Please help, feel intimidated by my students

[Baleena]

Ive NC.

I lecture in special needs at a university. I'm standing in for a colleague for the next few months. These students of mine are going into a caring profession and it's essential they have a good understanding of how to work with children with SEN.

Unfortunately there's a group of them in the lectures who talk, laugh, whisper throughout my entire lecture. I know this may sound pathetic, but despite being so much older than them, I find it really intimidating.

I think I may have a touch of imposter syndrome. I need your advice on how to deal with this. SEN has been my passion for 40 years now, and the majority of my students are engaged. This group is distracting to other students, but as I say, also extremely intimidating to me. Because I'm only standing in for my colleague, I don't feel I can go to their superior to discuss the issue - it doesn't feel serious enough, they're just being a pain in the arse.

I need to find a way around it, it actually had me in tears I'm embarrassed to say. Does anyone have any advice for dealing with them and giving myself a bit of confidence?

You need to put your big girl pants on tell them to STFU or get out of the classroom.

I can imagine it's difficult to challenge people like these, but you're already doing something many other people would be terrified of doing (i.e. standing up and addressing a group).

I am a student. there is a group who do this in some of my lectures, and some lecturers will stop and tell the to shut the fuck up. Okay, they're more polite than that, but it works! And the rest of us really, really appreciate it. We're paying a lot to be there.

If you don't feel you can do that, speak to the module coordinator and ask them to do something, but please make it stop, it's not fair on you or the other students who do want to learn.

Definitely just stop and wait them out.

Will they have personal tutors you could speak to?

Your other students will thank you for dealing with them. I have been on the other side of this as a mature student a few years ago. A small group of students just would not stop talking and the lecturer did nothing to stop it. I know that a few of us complained.

It also happened after that on my teacher training course. I complained to the course director and it was dealt with. I paid a lot of money for my degree and teacher qualification, it's not fair for someone else to waste my money.

An old lecturer of mine once yelled out "WILL YOU PLEASE STOP TALKING OVER ME I CAN HEAR YOU AND YOU ARE PISSING ME OFF" (not at me i should add!)

It was really effective and no one fucked with him after that

I agree with the waiting idea. Stop, wait and look at them. Soon others in the crowd will look at them too. Only when it's silent should you continue. Do this every time it happens.

I may have been known to do this with the addition of a timer on my powerpoint.

With it being SN could you do a case study of when someone has SN and is distracting and when someone is just a selfish git?

Been there as both a student and a uni level teacher.

1. Stop talking. Stare. Do not resume until they shut up. Repeat as necessary.
2. Learn their names. Most effective shortcut to behaviour management. Throw questions out to the class and then choose them to answer. It is slower and more subtle than option 1 but works. Lack of anonymity makes them more accountable.
3. Classroom set up - if you can, stand next to them. Never fails.
4. Last resort - call them on their behaviour in class and tell them to leave. Downside to this is dealing with admin complaints afterwards.

Oh, yes, I used a timer too with high school students. Highly effective because that was how long I held them back after class.

I have said 'you are all paying a lot of money to be here, please do not disrupt the learning of those who wish to make the most of the experience'.
I don't speak if students are talking. I will ask them if they have anything they'd like to share. I go and stand next to talkers or disruptors.

All the other students are hoping you will deal with it.

It doesn't have to be complicated. Next time, look at them and say "Stop talking in my lecture." Don't ask rhetorical questions, don't engage in conversation with them, don't apologise. It is your lecture, they have no right to interrupt. If they carry on, tell them to take their conversation outside. Don't rush yourself, don't shout.

I don't feel I can go to their superior to discuss the issue.
I have different answers to this.

1. why the hell not? You owe them nothing. You certainly don't owe it to them to cover up their bad behaviour.
2. as their lecturer, you are their superior. There's no need for you to tolerate five seconds more of their disrespect. You don't need to pass this on to someone else, you can discipline them yourself.
3. you owe it to the other students in the room to sort it out.

I teach at Uni too.
If some of the students are getting too noisy, I just stop and stare at them.
If they do it again, i oil them up in it in the grounds that are disturbing everyone else.

Please don’t believe you are not good enough to do that job. Because I’m sure you are, otherwise you wouodnt have been asked to do it!!

I can't thank you enough for how kind you've all been, you've made me feel loads better. I'll try your suggestions and report back after thursday 😉

It's not the same scale but when I'm doing a presentation and people are disrupting it I stop and ask if everything is OK or there is something they don't understand. Then again I ask if they have any questions. Then next time I ask if they have things about the lecture they want to discuss if they could do it afterwards or come and find you at a later date as it may be difficult for others to hear. I'd do all this before asking them to leave as I'm not keen on confrontation and want to give them chance to stop before it gets nasty!

Otherwise you could say something at the beginning of the lecture like you've had some complaints and feedback comments from students that they are unable to hear everything or concentrate properly due to other students chatting so could everyone please be mindful of this and save discussions for outside the lecture. If they then aren't quiet you can remind them

You need to look at it from the other students point of view. You are the person in charge and it must be incredibly frustrating for the other students who want to learn.

Fake it until you make it. I channel my old geography teacher who was scary AF.

Oh I feel for you SO much. I am a teacher (sixth form) and my form group are a genuine nightmare. I feel like I have the whole collection of school bullies in my class. They smirk at me, snigger at anything I do or say and I feel very intimidated and threatened. It takes me right back to school days when you have to walk past the bullies at the bus stop and you absolutely know they will say something horrid to you as you walk past.

I have taught A-Level for years and have never had a form group like this before. They're usually mature and lovely!!

I feel for you so much

You've got this OP, looking forward to your update.
For you.💐

Do you have a big room?

You could do something interactive with them. Some sort of exercise or role play at the start that resulted in the coven being broken up.

You want to get everyone else on your side. You don't want to alienate yourself from the whole group with "gosh I'm so shocked at you immature students!"
Try welcoming the students as they enter, saying hello, checking in with some of the other students at the end how they found the lecture, how their course is going, which parts are hard work etc. Organise a fun presentation (you could organise groups to split up chatty group!) to make things more interactive so when chatty group chat they're not being respectful listeners to their peers. Groups to grade presenting group on relevant professional skills and conduct, activity can be repeated at end of unit to show progress made. Show how interested and warm and likeable you are 1:1. Then next time when you challenge the immature chatty ones you might get some support/the other students may be glaring at the chatty ones.

Board rubber to the face should sort it out.

Stop mid sentence and stare at them until they stop talking.

or

Make a general request for people to be quiet as other people are not able to hear what is being said.

If it continues, ask the specific students if they have any questions about the issue.

I have found silence and a hard stare to be very effective. Other learners will be grateful to you for dealing with this.

Paddington bear stare the fuck out of them.

I also teach adults and when I am being nice I do the whole ‘insert name, what are you saying. Can you share with the whole class’. When they usually reply that it’s nothing they then get the death stare and told to save it for break.

I have a colleague who reminds students that they are not prisoners and can leave if they don’t want to engage in learning.

If I am really getting annoyed they get the mumsnet favourite ‘insert name, are you always this rude’.

Always use their name so the whole class is in no doubt who you are referring to. Peer pressure can work in your favour.

You could do something interactive with them. Some sort of exercise or role play at the start that resulted in the coven being broken up.

Simple one, give out coloured strips of card, don't just hand them round, hand them individually to students on their way in, red, blue, yellow, green.

2 mins in to the lecture make them sit in colour order, blue on row one, yellow on row two.

This is a simulation of how some people with special needs feel, they cannot be with their friends.

Next session hand out the colours again. I bet your troubled group swap colours so they all have the same (you could also do this after a break).

This time you put them in groups of one red, one yellow etc.

It's ideal if you have a group task for them to do.

YOu can also get noise monitor apps to put on your laptop, bouncing balls is one, the more noise there is the more balls appear.

They are not to know you have put a blue tooth microphone near them so it is monitoring their noise levels.

These are aimed at primary children.