Scenario analysis. What to do when thing do not go so well in the classroom?

By Yanina Bellini Saibene in Education Community

July 9, 2022

The Context

Often, as teachers, we encounter complex situations in the classroom. Sometimes we witness discrimination, oppression, escalating arguments, unhealthy dynamics or disruptive students. Sometimes we are so shocked by the situation that we cannot react appropriately and sometimes we do not know what to do.

The solution is education and practice. At the RStudio Instructor Training and Open Life Science Ally Workshop I learned that people who have thought and reflected on such situations are more likely to do something and do it effectively in the real world.

This lesson is intended to provide a friendly and safe environment to discuss situations that might occur in a real-world classroom.

I designed these scenarios based on material from the RStudio Instructor training, the Open Life Science Allies Workshop, and the books How Learning Works and Teaching Tech Together. I used them twice during two Spanish-language instructors' training for The Carpentries.

Organization of the exercise

The exercise is conducted after introducing concepts of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

The class is divided into groups of two or three perople, and assigned to a breakout room. There is one scenario for each group. Before sending them to the room, we explain the exercise:

1. In the shared document there is a link to a series of slides. Each slide corresponds to a room indicated in the title.

2. Read the case you were assigned and discuss the corresponding questions as a group.

3. Summarize the discussion on the blank slide with the name of your room.

Each group should look for the scenario that corresponds to them in the shared document of the exercise, which is a slide presentation, made with Google Docs. Each group has two slides with their room name. On the first slide is the scenario with a series of guiding questions. The second slide is blank for them to take notes on the discussion.

The exercise lasts 20 minutes in the groups, when they return to the common room we use between 10 and 15 more minutes to share the scenario and the results of the discussion. If you have time you can extend this part of the exercise. The discussion with the full course enriches the options for actions and views on potential resolutions and reactions.

Scenarios

This is a sample of the types of scenarios available and here you can access one of the example shared documents (in Spanish).

Scenario 1

You are the TA in a systems engineering class. The teacher in charge expresses his concern about the small number of female students in the course, and so provides extra help to the women during the (labs?) when they are working in small groups, and avoids calling on women to participate in class, so that he doesn’t put them on the spot in front of the whole group.

What do you think of these attitudes?
Will they work? Why or why not?

Scenario 2

You are the TA for a new thermodynamics professor. On the first day of class, the new teacher says to the students: “This is a very difficult course. You will have to work much harder than you have had to work in previous courses, and even then a third of you will not pass.”

What do you think the students will take from this statement?
What steps would you take to talk to the professor about their statement?

Scenario 3

You are giving a workshop and you have asked your students to work in pairs. After a few minues, student A approaches you and tells you that their partner, student B, has been making homophobic jokes. Student B hears this and immediately denies having done so.

What steps would you take to address this situation? Assuming that your first and second steps don’t resolve it, think of a third and fourth step.

Scenario 4

A student in your class has a diagnosed attention deficit. In order to stay focused, they need to talk to themselves while they figure things out. Other students in the class have complained that this is distracting.

What steps would you take, and in what order?

Source: Greg Wilson’s talk “What Everyone in Tech Should Know About Teaching and Learning”

Scenario 5

You are teaching a workshop over the weekend in the Faculty of Natural Sciences. A student comments that the example datasets are not (relevant? important?) and that she would like to work with a different kind of data. When you ask her what kind of data she would like to work with instead, another student comments “Probably some feminist data set. Everything is always about the patriarchy with her.”

What could you, as the teacher, do about this situation?"

Scenario 6

During a workshop, the teacher asks the class for ideas to solve a problem in a case study. An immigrant student of colour has a suggestion, but no one takes it seriously. Later on, a white, male student makes the same suggestion and the teacher acknowledges its merits.

What can you do if you’re a TA?
What can you do if you’re a student?
What could you do as the teacher to avoid being in this situation in the first place?

Scenario 7

You are about to start a workshop. Before you begin, one of the learners approaches you and tells you that they would like you to give your pronouns when you introduce yourself and to ask the rest of the class to do the same. They also say that they would feel better if you could use inclusive language while you’re teaching.

How would you respond?
How do you think the rest of the class would react to this question?
What actions could you take if other students object to the question?

Scenario 8

You are explaining the code of conduct before starting a course, and one of the students interrupts you and says “what kind of world do you live in that you need this code of conduct in order to hold these workshops?”

What three responses could you give/actions could you take assuming that the actions taken did not resolve the situation?

Scenario 9

You are teaching a weekend workshop to group of high school students. At the start of the class, one of the students approaches you privately and says that for religious reasons, they would rather not be paired with certain other students.

What factors would you take into consideration in deciding how to respond?

Scenario 10

You work as volunteer helping refugees with university-level education learn data science skills in order to improve their chances of finding a job. As a result of COVID-19 all activities are online. You are going to teach to 20 participants, during 4 weeks, how to load, clean, and analyze CSV files exported from Excel.

What are the three biggest challenges you think your learners will face? For each one, explain how you will tell if it is actually a problem and what you will do if it is.

Scenario 11

What are the three biggest challenges you think you will face as an instructor? For each one, explain how you will tell if it is actually a problem and what you will do if it is.

Scenario 12

You are giving a two-day after-school workshop to incoming college juniors. You have asked them to work in pairs. After a few minutes, student A comes up to you and tells you that her partner, student B, has been making racist jokes. Student B overhears this and immediately denies having done it.

What steps would you take in this situation? Assuming your first and second steps do not resolve the situation, think of a third and fourth step.

Scenarios 1 to 8 were tranlated to English by J.C Szamosi.

Results

Here is an example of the type of considerations and discussions that occur in the groups:

Scenario 1

A student in your class has a medically diagnosed attention deficit. To maintain concentration, he has to talk to himself while solving problems. Other students in the class have approached you and told you that it distracts them. What steps would you take and in what order?

Group discussion:

Inform ourselves as teachers to address this situation 2.
Group awareness of how we learn differently 3.
If necessary, also talk individually with the people who feel uncomfortable. Suggest, for example, that they use headphones during activities where they need silence.
Arrange the room according to those who prefer more or less silence for working.
Design activities that allow for a group speaking discussion part and a writing part.

Scenario 2

You are an assistant to a new thermodynamics teacher. On the first day of class, the new teacher tells the students: “This is a very difficult course. You are going to have to work a hell of a lot harder than you have ever worked before for other courses, and still a third of you are not going to pass.” How do you think students might take this message, what steps would you take to talk to the teacher about the message?

Group discussion:

How do you think students might take this message?

We consider that it may produce a crack in the group of students, since there may be students who take it as a positive and negative motivation and also that it may produce fear, anxiety.
What steps would you take to talk to the teacher about the message?
- Seek the opportunity to meet with the teacher and convey the students' concern about not wanting to fail the course and jointly see a new way of approaching the course.
- I would address the importance of including a self-criticism of one’s own teaching, what are the thermodynamics teachers doing wrong that they are losing so many students?
- Teacher and assistant should agree to show solidarity and willingness to generate strategies to avoid that a third of the students do not pass. Looking for other teaching options, seeking feedback from former students, etc.

This is one of the exercises that is most valued in the feedback from the teachers who carry out the exercises. They always ask for more time for discussion in the group and in the whole group exchange.

It has been used in other training, as mentioned in this post Hack the (ARC) Teaching workshop.

What do you think of these types of exercises? Can you think of other scenarios to add? Let us know in the comments or by mail.