23 Caring About (the performance of) Caring About Students

In last night's post I talked about how I don't worry about students.  Does that mean I don't care about them?  Well, yes and no.

"Yes," I don't carry concern about their personal lives into my own.

 But "no," I do care about their success in the work they do in my classes because I actually "believe" in the core communication courses.  And by belief I mean that I think (sometimes without any hard scientific data to back me up) that the skills I've taught in public speaking, interpersonal, and small group communication can actually make lives better, richer, more fulfilling and just happier.  I want my students to succeed in my classes because I believe the skills they learn will help them achieve greater success in their personal and work lives. 

Thus I also care about the experience they have in my classrooms.  I want my classrooms to feel safe to students.  This can be challenging because I'm teaching scary stuff -- I am asking them to change their lives and behaviors.  I'm asking them to try on new ways of being a person.  And, darn it all, I'm asking them to give speeches -- an activity Americans fear more than nuclear war!

One aspect of classroom safety is my student's belief that I care about them and that my concern will help them through the scary stuff.  That's why I show that I recognize the scariness of what I am teaching and even share with them my own severe communication apprehension in both the public speaking and interpersonal conflict situations. 

But caring isn't just about creating safety for the students.  It's also about creating safety for me.  A teacher who is perceived as uncaring will get critiqued on both student evaluations and in complaints filed with individuals higher up the academic food chain.  Believe me, I speak from experience on this.  Early on in my career at COCC I was perceived as not caring about student success. I occasionally received low scores on a teacher evaluation question that wondered whether or not the instructor cared. 

At first, I didn't think my caring about my students was actually important.  They were adults, I reasoned.  They could make decisions on their own.  They were free.  Why should I have to show a caring I didn't necessarily feel?

But it turns out that student perception of teacher caring IS important to teaching.  A variety of studies have shown a strong links among college student perceptions of teacher caring and student success.  In "The Effect ofTeacher Confirmation on Student Communication and Learning Outcomes," published in Communication Education in 2007, Alan K. Goodboy & Scott A. Myers manipulated the amount of "confirming communication" displayed by teachers during test lectures.  Confirming communication is messages, either verbal or nonverbal, that show the other person in the interaction, in this case the students who were the subjects of the study, that they are valued.  Goodboy and Myers used surveys to assess student ideas perceptions of three aspects of teacher credibility --  competence, character and caring -- based on the staged lectures..  They then asked the students how they would respond to such teachers and also tested the students on traditional learning outcomes.  The researchers found that students actually learned more from people they perceived as having better characters and being more caring.

"Collectively, results indicated that teacher confirmation resulted in . . . (b)more student participation, (c) less challenge behavior, and (d) greater cognitive learning, affective learning, state motivation, and satisfaction."

A later study by Jason J. Teven & James C. McCroskey, published five years ago this month in Communication Education (2009) , found that, "'perceived caring' in the instructional context . . . were found to be substantially associated with the students' evaluation of their teachers, their affective learning, and their perceptions of their cognitive learning."

 Of course all this should raise a big "Duh" in anyone who teaches what I do.  And yet sometimes we are unable to assess our own behavior adequately.  And that's what peer teams are for!

So after I figured out that the perception of my caring was very important for my student's success (as well as for my own success at the institution), I started managing it in a variety of ways, including the following.

1. By saying out loud in class, "I care about your success."
2. By using confirming communication behaviors, especially with students who complained to me.
3.  By encouraging students to argue about their grades if they ever thought that I had made an error in my assessments of their performances.
4.  By setting clear boundaries in the syllabus about the kinds of arguments about grading that "count."  I only allow arguments based on the criteria for the assignment in question.  I don't want to hear that people worked hard or that they have hard lives and I explain how neither of those issues is related to whether or not a performance is successful.
5. For many many years I had a "midterm review" in my courses.   I wrote two labels on the board.  On one side I wrote, "What I like about this class" and on the other side I wrote, "This class would be better if..."  Then I asked for a student volunteer to run a feedback session.  The volunteer was to write student responses on the board underneath each phrase.  The volunteer was also to mark with a star any comment offered by more than one person.  I would leave the room.  When the class was finished with its discussion, I went in and dealt with any problems or criticisms that came up.  
6. Through the performance of "immediacy behaviors:"  According the trainer Kelly Rocca,   "Non-verbal immediacy includes behaviors such as smiling, gesturing, eye contact and having relaxed body language. Verbal immediacy refers to calling the students by name, using humor and encouraging student input and discussion."
7. By doing lots of mind and heart work around the idea that the classroom is not all about me.  This includes detaching from my ego investment in both the material and my presenting self.  (For more information about how to commit completely to a set of behaviors without being ego involved, see The Bhagavad-Gita.)
8. By having very clear instructions for anything receiving a grade and being open to alternative interpretations of the language of the instructions.
9. I admit to errors when I make them and am very clear about how human I am.
10. I apologize when I make a mistake or if I say anything that injures anyone's feelings.

As you can see, I've put time into building a more user-friendly "revenue-producing-unit," or, in other words, being a more caring professional.  And it has turned out well.  The scores on my evaluations went up as students felt safer and more cared for in my classes.  As they became happier, I became happier.  Like a room without a roof.