What tricks do American university lecturers use when students are lazy to read?

Many lecturers in the US admit that students today are increasingly lazy to read - Photo: iStock

As students in the United States return to campus this fall, many humanities professors are wondering whether the learning needs of today's students are different from those of 20, 10, or even five years ago...

Is the phone the "culprit"?

“Here I am, teaching the same class I’ve been teaching for 10 years, using the same book and asking the same questions, and the students are quiet,” said Alden Jones, a lecturer in literature and creative writing at Emerson College, a liberal arts college. “Then I ask easier questions and they’re still quiet.”

Part of it, Jones told Teen Vogue , could be the “shock” of COVID-19; part, as one student told her, is the fear of being judged by peers or getting the answer wrong. Or it could be a “why bother thinking when I can find the answer on my phone?” mentality.

But another big question looms in this story: Are college students having more trouble reading than they used to? And if so, what should educators do to help them?

It's not just Ms. Jones. Adam Kotsko, an instructor at the Shimer Great Book School at North Central College, said he used to assign about 25 to 35 pages of reading per session for his entry-level classes, but "now if I write a 20-page reading, I start to feel stressed."

“All the teachers have noticed that students’ ability to concentrate has decreased. And the reason is the phone in their pocket,” said Jeff Dolven, an English professor at Princeton University.

Teachers "use tricks" against lazy students

Ms. Jones said that in recent years, she has adjusted her teaching style and curriculum to accommodate what she sees as declining reading abilities among students. One way she does this is by having “constant dialogue” with students. She has also adjusted the length of texts she assigns students to read. She writes fewer books and more short stories for students.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kotsko is more selective and intentional about what he includes on his student reading lists.

Antonio Byrd, who teaches writing at the University of Missouri-Kansas, said that since 2020, he has been putting students into reading groups, where each student selects a few assigned readings for the week and provides summaries to their groupmates.

He also uses digital annotation tools that allow students to comment online on readings and interact with comments from classmates. Kotsko requires students to take photos of their text annotations and submit them as assignments, an approach he says is quite effective.

Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and writing at the University of Texas at Austin, encourages her classes to adopt a "scan process" for reading, understanding how a text is organized, and skimming a text's introduction and conclusion before diving into its meat.

John Edwin Mason, a history professor at the University of Virginia, said he designed the questions to test whether students had read the entire text and was considering returning to quizzes “even though I was very frustrated with them as a student.”

For students struggling with a reading, Mason often asks, “Did you turn off your phone?” Often the student is shocked, and Mason sympathizes because, after all, “the older generation didn’t have phones to turn off.”

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/giang-vien-dai-hoc-my-dung-chieu-gi-khi-sinh-vien-luoi-doc-20240926212144579.htm