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Students with their mouths shut

Okay so today my 10 am class was very talkative and participatory and enjoyed making connections between Frankenstein and Charlotte Temple. However my 12 o’clock class sat there all clammed up. I figured last week their reticence to answer questions must have happened because I was trying to reproduce the first tutorial and it may have seemed too forced. Today I was asking super easy questions like, “Describe the main characters’ family lives” in efforts to discuss different ideas of gender and they were silent for a good while. I don’t know what’s up; a few weeks ago they were the chatty class. Here are my options for their quietness:
1. They have the mid-semester blues and don’t care so much anymore.
2. They were hungover from Halloween parties the night before.
3. I was incredibly boring and asking completely wrong questions.
4. They are reticent to talk after having a new student in their class the last few weeks.
5. Any or all of the above.

What do you think? What made your college classes interesting and engaging? How did your lecturers/tutors/professors get you to think of your own questions on the text?

Thanks for your input! If it fails next week, I’m going to make them do group work and/or let them go early. I hate blabbing to myself.

This entry was posted by Ashley on Tuesday, November 1st, 2005 at 11:19 pm. This entry was tagged with . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “Students with their mouths shut”

  1. Tor Says:
    November 2nd, 2005 at 10:28 pm

    If no one volunteers an answer, are you calling on specific people? Being called on is a strong motivator to completing the assignments.

  2. Manders Says:
    November 2nd, 2005 at 10:59 pm

    Usually silence means someone hasn’t done the assignment, which was likely at least this week, so it’s probably not you, it’s them. Maybe you should ask if anyone’s actually read?

  3. Katie Says:
    November 2nd, 2005 at 11:12 pm

    I remember some of my favorite professors as the ones who were “real” with us. If no one was talking/contributing, they would ask, “Hey, why is no one talking?” or something like that. Or, like Manders said, people could just not have done the reading. You know it can’t be you since your 10:00 class is participating well.

  4. Neyir Says:
    November 3rd, 2005 at 10:30 am

    I agree with Katie. Some of my favourite profs were the ones who if we seemed out of it sat down on the desk and said ’so what’s up?’ Invariably we all had papers due or too many rehearsals or something. It is definitely not you!