I appreciated C&D’s list of joys. Especially at this time of year, many current English 1K instructors seem to be utterly burnt out, and not really loving their jobs. It seems like staying positive and remembering to enjoy yourself are key to surviving. The reminder that teaching makes you a better student (7) resonated particularly with me. Since I won’t be teaching next year, I think the most immediately helpful thing about 8010 for me was learning about strategies to help students learn better. I’ve been trying to apply those strategies to my own studies, and I think it’s really been helpful. If I try to practice what I preach, I hope I’ll be able to stay on track and have fun.
I liked the constant reminder to avoid dwelling on the negative. They write, “do not kick yourself about it; just fix it” (9). That’s so hard to put into practice but it really seems to fit in with the mindfulness presentation last week.
Asking students to respond to written comments sounds very effective but emotionally very frightening. I’m not sure how to do this in a way that results in constructive change, but I think I want to try it. When I was a primary tutor for Shelley Ingram’s class last semester I learned a lot about working with students. She had a policy that students were not allowed to talk to her after class on the day she gave them back their graded papers. They could e-mail her the next day, but she required them to sit on their reaction to their grade for 24 hours. I liked that; she said it’s been really effective for managing concerns in a respectful and professional way.
I definitely want to do midterm evals. This semester I’ve been lucky to be in two classes where the instructors asked for midterm feedback, and then made changes to facilitate learning. Not only did the changes help the class dynamic, but the instructors’ respect for the class and flexibility to envision change made me realize how important this is in teaching.
2 comments:
I also think midterm evals are a great idea. I've never done that in a class before, which is strange. It seems like such a great way for instructors and students to discuss the course. I wonder if an evaluation at the beginning of the term might be helpful as well. After introducing the class, I'd like to know what students hope to gain from the class, any questions they might have, etc. I don't know how useful this will be, as I'm sure many students (particularly those who hate English and writing in general) will probably "just want to pass". Even a small amount of feedback, however, would probably be of use.
Yeah, I agree. In Dr. Looser's Austen class she had us write about how we were thinking about the class, why we took it, what we hoped to learn, etc, and I think it really helped get the class off to a good start.
Post a Comment