On free pizza being offered at student clubs:
"This is defiantly something that I could get used to."
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Well, that didn't take long...
No weekly recap from last week. Those entries were starting to feel forced, a sort of "this week such and such went right, such and such went wrong." In other words: boring.
My dilemma, as of late, is how to avoid this blog from becoming one of two things: A) a golly-gee-whiz teaching is super page or B) a whine-fest about students. Oddly, though, teaching seems to lend itself well to this dichotomy. I rarely have in-between days or classes. Things go right more often than they go wrong, yet when they go wrong they're spectacular disasters.
At least, that's how I perceive it. My new goal, though, is to put myself more in my students' place. A class session that I feel fails is, in their reality, simply a kind of boring hour of their day. It's more productive for me to spend my time working and planning than worry about what they think about me.
My dilemma, as of late, is how to avoid this blog from becoming one of two things: A) a golly-gee-whiz teaching is super page or B) a whine-fest about students. Oddly, though, teaching seems to lend itself well to this dichotomy. I rarely have in-between days or classes. Things go right more often than they go wrong, yet when they go wrong they're spectacular disasters.
At least, that's how I perceive it. My new goal, though, is to put myself more in my students' place. A class session that I feel fails is, in their reality, simply a kind of boring hour of their day. It's more productive for me to spend my time working and planning than worry about what they think about me.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Procrastination Panic
Luckily this entry deals not with my habitual procrastination, but rather my students'.
On the first day of class, attached to the syllabus, I give a two month long personal time-line/checklist for my writing students to keep track of their progress on. The time-line indicates that they should have comfortably had their argumentative topic chosen and their research completed two weeks ago. The trouble with time-lines? You have to look at them.
Their drafts are due a week from today. Panic, it seems, has sprung. Most random questions thus far today:
Student A - "I want to do my topic on the dangers of tanning, but I can't find good research talking about how it's bad for your eyes from the library database."
That's because I'm doubting that research exists, and even if it does, this argument is ridiculous.
Student B - "I think I want to do my paper about the end of the world."
Okay...so how is this an argumentative research paper?
In both examples I encouraged these students to rethink and reframe their arguments. We've spent the last several weeks talking about how we break broad topics down into arguable, manageable thesis statements. I've been hammering the point that your research may end up governing the final argument you make, and not the other way around.
Now, I'm hardly a procrastination hater - one of my classes deals with teaching active strategies to avoid it, but I'm as guilty of the vice as anyone else. As an undergrad, I did all my papers the night before. Grad school was even worse, usually with me starting a paper the morning it was due. The difference is that I always knew what I was going to write about, and had the research collected.
Writing this, I can't help but wonder the bigger lesson is: how to write an argumentative research paper, or how to master the academic skills that let you put it off until the last minute, but still get a good grade. Either way, final drafts are due soon, and we'll see what kind of apocalyptic, tanning-bed related papers they've come up with.
On the first day of class, attached to the syllabus, I give a two month long personal time-line/checklist for my writing students to keep track of their progress on. The time-line indicates that they should have comfortably had their argumentative topic chosen and their research completed two weeks ago. The trouble with time-lines? You have to look at them.
Their drafts are due a week from today. Panic, it seems, has sprung. Most random questions thus far today:
Student A - "I want to do my topic on the dangers of tanning, but I can't find good research talking about how it's bad for your eyes from the library database."
That's because I'm doubting that research exists, and even if it does, this argument is ridiculous.
Student B - "I think I want to do my paper about the end of the world."
Okay...so how is this an argumentative research paper?
In both examples I encouraged these students to rethink and reframe their arguments. We've spent the last several weeks talking about how we break broad topics down into arguable, manageable thesis statements. I've been hammering the point that your research may end up governing the final argument you make, and not the other way around.
Now, I'm hardly a procrastination hater - one of my classes deals with teaching active strategies to avoid it, but I'm as guilty of the vice as anyone else. As an undergrad, I did all my papers the night before. Grad school was even worse, usually with me starting a paper the morning it was due. The difference is that I always knew what I was going to write about, and had the research collected.
Writing this, I can't help but wonder the bigger lesson is: how to write an argumentative research paper, or how to master the academic skills that let you put it off until the last minute, but still get a good grade. Either way, final drafts are due soon, and we'll see what kind of apocalyptic, tanning-bed related papers they've come up with.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Weekly Recap: Week 4 of Fall '09
Ah, the pleasures and perils of having a guest presenter in your classes. On the one hand, you have less prep work to do and get to play "participatory audience member". On the other, you pass control over to another person - when this works, it's sublime, and when it fails, you end up with this.
Since many of my courses are developmental in nature, I go out of my way to give my students any leg-up possible. There usually is a world of reasons why a student ends up in my class as opposed to the "higher" version, and among the most frequent are learning disabilities (some diagnosed, some not). This week I decided to bring in a presenter from our Disability Resources department to do a presentation on Adaptive Technology for writing - basically a brief run-through of the computer programs they have to help students organize thoughts better, have material read aloud through a computer, etc. The University does a good job of emphasizing the idea of universal design, and how often progress made in order to help a certain part of the population actually in turn helps us all (example - think of any time you've had your hands full and hip-checked one of those handicapped buttons that automatically opens a door for you).
My presenter is a wonderful woman and a dear colleague, so this is in no way a criticism of her. To put it plainly, the presentation was a disaster. The software didn't work, every step was fraught with technology glitches, and even when something went smoothly, it just plain isn't interesting to watch someone tinker around with a computer program. I teach back-to-back sections of the same class, and the only thing worse than sitting through a difficult presentation is knowing that in another hour, there's a repeat performance.
I tried to play cheerleader, asking helpful and upbeat questions, finding ways to illustrate how - despite the fact that this program is failing in front of your very eyes - you really should consider using it. I sensed my presenter's frustration and embarrassment grow with each technical snafu. We both knew the class was bombing, but the show had to go on.
My own internal panic began to grow - this class is a struggle already, the kids don't want to be here right now, this isn't a productive use of anyone's time, why did I think this was important...
As class wrapped, a student lingered hesitantly. Everyone packed their books and shuffled off, and she approached the presenter and I:
"Um...I'm pretty sure I have some form of dyslexia. Those programs actually look really helpful - can I schedule a meeting with you to get tested?"
Instantly, I'm humbled. My worries had been so much about myself (and by extension, feeling the flop-sweat for my colleague), that I hadn't considered that this was, after all, a useful session - maybe not to everyone, and maybe not even to the majority, but we gave a student an avenue toward help, and ideally, success.
Since many of my courses are developmental in nature, I go out of my way to give my students any leg-up possible. There usually is a world of reasons why a student ends up in my class as opposed to the "higher" version, and among the most frequent are learning disabilities (some diagnosed, some not). This week I decided to bring in a presenter from our Disability Resources department to do a presentation on Adaptive Technology for writing - basically a brief run-through of the computer programs they have to help students organize thoughts better, have material read aloud through a computer, etc. The University does a good job of emphasizing the idea of universal design, and how often progress made in order to help a certain part of the population actually in turn helps us all (example - think of any time you've had your hands full and hip-checked one of those handicapped buttons that automatically opens a door for you).
My presenter is a wonderful woman and a dear colleague, so this is in no way a criticism of her. To put it plainly, the presentation was a disaster. The software didn't work, every step was fraught with technology glitches, and even when something went smoothly, it just plain isn't interesting to watch someone tinker around with a computer program. I teach back-to-back sections of the same class, and the only thing worse than sitting through a difficult presentation is knowing that in another hour, there's a repeat performance.
I tried to play cheerleader, asking helpful and upbeat questions, finding ways to illustrate how - despite the fact that this program is failing in front of your very eyes - you really should consider using it. I sensed my presenter's frustration and embarrassment grow with each technical snafu. We both knew the class was bombing, but the show had to go on.
My own internal panic began to grow - this class is a struggle already, the kids don't want to be here right now, this isn't a productive use of anyone's time, why did I think this was important...
As class wrapped, a student lingered hesitantly. Everyone packed their books and shuffled off, and she approached the presenter and I:
"Um...I'm pretty sure I have some form of dyslexia. Those programs actually look really helpful - can I schedule a meeting with you to get tested?"
Instantly, I'm humbled. My worries had been so much about myself (and by extension, feeling the flop-sweat for my colleague), that I hadn't considered that this was, after all, a useful session - maybe not to everyone, and maybe not even to the majority, but we gave a student an avenue toward help, and ideally, success.
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