of course it feels good to game the system, get the reward, and also point out the silly relationship between action and pleasure by connecting the logic of it too literally (in classical perversion this is often discussed as an inversion of the letter of the law). But what do you really get out of it except a good feeling for yourself?
Assignment design should take into account this kind of pleasure and make sure that the idea of being able to do something with the material outside of the class, the school, the degree requirements is what is forwarded. Making the classroom the site of persuasive oratory, even on required assignments, helps change student attitude by articulating reasons behind the assignment (motives) that then the students will see as powerful, good, and helpful things. This can really move them away from the “pay me” or “perversion” mindset of completed work.
I hope to update some of these posts later in the spring to see where we are by that point. I’m thinking that all of these assumptions are going to change the more I work with my students this term.