Discomforts of Guest Lecturing

Graphic by Cal

Because my Modern Hamster Lit students whined that they weren't sure they would be able to find jobs when they graduated, I invited a guest lecturer to speak in class today. She works in publishing and is in charge of hiring people with degrees in Hamster Literature, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for my students to network and to learn how to market themselves.

I had let my students know that I expected them to be on their best behavior and to show their appreciation that someone else cared enough help them find a job. For the most part, my students are engaged (they're senior majors), and I only have 3-4 who simply check out. But for some reason today, they all turned into snowflakey misfits. I wish I had never bothered to care about their welfare beyond the classroom:

Maternal Mathilda greeted the guest effusively by hugging her and welcoming her to the class and offering her "some gum." Maternal Mathilda then proceeded to sit in the front row, 'unseating' Overachieving Olga, who typically sits there, wherein a scuffle of sorts occurred, and I hissed at the students to settle it amongst themselves and not embarrass themselves.

Texting Tommy, true to form, walked in with his iPhone attached to his hand, where it stayed for the remainder of the class. I am pretty sure he did not even realize we had a guest lecturer.

One half of the class (four students who are usually engaged) promptly propped themselves up against the wall and fell asleep. I am not sure if they all stayed up gaming last night, but it was as if they'd planned this as a 'non-class' day.

Baleful Bob contributed that he didn't know why we bothered to talk about anything in the future because we were all going to die at the end of 2012, anyway. This is not the first time Bob has contributed this idea. The class knows to ignore him. My guest lecturer did not. She did what all seasoned professors know not to do: she engaged Bob in conversation. And Bob then proceeded to sigh and pronounce conspiratorial doom for three solid minutes before his neighbor cough/sneezed 'shut up!' (is there a verb for that? if not, we need one for the fake sneeze/cough message).

By the end of class, my guest had given up on everyone but the front row. That was the extent of her audience.

Today’s guest was by no means boring, but she presented her information like she was talking to a conference audience. I had warned her about the texters and talkers, and she had agreed that this was just par for the course. She was professional, had an organized presentation that was relevant to students hungering for jobs. Her voice was not annoying, and she did not exhibit any odd tics or snorts. She was sharing valuable information. And yet, she simply could not engage the students.

I have invited guest lecturers to speak to my classes before. The ones who usually do really well are already educators (high school teachers and other professors). Those in the 'industry' do not seem to know how to maintain or engage students' attention. One droned on in a monotone voice for 45 minutes before looking up from his notes. Another started to hit on the attractive married Mormon in the front row. A final disastrous guest had a psychotic episode during class and thought he was seeing sharks swimming outside the window (I cannot make up this level of crazy).

I think I’m doing the best I can with my audience. I am not an overly gregarious individual, but I spend a lot of energy and time trying to be more engaging because I have been told that if I am not engaging, I’m not doing my job to gain their attention so they can then learn. I change my presentation of material that didn’t go over well, come up with active learning strategies, incorporate real-life examples, infuse my lesson plans with relevant multimedia examples, and assign tasks that require students to employ critical thinking skills beyond memorization and regurgitation.

But I started to wonder if we educators spend too much energy (or maybe it’s just me) using techniques to engage students, when, in fact, in the work force, no one is going to put forth that much effort. I am doing what my school encourages me to do: find alternate ways to reach the snowflakes. But in doing so, am I hurting them by catering to their need to always be entertained by finding better ways to engage them when simple lecture and activities do not do the trick? Am I doing them a disservice by spending hours coming up with active learning techniques and ways to encourage them to learn material, when I could just be going ‘old school’ and lecturing from notes? Should I be more like my guest lecturer, who expected them to behave as professionals, rather than changing her lecture style to suit their need to always be stimulated?

What have your experiences with guest lecturers been, or thoughts on whether we do students a disservice by trying to engage them?