Lay It On the Line, Lay It On the Line

One of the "revelations" I had over the past few years that has helped me change my instruction was that having someone else waste your time sucks. I enjoy having my time wasted as much as the next person. Which is to say, I do not enjoy having my time wasted at all. It is one of the things that irritates me the most.

When I realized that students often feel that way in school, I knew I had to be different. I didn't want to lecture any more than necessary. And when I did, I wanted to err on the side of talking too little. If a student can learn something without me, I want them to do so. If I could assign 15 problems instead of 30, I'd assign 15.

I was reminded again recently of what it feels like to have your time wasted by someone else. I am in a graduate class and one of the requirements for the class is that we post solutions to homework problems on a discussion board and others respond to them. You can't see the solutions others post until after you post your own, so I like to complete as much of the assignment as I can up front and then decide which solutions to upload. A recent post by one of my classmates offered what was a correct solution to a proof. It was well written, neatly typed, and only a page long.

And that's what irritated me so much. I read the solution and realized that it was way, way too long. My time had been wasted. The problem did not require such a thorough treatment. Which sounds strange to say, but it didn't. It really didn't. At least not for the audience that would be reading it. And that was when I understood what many students go through on a daily basis.

I have several students who read this blog, and if we are being honest with each other, I think they would admit that when someone over-responds to a question, it may be for several different reasons;

1. the student has no idea what they are talking about and is hoping that by saying a lot of things they may say something coherent and get some credit,
2. the student knows what they are talking about but doesn't understand how much of it is actually required to respond appropriately to the question being asked,
3. the student knows what they are talking about and wants to impress the people who will read their response.

There's no way it was #1. 

Which leaves either #2 or #3. And I really hope it wasn't #3. At least if it's #2, then the extra time I spent reading the unnecessarily long solution wasn't taken from me deliberately.

As teachers, the question, "how much time do I really need to talk about this in class?" is a question that may seem inconsequential most of the time. I assure you that it is not. Being off by a little may not cause many issues. But being off by a lot can be a disaster. If we're not at least trying to answer the question, being off by a little just means we're lucky. Most of the time, our students won't be.