Murphy's Law 101: When Things Go Wrong in the Classroom

Murphy's Law 101:
When Things Go Wrong in the Classroom -
Lessons Learned

Table of Contents

Introduction
Start of Class
Classroom Behavior
Controversial Topics
Hot Moments
Equipment / Software Issues
Non-Engagement of Students
Attendance
Concluding Thoughts
References

Introduction

This booklet is based on a workshop. Murphy’s Law 101: When Things Go Wrong in the Classroom, held on November 17, 2004. The workshop was designed to give faculty an opportunity to share stories of things that can and do go wrong in the classroom, and the lessons learned from them. The goal was to help other faculty avoid similar situations, or at least know how to handle them better, first by sharing experiences with each other, and then, with all faculty at Western Kentucky University through this booklet. Most of this booklet comprises direct quotations from the workshop organized by topic. The words speak for themselves. We hope you enjoy and benefit from these lessons shared.

“In 1949, Edward A. Murphy Junior, was an Air Force captain who had developed equipment to measure acceleration forces in rocket-sled experiments at Muroc Air Force Base, California. When the sensing equipment failed in its initial test, he discovered that in its assembly, someone had installed 16 sensors the wrong way. Murphy observed, “If there are two or more ways to do something and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.”

“Misunderstanding the real Murphy’s Law, we often use a corrupted version of it, such as “No matter what you do, something will go wrong”, to excuse a lot of mishaps that might have been prevented and a lot of actions that we would rather not take responsibility for.” 2

This is the crucial point of Murphy’s Law that is often misinterpreted. Rather than predicting that things will inevitably go wrong, it urges foresight and preventive action to keep things on track and moving in the right direction.

Start of Class

- Mano Singham, Case Western University, from POD Digest
“A lot of things...that can go wrong can be prevented if close attention is paid at the very beginning of the course, starting from about 10 minutes before the start of class and extending to about 10 minutes after the first class ends...this time establishes the classroom culture, expectations, tone and atmosphere. A good start can result in problems being avoided while a bad start can result in problems steadily rising through the semester.”

- Larry Snyder, Assistant Dean, Potter College, WKU
“I guess my one bit of advice...is that while we take our topics quite seriously, one of the things I have found to be most helpful is to not take ourselves too seriously, that is, to attempt to maintain a sense of humor, not just about your students messing up, because they will, but also about yourself...Perfection in the classroom, believing that you know everything and can’t make any mistakes, that’s not going to happen. You have to be willing to deal with that. And actually you can work it in and make it a part of the teaching and learning encounter.”

- Mano Singham, Case Western University, from POD Digest
“All too often, the first class is spent by instructors telling students what the rules are (often by just going over the syllabus) and talking TO them all the time. I am getting more convinced that this is not a good strategy. It is in the give-and-take of students and instructor that they gauge whether you like being there, whether you like interacting with them, and whether you will treat them with respect...so, my first tip to faculty is to imagine what the class would look like three weeks into the semester if it were functioning perfectly, and try to create that situation in the first ten minutes.”

“For example, I used to start my Physics classes (about 150-200 students) with the big overview lecture laying out the framework of the course. Not anymore. Now I immediately start with a small, concrete and interesting problem and get them to discuss it with each other and then to share their discussions with the full class and me. It is in the dialogue that I try to model to students the kind of respectful, light-hearted yet serious discussions that I would like to see for the semester.”

Classroom Behavior

- Mano Singham, Case Western University, from POD Digest
“If there is a student who says or does something in class that is disrespectful to you personally, I recommend against an immediate put-down, tempting as that might be. A quick laugh at the expense of the offender may also cause unease among the other students, who can envision themselves being at the receiving end of your barbs on another occasion, and also might fuel further attempts at subversion by the original offender. I would deflect the situation using self-deprecatory humor (“If you think my lecture on this topic is boring, you should hear me get started on campaign finance reform.”) and then afterwards have a private conversation with the student as to what caused the comment. You would be surprised at how students sometimes don’t even realize they are being rude, since a certain type of jocular insult often passes for humor among their peers.”

“If it is an obvious insult to the instructor and is made publicly, I would not ignore it. I would stop the class and ask what caused the outburst, listen carefully, and suggest that the discussion be continued privately after class. Or, if the issue concerns the whole class, ask everyone to think about it and be ready to discuss it next time. If you have created the right conditions at the start, the other students will be embarrassed by their peer’s behavior and be completely on your side. It is good for them to see you deal with the insult in a mature and calm manner.”

- Retta Poe, Associate Dean, CEBS, WKU
“I also have had...students who make incredible requests of you, wanting you to do things or wanting you to allow them to do things that you’re not sure you want to. You’d like to say no, but you don’t know how you could say no, so I’ve learned to say “I’d like to think about that.”

“...My experience is that we have terrific students who, for the most part are polite, respectful, and very enjoyable Only occasionally will somebody tell me about a student who is rude, disrespectful, challenging, and threatening. And obviously we have ways of dealing with that. We have a Student Conduct Code, and being the Associate Dean of our college, I’m the complaint department. Each college has a complaint department, and we’ve become very familiar with the Student Conduct Code.

“When I was an instructor, there was one semester when I was told ahead of time I was going to have a student that in the previous semester some instructor had had a lot of problems with, for putting down others, being hostile, saying demeaning and rude things to other students in the class, and not being a good neighbor or good citizen in the classroom discussion. So, in that particular class, I put in the syllabus that I had an expectation that everybody would make positive contributions to other people’s learning. I can’t remember exactly how I worded it but I gave myself a way of trying to deal with this particular student that had previously caused a problem, and then worked with trying to prevent it....I did not have any problems with her. It turns out she was just really lacking in social skills and so I ended up actually meeting her outside of class a couple of times and sort of coaching her on how to better say things in a way that did not come across as ugly to other people. And she was very coachable. I was lucky because some people, no matter what you say, are just clueless. In this case she was clueless, but very coachable.”

- Cindy Jones, Instructor, Consumer & Family Sciences, WKU
“And if they go to Master Plan, students sign the Code of Student Conduct...So at least you know they’ve seen it....Master Plan is a freshman orientation that is held a week before school begins which covers social, academic and transitional skills issues.”

- Retta Poe, Associate Dean, CEBS, WKU
“There are two things about conduct that I would recommend. One, if any instructor is having behavior problems with a particular student or students, they should be aware that one of the services offered by the University Testing and Counseling Center is consultations with faculty on how to handle student problem behaviors. So, if you ever have a student that you are concerned about being violent or that is behaving really inappropriately and you don’t have the training to recognize or be sure of what you’re dealing with, you can call the Counseling Center, identify yourself as a faculty member, and request to talk to somebody on how to handle this student. On their web site they list faculty consultations on managing students with problems as one of their services.”

“Secondly...instead of saying “Here are the rules for my classroom”, ask the class to come up with the rules themselves. Say, “So that we can have a good experience contributing to each others learning and achieve all of expected learning goals...we’ll need some guidelines on how we’re going to handle things in our classroom. What would be some good guidelines that would make sense to you and facilitate discussions in the class?”

Controversial Topics

- Retta Poe, Associate Dean, CEBS, WKU
“In psychology...there are lots of potentially upsetting topics and I have had students who lose composure in class, i.e., they get very angry about certain topics, or they lose their cool, or cry, or are inappropriately self-disclosing. One thing I learned fairly early was that I don’t necessarily have to come up with a solution. It’s always okay to say, “I’m going to quit for today” so you can take care of the student who has a particular need at that point. Then, of course, you have to figure out, when you come back the next time, how to help the rest of the class get past what might have been an upsetting experience for them.”

“Especially if you’re new to it, this is where having some colleagues or other faculty members who will help you figure out a good way to manage the situation can really help. One of the things that I think is really a shame about the way higher education frequently works is that we often don’t talk much with our colleagues about what we do in our classes and we don’t share what we our doing in classes and we don’t often have opportunities to have other people in the classroom with us, so we’re very autonomous. I don’t think it needs to be that way. So, if you haven’t or if it hasn’t occurred to you to get some colleagues to help you, I would certainly recommend that.”

- Larry Snyder, Assistant Director, Potter College, WKU
“My particular field is religious history, which means I get to talk in the classroom on a regular basis about two things people say you should never talk about in public company: religion and politics...Dealing with these kinds of issues, particularly with religion, is fraught with opportunities to stumble and stub your toe and occasionally make a genuine fool of yourself.”

“One of my favorite anecdotes about myself is that earlier in my career at Western I was trying to convey the basic idea of the Judeo/Christian/Muslim understanding of the deity, which is to say, whatever God is, God is not human; God is transcendent above the created order. Despite the fact that the language and sacred texts often use gender language to refer to the deity, it’s also clear that God is beyond gender. Well that’s what I intended to say, but instead it simply came out “God does not have sex”. And everyone just stops. The only way I knew how to recover was to say, “Well, at least not on a regular basis.” That seemed to diffuse the situation.”

“...Another thing that comes up in dealing with controversial subjects, in my area of religion, [is that] students often want to take the opportunity to evangelize in various ways. They may see it as an occasion to become a missionary for this or that. It’s important to set up some ground rules...and establish a context of mutual respect early. That’s easily said, not always easily done, but it’s something you have to keep coming back to with students...students often learn how to be respectful by watching you.”

Hot Moments

- Larry Snyder, Assistant Dean Potter College, WKU
“I had quite a moment of anxiety in a class. It was fairly early in my career here, this was a religion course, and one of the central assignments was for students to go out and visit three different religious traditions other than their own. They immediately get very apprehensive with this assignment. What I do is to set the context for what I know they’re uncomfortable about every time I do this. And by the end, most students say that it the best part of the course. But still, I had a student come up to me after the class to say “I can’t do this,” and I said, “What can’t you do?” And he said, “I can’t do this part of the assignment.” I said, “What part is that?” He said, “I will not go to an African American church,” and I said, “Why not?,” and he said, “I just won’t do it.”

“The guy was twice as big as me and looked like he’d been lifting weights and I said, “Well obviously I can’t make you do anything.” At that point I could have backed down and adjusted my syllabus and requirements. But I decided to stick with my guns. I said, “I understand you’re anxious about this. I’m not entirely sure why, but we can certainly talk about it and we can find a safe place for you to do this. But this is a requirement for the course and if you choose not to do it, your grade will reflect that.” Fortunately, this ended up well, because the last day of class, the student waited until everybody left, he handed in some papers, and sort of looked around. He came up to me, and at this point this big bold guy had tears in his eyes, which was a completely new experience for me, and he said “I want to thank you for making me do this, it was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I really appreciate it.”

“I recognized the student’s anxiety, but at that point you have to decide where you’re going to go. If you think [the assignment] is an important part of what you’re doing you need to see it through. And remember, very often anxiety can induce good learning, because part of learning is making us uncomfortable, at least in some settings.”

Equipment / Software Issues

by Author

Unattributed, WKU:
“Whenever I do a presentation on PowerPoint, I use two methods to save: 1) as a PowerPoint presentation and 2) as a HTML file in which everything will come out like a web page. No matter what program you are using, whether it’s Word, Internet Explorer, or any Windows program, you can work on an open HTML document as a text file and, in most cases, if you’re using Internet Explorer your graphics will be displayed.”

Cindy Jones, Instructor, Consumer and Family Sciences, WKU:
“You can put your PowerPoint or any files on the “F” Shared drive and when you go to a classroom and log onto the computer as a WKU user, you have immediate access to the file. You can create a folder for yourself on the drive, and leave things temporarily in it, just for the day - or permanently. The “F” drive is especially useful for graphic files that take a lot of memory and that tend to give you technical difficulties. Faculty and staff have access to the “F” drive, and not students. When you put it on the “F” drive it’s on the University server and the whole server has to break down before you can’t get to it. What I’m finding these last two semesters is that using the “F” drive has worked much better for me, because then there’s no issue of incompatibility between two hard drives.”

Nancy Givens, Instructional Coordinator, FaCET, WKU:
“Here’s a low-tech third option. Always make transparencies of your PowerPoint presentation before you go to class, in case of equipment failure.”

Retta Poe, Associate Dean, CEBS, WKU:
“You can also print your PowerPoint presentation six slides per page, and post that on your web page. If you tell your students to download them before class, they’ll have them when they come to class. That way if you can’t project the presentation, they’ll still have a printout in front of them to reference.”

Retta Poe, Associate Dean, CEBS, WKU:
“Cell phones in class are one thing I hate. I have been hearing faculty talk about the fact that, not only do students forget to turn them off, but they answer them in class. This is another thing that can be addressed in the syllabus. I read one that said, ‘The first time your phone rings you are asked to turn it off, and if it rings again, I take it until the end of class’.”

Charles Borders, Assistant Professor of History, BGCC:
“In my syllabus, it means an automatic quiz. When a cell phone goes off, we stop there, and the whole entire class is given a quiz. I find that other students will eventually solve the problem for me.”

John Spoo, Instructor, Physical Education and Recreation, WKU:
“Here’s another thing about cell phones. Western is going to be a wireless campus soon, and I think at Princeton they found out that they had to prohibit cell phones from classes because the students could dial up the Internet during finals.”

Non-Engagement of Students

Mano Singham, Case Western University, from POD Digest:
“On the issue of non-engagement by students, if it is just a few students, I deal with it outside of class, privately. If it is a widespread problem, I would discuss it in class. Do [the students] find the readings dull? Pointless? Obscure? Too much? What is causing the non-engagement? Be prepared to take criticism of yourself and don’t become defensive. Also be prepared that students will be surprised by being asked for their opinions at all and may not open up for awhile.”

Retta Poe, Associate Dean, CEBS, WKU:
“I think that one of the hardest things for me to learn, as a new teacher [re: non-engagement] was I would really want to do class discussions and I would have this idea that I was going to present some concepts and discuss them... The thing I found more frustrating than anything else was when I planned discussion activities and didn’t get any one discussing.”

“So now, I almost never say “Does anybody have any comments?” because...I just don’t get comments. I almost always will ask a question and then ask everyone to take a minute and jot down what they think about it.” I have them write it down on a piece of scrap paper, and once they’ve all have had a chance to write it down, they are more likely to share what they’ve written. Then I can get discussion, if I start it that way. Or, if I put students together to talk with one or two other people first, then I can get the whole class talking. But if I go straight into the class discussion, especially at the beginning of the semester, I find it very difficult.”

Attendance

Retta Poe, Associate Dean, CEBS, WKU
“[Regarding taking attendance] part of what you can do is to set your classroom policy up in such a way so as to address questions students may have about missed classes and/or assignments, and be clear in the beginning. If [attendance and turning work in on time] is important to you, and it is to me, I say, “Everybody’s life is full of bad things happening at different times. If I make allowances for you, I can’t be fair to everybody who manages to get their papers in on time despite all of that. If you can help me to understand a way I can be fair to everybody, then maybe we can talk about it. But I feel like I have to be responsive to the other people in this class.” And for the most part that’s how I’ve handled it, trying to be fair to everybody, and mostly I don’t get people arguing with that.”

Joyce Wilder, Associate Professor, Psychology, WKU:
“I have had the same thing happen. I make [my policy] really clear and then give some options. For example, I have a 100-level course too, and I give quizzes regularly, but students do have the option to drop one quiz out of the series that we take. So, if they can’t come to one class, that’s fine. That’s the test they get to drop. And , if you stated your policies clearly in the beginning, you enforce your policies to be consistent and fair. How can I make an exception for one? Everybody has issues. Can I say, “Yours is better than theirs,” and vice versa? I don’t know how to do that.”

Retta Poe, Associate Dean, CEBS, WKU
“The student who is an habitual offender needs to think of our job in a bigger context. It’s not just about teaching a particular class, but it’s about helping to “grow” more mature and responsible adults. Part of our job is to help our students to grow up a little bit.”

Joyce Wilder, Associate Professor, Psychology, WKU:
“We have the six week-assessment and other ways to identify students who are missing a lot, not doing well in turning in assignments, or not doing well on tests, and that’s a nice mechanism to alert me. I send an email to every student who doesn’t do well or who needs to be “reported,” so to speak. And I tell them I want to have a conference with them individually. It’s not mandatory, but I tell them to come by so we can talk about their circumstances. In some cases it works out beautifully.”

“But if they never even bother to show-up, or if they do come and talk to you one time, you might call to their attention the fact that you have tried to get in touch with them, that they have missed a lot – and that there is a drop day. If they’re not doing well, and don’t think they can do well, this would be an excellent opportunity for them to just drop the course. And then move on to something else. So you give them several options…”

Concluding Thoughts

Mano Singham, Case Western University, from POD Digest:
“...The best way to prevent these situations is by creating a good atmosphere right at the start of the semester. I now think the best use of my time is preparing carefully for the first class so that students feel comfortable, wanted, collegial, respected and involved in running the class. You would be amazed at how all these other issues almost never come up if the right atmosphere is created early. It is much easier than trying to fix problems later.”

In conclusion, we can borrow some final thoughts, with minor modifications, from Linc Fisch [2]:

“Were we mindful of the real Murphy’s “law”, we’d force ourselves to do more deliberate and divergent thinking. [For example] as we plan our instructional activity, we might ask ourselves a series of questions:”

Are there legitimate instructional approaches other than the one I’m focusing on? Are they “better” (more productive) or “safer” (less risky) than my intended approach?

What might happen differently from what I intend? Under what circumstances would that happen? What can I do to preclude outcomes that would have negative consequences?

Particular to discussions, how might the dialogue digress from what I expect? Are those digressions germane to my goals? If not, how can I correct for them if they occur?

Am I allowing enough time to correct for unanticipated problems that I might discover at the last minute or even during the instructional process?

Have I tested exam items on a sample of the target audience in order to discover unintended interpretations?
Do the words, phrases and references I use have the same meaning (or any meaning) for those in the student generation? In turn, how can I better understand their jargon?

Particular to use of A-V aids and electronic equipment, have I checked in advance for correct operation and possible glitches? What back-up systems do I employ?

When things do go wrong, what can I do to prevent similar occurrences in the future?

“But perhaps you are thinking, this would take a lot of time, and my time is valuable and limited. There’s another “law” of unknown origin that speaks to that: “If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, how are you going to have time to do it over?” Besides, once the pattern of investigate/anticipate/preclude/prepare becomes habitual, it requires relatively little extra time.”

“...Now that we know about the real Murphy, we can apply his “law” in the positive way it was originally intended: to anticipate problems and do our best to preclude their happening. In the process we can become more responsible teachers. And by pointed example of the application of precautionary and preventive strategies, we teach our students to be more responsible, too.”

References

1) Chalk Talk, with Jonas Chalk, The GE Master Teachers for Freshmen Engineering at Northeastern University, http://gemasterteachers.neu.edu/

2) Fisch, Linc, “The Real Murphy”, “Chalk Dust,” The Journal of Staff, Program & Organization Development, Vol. 17 No. 4, Winter 2000, pp. 241-243.

3) Office for Professional Development, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Tips for Dealing with Student Academic Misconduct, revised 6/15/01.

4) Office for Professional Development, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Tips for Dealing with Student Problem Behaviors, revised 6/15/01.

5) Poe, Retta, “Hitting a Nerve: When Touchy Subjects Come Up in Class,” Observer, American Psychological Society, Vol. 13, No. 9, Nov. 2000, pp. 18-19, 31.

6) Sorcinelli, M.D. (1994). Dealing with Troublesome Behaviors in the Classroom. In K.W. Prichard and R.M. Sawyer (Eds.), Handbook of College Teaching: Theory and Applications. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing

7) Warren, Lee. Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University, Online Document, http://bokcenter.fas.harvard.edu/docs/hotmoments.html

Also, available on the FaCET web page (www.wku.edu/teaching), under Teaching Tools, see the following:

1) Bailey, Howard, Karl Laves and Bob Deane, Safety Issues for Faculty, http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/teachingissues/safety1.htm

2) Bailey, Howard and John O’Conner, Cultural Sensitivity in the Classroom, http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/tips/tips9.htm

3) Johnson, Horace, Howard Bailey and Richard Greer, Dealing with Aggression in the Classroom, http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/tips/tips23.htm

4) Samuels, Jeffrey and Lawrence Snyder, Religion & Philosophy, Faith and Students Online Workshop, http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/retention/faith.html

5) Tragedy in the Classroom: For Faculty, http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/booklets/tragedy.htm

6) University of Missouri Columbia, Classroom Management and Procedural Issues, http://teachandlearn.missouri.edu/guide/chapters/classroommgmt.htm

7) University of Missouri Columbia, Instructor Crisis in the Classroom, http://teachandlearn.missouri.edu/guide/chapters/crises.htm

To request a packet of related materials available from FaCET, call 270/745-6508 or send an email to facet@wku.edu.

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