During an advising meeting, a student told me: Before the pandemic, I was basically willing to do anything I was asked to do in a class. Now, I can’t stand busywork. I will only do work that feels important to me.
I appreciate the student’s honesty, and I appreciate how this student–like many of us–clarified their values over the course of the long pandemic. Spending hours in isolation made us appreciate those truly life-affirming things, and it made us less willing to do things where the effort just didn’t feel worth it.
At the same time, professors don’t intentionally assign work that is meaningless. Poll most professors, and I trust that they will respond that the work they assign is essential to learning. Why the disconnect?
In part, students are struggling with the adjustment to in-person learning and socialization. They have too much to do, and they just won’t do it all. But as important, faculty can always do more to make the implicit explicit (explaining why the work matters and how it connects to meaningful learning), while also listening empathetically to student concerns and perceptions of the quality and meaningfulness of the work we assign.
For excellent insight into this issue, one that draws on recent educational research, see “Overcoming the “Busywork” Dilemma” published by Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching. And if you are worried about student perceptions of the work you assign–they feel it is busywork but you see it as essential or at least very important–or would like ideas about how to explain its meaningfulness to students, please schedule a time to talk.