Ah, the wonderful week between Christmas and New Year's is now restored to its rightful work-in-pj's-if-you-work-at-all state. MLA is next week, and at the end of it to boot, so right now, I sit happily at home working in comfy clothes and taking lots of breaks to do fun things. As it should be.
This Christmas was the first one where all the girls had to come home for it (even if coming home just meant driving across the city) and it was a very different Christmas for it. It seemed the day was set apart a bit more because it wasn't just that we all came downstairs that morning and voila! there were presents under the tree. This time, there was a distinct sense of pre-holiday - no girls around - and holiday - everyone here.
I liked it.
That might be because I have the coolest, most wonderful daughters ever. And a wonderful husband who tolerates our tendency to collectively giggle once in a while!
I hope you had a good holiday too.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Dear winter solstice, please come soon...
The worst part of December is sitting down at your desk in the dark to begin working, then turning off lights as the day progresses, and finally having to turn them all back on before you're finished...
Friday, December 17, 2010
'Tis the season(s)
The biggest problem I have with December - especially this year - is that several seasons converge within the month of the year that features the least amount of sun. And while I don't think I suffer from SAD, I find the lack of sun much harder to take than the cold weather. Having said that, today's December is a trifecta of intersecting seasons:
- #1 There's Christmas of course. Which I never seem to think of until
at least late November, and then it feels like I have no time to devote to it because of season #2. The outside lights are up, and thanks in part to my wonderful spouse, all the gifts are purchased (as long as I didn't forget anyone!). But the tree isn't up yet. Yes, I admit it. The tree's not up. It will be up by the end of the weekend (and the Christmas wine will be bottled by then as well), but not yet. Perhaps I'll even do some food preparation - to date, all I've managed is to buy a turkey... - #2 End of semester is the biggie that's taking up a lot of time. It's not just the exams either. I've been
asked to take on two new classes for next semester during December here as well. Both are new preps, though in one I'm taking over for another instructor, so most of the texts were already chosen. Even taking the easy route and teaching things I already know, it will be a lot of work next term. More importantly, it has meant that I've spent time during the period when I'm usually writing and then marking exams, deciding on book orders. My exam schedule kinda sucks too. Of the four courses I taught, the first two exams were the first day of exams and the last two on the last two days of exams. So they're weirdly spread out. But that's good because part of reason #3 kept me busy between. - #3 Job market season makes the whole fall semester busy, and if
you're lucky enough to get an interview, you need to start preparing just after you finish sending out letters (and sometimes they even overlap, like they are for me this year). I had a first interview earlier this week by video hookup because it was a good distance away. I suspect they did many of their interviews long distance, so I don't think I was disadvantaged by the virtual presence, but I did find that couple seconds lag on the video feed hard to navigate at first. And I of course walked out thinking of things I should have said - some are lessons learned for next time. I think I could be happy working at the institution, though it's not a dream job. But maybe the dream job isn't what you want to aim for straight off the PhD. We'll see. There's another to prepare for in a few weeks, so I hope I can take the lessons learned in this one and perform well in that.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Well, that didn't turn out quite like I imagined it would
I marked a mixed bag of final exams on Saturday, and honestly, I thought they would have been more uniformly good.
In that poetry class I was teaching, I decided that the final exam would be open book and that the students would have one task: create an anthology, selected from poems we studied, accompanied by an introduction that demonstrates what they learned during the class.
Frankly, I thought it sounded like a fun assignment. They would get to look over everything they'd done, think about it, and come up with an explanation of why we studied some of the things we did (i.e. why they are important things to learn).
I told them ahead of time it was open book and warned them that it would require them to think creatively. I even told them it would be to their advantage to insert tabs or use some other means of being able to quickly identify what we did in class. I also warned them that planning their response would be important and that they should give themselves enough time to plan rather than just diving into writing the exam when they got it.
Then they walked into the exam room (on a Saturday morning - how cruel!)
Some of them got it. They realized that the task was designed to test their knowledge and that they would need to demonstrate it by specific reference to the poems they chose to include in their anthology. They did a great job of selecting poems that served them well in highlighting several important features. Actually, many of them got it. Some ran out of time because they got caught up minor details, but most got it.
But some of them really missed the boat on this one. They tried to write about just about every poem we studied (and we studied more than 40 of them). Consequently, they did a horrible job of it. Some of them really got hung up on obscure forms like the villanelle and sestina, when we spent ten times as much time talking about figures of speech or sound structures, or even the use (and abuse) of poet biography when talking about poetry. No one failed the exam because they all were able to talk about some of what was important in the course. But some of them did a poor job of connecting what they'd learned to actual example. That was disappointing.
I get that the kind of meta-commentary on the course inherent in the task is difficult to undertake and that students often aren't asked to produce it. But they were English majors taking an elective poetry course - I guess I expected a bit more because they obviously very consciously choose to take the course. I would think that would have produced some more conscious learning on their parts. Their other assignments seemed to indicate they were thinking critically about the material.
Another weird thing that happened is that a couple of students wrote the introduction to the anthology as if they were planning syllabi, saying things like "Students should read this poem to..." I was so confused by this I went back to see if I'd inadvertently said something in the instructions that would lead them to think I wanted them to plan a mini-version of the course. But no, there's nothing there. Then I found myself wondering if those students didn't know what an anthology was? Perhaps. Then again, maybe they were just so focused on their own experience in the class, they steered toward course planning rather than anthology planning without really being aware of what they were doing.
What was probably even more surprising though was that some of them seemed to not understand the possibilities and perils of open book exams, leading me to think my colleagues are not offering them very often. I had one write a note in the margins that he/she wasn't sure of a spelling for a term when the glossary of terms in the back of the book was right there on the desk. Look it up! It's there for you to use. We'd even talked about this and I'd suggested that any annotations, sample scansions etc. they'd done in the text did not need to be erased before the exam.
What disappoints me the most in the poor showing is that I decided to make the exam this way because I thought such a task would not only assess their learning, but also be a final opportunity for learning. I wanted it to be not just evaluative but also a chance for the students to reflect critically on what they learned and how they learned it (i.e. which poems were most demonstrative of the skills they've developed). That didn't happen to the extent I thought it would. So I'm disappointed.
Looks like it's not just the students who learned a lesson here!
In that poetry class I was teaching, I decided that the final exam would be open book and that the students would have one task: create an anthology, selected from poems we studied, accompanied by an introduction that demonstrates what they learned during the class.
Frankly, I thought it sounded like a fun assignment. They would get to look over everything they'd done, think about it, and come up with an explanation of why we studied some of the things we did (i.e. why they are important things to learn).
I told them ahead of time it was open book and warned them that it would require them to think creatively. I even told them it would be to their advantage to insert tabs or use some other means of being able to quickly identify what we did in class. I also warned them that planning their response would be important and that they should give themselves enough time to plan rather than just diving into writing the exam when they got it.
Then they walked into the exam room (on a Saturday morning - how cruel!)
Some of them got it. They realized that the task was designed to test their knowledge and that they would need to demonstrate it by specific reference to the poems they chose to include in their anthology. They did a great job of selecting poems that served them well in highlighting several important features. Actually, many of them got it. Some ran out of time because they got caught up minor details, but most got it.
But some of them really missed the boat on this one. They tried to write about just about every poem we studied (and we studied more than 40 of them). Consequently, they did a horrible job of it. Some of them really got hung up on obscure forms like the villanelle and sestina, when we spent ten times as much time talking about figures of speech or sound structures, or even the use (and abuse) of poet biography when talking about poetry. No one failed the exam because they all were able to talk about some of what was important in the course. But some of them did a poor job of connecting what they'd learned to actual example. That was disappointing.
I get that the kind of meta-commentary on the course inherent in the task is difficult to undertake and that students often aren't asked to produce it. But they were English majors taking an elective poetry course - I guess I expected a bit more because they obviously very consciously choose to take the course. I would think that would have produced some more conscious learning on their parts. Their other assignments seemed to indicate they were thinking critically about the material.
Another weird thing that happened is that a couple of students wrote the introduction to the anthology as if they were planning syllabi, saying things like "Students should read this poem to..." I was so confused by this I went back to see if I'd inadvertently said something in the instructions that would lead them to think I wanted them to plan a mini-version of the course. But no, there's nothing there. Then I found myself wondering if those students didn't know what an anthology was? Perhaps. Then again, maybe they were just so focused on their own experience in the class, they steered toward course planning rather than anthology planning without really being aware of what they were doing.
What was probably even more surprising though was that some of them seemed to not understand the possibilities and perils of open book exams, leading me to think my colleagues are not offering them very often. I had one write a note in the margins that he/she wasn't sure of a spelling for a term when the glossary of terms in the back of the book was right there on the desk. Look it up! It's there for you to use. We'd even talked about this and I'd suggested that any annotations, sample scansions etc. they'd done in the text did not need to be erased before the exam.
What disappoints me the most in the poor showing is that I decided to make the exam this way because I thought such a task would not only assess their learning, but also be a final opportunity for learning. I wanted it to be not just evaluative but also a chance for the students to reflect critically on what they learned and how they learned it (i.e. which poems were most demonstrative of the skills they've developed). That didn't happen to the extent I thought it would. So I'm disappointed.
Looks like it's not just the students who learned a lesson here!
Friday, December 03, 2010
I couldn't have planned it better myself
In the poetry class I'm teaching, we began the first "real" class by reading William Butler Yeats' "Adam's Curse" because of its pairing of hard labour and creative production:
Couldn't have planned that better myself.
*Actually, there were two proposals tied for the highest number of votes. But as brilliant and interesting as the proposal to study Dr. Seuss's poetry might have been, I broke the tie by picking Yeats, thus reinforcing conventionality. But for a second year course, a survey, it seems to me that conventionality is entirely appropriate.
And the poet who we're studying in the poet study? The one that the students chose*? William Butler YeatsWe sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, 'A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.'
. . . . . . . . . And thereupon
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There's many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, 'To be born woman is to know-
Although they do not talk of it at school-
That we must labour to be beautiful.'
I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
Precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'
We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.
I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.
1903
Couldn't have planned that better myself.
*Actually, there were two proposals tied for the highest number of votes. But as brilliant and interesting as the proposal to study Dr. Seuss's poetry might have been, I broke the tie by picking Yeats, thus reinforcing conventionality. But for a second year course, a survey, it seems to me that conventionality is entirely appropriate.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Reprieve
The weather finally broke this week - the relief was almost tangible. But before it broke, we were the second coldest place on earth for part of Tuesday; the coldest was one of the research stations in Antarctica!
There's also a collective sigh of relief in the university as many of the major projects are being turned in, we've got only a handful of lectures left to prepare, and the seasonal gatherings/last seminars of the semester take place. I, at least, felt much happier with the way the semester was progressing this week, which I attribute to some interactions with colleagues, a marathon marking session that got a quarter of the major end of term projects out of the way, and the realization that everything except writing the final exams (and more marking) has been done for two of the four courses.
This got me thinking about the nature of academic life and wondering what it will be like to be a seasoned teacher. I know that everyone - from tenured folk down to first year adjuncts - feels a good deal of stress and anxiety during the semester that peaks mildly at the beginning of the semester, but pretty majorly in November. Such is the nature of the coursework; since you can't have students handing in assignments until later in the semester, after they've actually learned things, there's no getting around the bulge of marking that happens. And the beginning of the semester anxiety, though mild, is part of that whole 'getting to know you' phase that a particular class goes through where both the instructor and the students are figuring out how they'll work together. So some of the pattern seems inevitable.
[There are ways of lessening the end of the term marking bulge though. Presentations are often easier to mark since you mark while the student performs and then write up your comments at the end. Similarly, eliminating the ubiquitous research paper helps ease the marking load - in my poetry class, they have three poem analysis assignments scattered throughout the semester and a poet study proposal where they propose a short study of one particular poet, justifying their choice of poet by referring to his or her period/output/position etc. That's actually made it quite easy to mark for that class.]
But I wonder if I'll feel those ups and downs as intensely as the years pass. (Frankly, I kind of hope they won't be as intense, because they can be pretty exhausting.) For the first four years of teaching as a grad student, I taught writing in a fairly structured environment, so once I got past the first three semesters or so, things were just more of the same each semester after that.
Then the first two years after I left that program and taught, I was still teaching writing, just at a couple of different institutions, which meant I had some standard pieces that just needed to be adapted for different institutions or programs.
But over the last two years, I've started teaching literature as well - which I'm absolutely loving! - and in most cases, I'm developing everything during the semester from scratch. That's been pretty intensive. Rewarding. But intensive. This term in particular, I've been teaching 3 new preps, one genre course (the poetry one), a general education course (which has required me to present philosophical arguments as well as social science research in the classroom) and an upgrading course (which requires a huge breadth of material but also features some of the least prepared students). All of these have meant that I've felt a little overwhelmed more than once. That's why I wonder if I'll feel less stressed in subsequent years as I have all those experiences to draw from.
This coming term I was originally assigned just writing classes (though my favorite kind - tech writing). But now it looks like one might not run because it's underenrolled, so I was asked if I would take on a lit class. Another new one. I said yes, of course, because I'm a joiner, but also because I could see having some real fun with the class, even though I'll be pushing my boundaries yet again. Nothing's carved in stone yet, but it might happen. If so, I suppose I'm bringing some of the stress on myself, but also a challenge in developing yet more materials for presentation within the classroom.
But regardless of what happens next term, I do find myself wondering what it will be like 5, 10, 15 years from now when I've taught the Brit Lit II survey for 7, 12, 17 years. Will I be able to enjoy the facile expertise in teaching it because I've already done so so many times? Will I still feel stressed (aside from the marking bulge)? Will I get bored? What is it like to walk into a classroom knowing that you've done this successfully many, many times before? Is it reassuring? Or does it just seem repetitive?
Then again, the most important question might be: does it matter? Asking such questions presupposes that I will be teaching in that many years. Without a permanent position, it's hard to say where I'll be in x years. Maybe that's the only question I should be contemplating.
There's also a collective sigh of relief in the university as many of the major projects are being turned in, we've got only a handful of lectures left to prepare, and the seasonal gatherings/last seminars of the semester take place. I, at least, felt much happier with the way the semester was progressing this week, which I attribute to some interactions with colleagues, a marathon marking session that got a quarter of the major end of term projects out of the way, and the realization that everything except writing the final exams (and more marking) has been done for two of the four courses.
This got me thinking about the nature of academic life and wondering what it will be like to be a seasoned teacher. I know that everyone - from tenured folk down to first year adjuncts - feels a good deal of stress and anxiety during the semester that peaks mildly at the beginning of the semester, but pretty majorly in November. Such is the nature of the coursework; since you can't have students handing in assignments until later in the semester, after they've actually learned things, there's no getting around the bulge of marking that happens. And the beginning of the semester anxiety, though mild, is part of that whole 'getting to know you' phase that a particular class goes through where both the instructor and the students are figuring out how they'll work together. So some of the pattern seems inevitable.
[There are ways of lessening the end of the term marking bulge though. Presentations are often easier to mark since you mark while the student performs and then write up your comments at the end. Similarly, eliminating the ubiquitous research paper helps ease the marking load - in my poetry class, they have three poem analysis assignments scattered throughout the semester and a poet study proposal where they propose a short study of one particular poet, justifying their choice of poet by referring to his or her period/output/position etc. That's actually made it quite easy to mark for that class.]
But I wonder if I'll feel those ups and downs as intensely as the years pass. (Frankly, I kind of hope they won't be as intense, because they can be pretty exhausting.) For the first four years of teaching as a grad student, I taught writing in a fairly structured environment, so once I got past the first three semesters or so, things were just more of the same each semester after that.
Then the first two years after I left that program and taught, I was still teaching writing, just at a couple of different institutions, which meant I had some standard pieces that just needed to be adapted for different institutions or programs.
But over the last two years, I've started teaching literature as well - which I'm absolutely loving! - and in most cases, I'm developing everything during the semester from scratch. That's been pretty intensive. Rewarding. But intensive. This term in particular, I've been teaching 3 new preps, one genre course (the poetry one), a general education course (which has required me to present philosophical arguments as well as social science research in the classroom) and an upgrading course (which requires a huge breadth of material but also features some of the least prepared students). All of these have meant that I've felt a little overwhelmed more than once. That's why I wonder if I'll feel less stressed in subsequent years as I have all those experiences to draw from.
This coming term I was originally assigned just writing classes (though my favorite kind - tech writing). But now it looks like one might not run because it's underenrolled, so I was asked if I would take on a lit class. Another new one. I said yes, of course, because I'm a joiner, but also because I could see having some real fun with the class, even though I'll be pushing my boundaries yet again. Nothing's carved in stone yet, but it might happen. If so, I suppose I'm bringing some of the stress on myself, but also a challenge in developing yet more materials for presentation within the classroom.
But regardless of what happens next term, I do find myself wondering what it will be like 5, 10, 15 years from now when I've taught the Brit Lit II survey for 7, 12, 17 years. Will I be able to enjoy the facile expertise in teaching it because I've already done so so many times? Will I still feel stressed (aside from the marking bulge)? Will I get bored? What is it like to walk into a classroom knowing that you've done this successfully many, many times before? Is it reassuring? Or does it just seem repetitive?
Then again, the most important question might be: does it matter? Asking such questions presupposes that I will be teaching in that many years. Without a permanent position, it's hard to say where I'll be in x years. Maybe that's the only question I should be contemplating.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
How did that happen?
I'm in a weird place right now. It should be good, but, pathetically, I can't relax and enjoy it because the slightly-paranoid voice in my head keeps telling me it can't be this good and either something's going to go wrong or I've forgotten something and will only remember at the last moment.What's giving me the willies is the fact that it is a Saturday afternoon and I have everything prepared for this week and nothing left that needs to be marked.
Yes, I checked. It is the middle of November. If I was any doubt, I could look out the window at the big snow dump that doubled my commute all week.
That's what's making me a bit paranoid. How is it that I'm prepped several days ahead without any marking hanging over my head in the middle of November? I don't know that's happened before.
At the same time, I've had a very busy semester until this point, so maybe I should relax and enjoy it. What d'ya think? Yeah, I thought so too. But of course the cold and snow make me want to sit inside (or inside the hottub) rather than going out and enjoying the sudden relief from work.
Of course, as I think about it, there's a book review to do for December, a seminar to prepare (high-stakes and utterly different than anything I've ever done before), and a coursepack to revise and submit to the bookstore for next term. So I've got stuff to do.
But these things don't need to be worked on this weekend. Time to relax!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Two weeks too long
So many partial blog posts either partially composed in their little draft boxes, or still floating around the ether between my ears. Either way, I've not been writing.
Good news is that I'm finally caught up. In fact, that's why I'm blogging without guilt right now because all my lectures for Monday and Tuesday are prepped, and all I really need to do is finish reading the novel we'll be talking about in the one class. It's a re-read, so if I suddenly went blind tomorrow (or got some more of that horrible eye-jumping vertigo), I'd still be able to deliver. So I'm feeling good.
Of course now that I'm caught up we have out of town guests for two days plus a birthday party, which means I'll not be caught up for long. But it's good for now.
On other fronts, I've sent off the last of job letters and now the only thing that remains is trying not to stress about whether I'll get a call for an interview and continuing to check the job lists to see if anything new pops up. But for now, I've done what I can. I did find out someone googled me and found my academia.edu page, which I take as a hopeful sign that at least one search committee member didn't toss my application automatically into the rejection pile, but took twenty seconds to punch my name into a search engine.
Pathetic, yes, to be grasping at such straws. But I'm doin' it anyway. Hard not to.
I'm also looking forward to next semester when I'll only be teaching two courses and both of them are late in the day, so I'm hoping the exhaustion that's been dogging me will dissipate since I always feel better when I don't have to get up before 8am. Doesn't matter how much I sleep, but pre-8 am waking seems to tire me more than it should.
Can't even start thinking of the holidays, though I should, since ordering things sometimes needs several weeks lead time. So I suppose next week when I catch up again (after company leaves), it's time to start thinking about it.
I'm realizing these paragraphs are all terribly scattered and probably not very exciting. But that about sums up where life is right now. Getting by seems so appropriate at this point!
Good news is that I'm finally caught up. In fact, that's why I'm blogging without guilt right now because all my lectures for Monday and Tuesday are prepped, and all I really need to do is finish reading the novel we'll be talking about in the one class. It's a re-read, so if I suddenly went blind tomorrow (or got some more of that horrible eye-jumping vertigo), I'd still be able to deliver. So I'm feeling good.
Of course now that I'm caught up we have out of town guests for two days plus a birthday party, which means I'll not be caught up for long. But it's good for now.
On other fronts, I've sent off the last of job letters and now the only thing that remains is trying not to stress about whether I'll get a call for an interview and continuing to check the job lists to see if anything new pops up. But for now, I've done what I can. I did find out someone googled me and found my academia.edu page, which I take as a hopeful sign that at least one search committee member didn't toss my application automatically into the rejection pile, but took twenty seconds to punch my name into a search engine.
Pathetic, yes, to be grasping at such straws. But I'm doin' it anyway. Hard not to.
I'm also looking forward to next semester when I'll only be teaching two courses and both of them are late in the day, so I'm hoping the exhaustion that's been dogging me will dissipate since I always feel better when I don't have to get up before 8am. Doesn't matter how much I sleep, but pre-8 am waking seems to tire me more than it should.
Can't even start thinking of the holidays, though I should, since ordering things sometimes needs several weeks lead time. So I suppose next week when I catch up again (after company leaves), it's time to start thinking about it.
I'm realizing these paragraphs are all terribly scattered and probably not very exciting. But that about sums up where life is right now. Getting by seems so appropriate at this point!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Grading denial
There's an excellent post at Not That Kind of Doctor on the Five Stages of Grading which begins:
Unfortunately, that's the only laughing I'll be doing in regards to grading anytime soon. I'll be struggling to get through the grading that I have this weekend, which is frustrating since I'd worked hard this term to avoid grading jail.
For the first time ever, I created my course schedules - including due dates - all at the same time before the term began. I lined them all up side by side and adjusted assignment due dates so that I had no more than two things due each week for the four classes I'm teaching. This meant that starting at week 3, I had 1-2 assignments coming in every week except for the one after Remembrance day where nothing is due.
I was staying on top of the marking too, handing back assignments either the following class or within a week.
Except for this week.
I had intended to hand back one set of assignments yesterday (Thursday) after getting them in the Thursday before. I marked a midterm that also came in last week over the weekend and was ready to start marking the assignments on Tuesday. But on that day I started feeling terribly dizzy so went to bed after only marking a couple. Then I spent most of Wednesday undergoing tests to figure out why the vertigo was getting worse (I couldn't see straight at that point), which meant I missed two classes, one of which was to hand in yet more assignments.
On Thursday, I could see straighter, but couldn't read for more than five minutes before starting to get dizzy again and lose my ability to focus on the page. Even today, although I can read for a little longer, I need to take long breaks on a regular basis in order to let the dizziness dissipate.
So I've got a stack of papers that should and would have gone back already that have yet to be marked, and a blizzard of additional marking coming in next week because the regular marking will come in as well as another assignment that the students would have handed in had I been able to see straight enough to go to work on Wednesday.
It's a bit frustrating since I'd planned to avoid this weekend grading marathon until the last couple of weeks (when it's inevitable because those big research papers come in at that point). It's even more disappointing since I'd been very disciplined in staying on top of it and was feeling really good about how things were going up until this week. Now it's falling apart because I lost a couple of days of work.
I think I'll start the five stages with depression...
Everyone is familiar with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and her stage model of coping with grief popularly known as the five stages of grief. What you may not know is that Kübler-Ross actually developed her theory as a graduate student, basing her conception of the process of loss on the experiences one goes through over a grading weekend.I laughed at the post, especially one of the comments that attempts to explain how one might assess the Staircase Method scientifically.
Unfortunately, that's the only laughing I'll be doing in regards to grading anytime soon. I'll be struggling to get through the grading that I have this weekend, which is frustrating since I'd worked hard this term to avoid grading jail.
For the first time ever, I created my course schedules - including due dates - all at the same time before the term began. I lined them all up side by side and adjusted assignment due dates so that I had no more than two things due each week for the four classes I'm teaching. This meant that starting at week 3, I had 1-2 assignments coming in every week except for the one after Remembrance day where nothing is due.
I was staying on top of the marking too, handing back assignments either the following class or within a week.
Except for this week.
I had intended to hand back one set of assignments yesterday (Thursday) after getting them in the Thursday before. I marked a midterm that also came in last week over the weekend and was ready to start marking the assignments on Tuesday. But on that day I started feeling terribly dizzy so went to bed after only marking a couple. Then I spent most of Wednesday undergoing tests to figure out why the vertigo was getting worse (I couldn't see straight at that point), which meant I missed two classes, one of which was to hand in yet more assignments.
On Thursday, I could see straighter, but couldn't read for more than five minutes before starting to get dizzy again and lose my ability to focus on the page. Even today, although I can read for a little longer, I need to take long breaks on a regular basis in order to let the dizziness dissipate.
So I've got a stack of papers that should and would have gone back already that have yet to be marked, and a blizzard of additional marking coming in next week because the regular marking will come in as well as another assignment that the students would have handed in had I been able to see straight enough to go to work on Wednesday.
It's a bit frustrating since I'd planned to avoid this weekend grading marathon until the last couple of weeks (when it's inevitable because those big research papers come in at that point). It's even more disappointing since I'd been very disciplined in staying on top of it and was feeling really good about how things were going up until this week. Now it's falling apart because I lost a couple of days of work.
I think I'll start the five stages with depression...
Friday, October 22, 2010
What's up, doc?
What's up, is that this semester is kicking my ass.
Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying a lot of it. The Cultural Perspectives on Science course is developing pretty nicely. We've had the usual drop-off of students who've decided they no longer want to attend, but the ones who are regularly coming to class have been participating in some really interesting discussions, which regularly leave me satisfied and occasionally exhilarated. And the other classes are interesting too - there have been some really eager and productive discussion and some interesting assignments too.
But I do have to admit I'm finding it a bit of a rough haul right now.
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Brilliant! but oh, so hard!
So, I'm teaching this poetry class. That's the first of the brilliant-but-oh-so-hard parts of this story.I don't study poetry. I have one publication about a poem, but it's a long poem, and my work on it was in identifying its connection to the poet's biography and to the myths that are invoked in the imagery of the poem. So that's the first problem - I'm working outside of my comfort zone.
I'm teaching a second year poetry course. It's actually the first half of our university transfer course, leftover from the days (just over a year ago, in fact!) when we weren't offering degrees ourselves, only university transfer. Because our students can stay with us now, this is the last semester it'll be offered. (It is also the equivalent of the poetry class I took as an undergrad since my alma mater is where most of our students transferred to.) But since it's my first time teaching it, and the last time it'll be offered, I figured I had nothing to lose.
That's where the second brilliant-but-oh-so-hard part comes in. In considering how to teach this course, I figured a topical approach might be more interesting than a simple chronological one. I do find as I'm teaching the course, that a lack of chronological structure is difficult for me because we are bouncing around the anthology quite a bit, but I still think it's pedagogically sound, so we've been troopering along fairly successfully I think.
This means we have four units: "sound and structure" where we attend to alliteration, rhythm, meter and such, "forms and figures" where we examine sonnets, villanelles etc. as well as satire, monologues and figures of speech (yes, it's a bit of a hodgepodge), "periods" where we'll touch on some major periods and examine their features e.g. metaphysical and modernist poets, and finally a "poet study" where we'll examine the work of one poet for the last two weeks of class.
This is where my biggest brilliant-but-oh-so-hard part comes in. I decided that one of the assessment pieces would involve having the students propose who that final poet will be. They will need to write a proposal, which will need to include some information about the poet, which poems we should read, and a rationale for why we should study this poet's work. The class will vote on which proposal they want to adopt (I'll retain veto power if it seems that the vote is going in a really bad direction for whatever myriad of reasons it could). Then we'll study the poet in the last two weeks.
Yeah, I know. I'm not exactly making this easy on myself. I will have to generate two weeks of lectures based on the recommendation of a student, and in short order. But the assignment is due in mid-November, so we'll have almost three weeks before we will start studying that poet. Which should be enough time. (At least, I hope.)
But right now, I feel like I'm writing some kind of huge legal document in trying to describe this assignment to the students, since it is so different than anything I've done before and I'm certain very different from anything they've been asked to do before. There's logistics of access to the poet's works that we have to wade through, not to mention the politics of the class voting and trying to reassure students that votes don't correlate with grades (though in reality, they certainly could!) I am requiring them to provide scholarly criticism on the poet and/or his/her works, so they should still have to do some research in order to complete the assignment. And in order to really be persuasive, I think they'll have to develop a good rationale for the study as well as read a good deal of poetry.
I really like the idea of this assignment. It's just that it's looking like there's a lot of explanation that's going to have to go into the assignment sheet, and it's a bit overwhelming right now.
So I guess I oughtta get back at it instead of whining on the interwebs.
Sunday, October 03, 2010
I may be insane
Given the heavy teaching load (and I mean heavy... some days it feels downright unmanageable), my intention to present at three conferences over this year, and the need to take the dissertation material in an entirely new direction in order to make it into a workable book, I'm insane to have agreed to join our re-started fiction writing group.
Insane.
And yet.
I'm buying myself a little time by sending off material that's already been roughly drafted (though not completed by a long shot). Which means that I spent some of the last part of this week running through a first chapter draft, trying to eliminate the most awkward prose (not worrying so much about story at this point - that will have to come later).
Weird thing is, I really, really enjoyed it.
I also found myself becoming interested in the story again. I had started it quite a while ago, but got stuck after the fourth chapter (they're long, so it's about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through a book-length manuscript). And so I left it. And left it.
But I'm actually getting interested in it again. I still don't know how to get out of the fourth chapter and into the final one(s). But I'm beginning to suspect that in the process of editing what I've already got, I'll figure it out. And that feels pretty good.
Now to get back to the conference paper that has a real and hard deadline that's rapidly approaching, rather than the agreed-upon deadline of the writing group!
Insane.
And yet.
I'm buying myself a little time by sending off material that's already been roughly drafted (though not completed by a long shot). Which means that I spent some of the last part of this week running through a first chapter draft, trying to eliminate the most awkward prose (not worrying so much about story at this point - that will have to come later).
Weird thing is, I really, really enjoyed it.
I also found myself becoming interested in the story again. I had started it quite a while ago, but got stuck after the fourth chapter (they're long, so it's about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through a book-length manuscript). And so I left it. And left it.
But I'm actually getting interested in it again. I still don't know how to get out of the fourth chapter and into the final one(s). But I'm beginning to suspect that in the process of editing what I've already got, I'll figure it out. And that feels pretty good.
Now to get back to the conference paper that has a real and hard deadline that's rapidly approaching, rather than the agreed-upon deadline of the writing group!
Friday, September 24, 2010
Lazy professors
The Chronicle writes today about the myth of the lazy professor in an attempt to debunk it, and the responses are interesting in that they tend to simply reinforce it.
Much of the counter arguments against the lazy professor focus on how busy professors feel their jobs to be (not something I'm arguing with, though I find it interesting that this was the dominant form of evidence produced). In response, one commenter suggests that professors feel overworked because they have no idea what life is like in the "real" world. Another suggests that the only way to not feel overwhelmed as a professor is to learn to let unimportant deadlines lapse and to accept doing a "mediocre" job in most things, while yet another suggests that the myth arises because people who have bosses imagine what they would do if their boss wasn't watching all the time and then suppose that professors slack off the same way they would.
The first one, of course, makes me laugh. I've worked in the "real" world at a similarly high-motivation job, and although I always had way too much work to do there, I still felt much less compulsion to work evenings or weekends to compensate. I just prioritized and kept going, which meant that things got done when they got done. As a professor, I am far more invested in the job because I see it as an extension of myself, it's my identity, and so I am far more inclined to put in extra hours because it reflects back on me. (Interestingly, adjusted for inflation between that job and my current one, my compensation was roughly the same...)
The second one about doing a mediocre job is a bit disturbing, but only because it sounds like "mediocre" is less than excellent. When one understands that the "mediocre" mentioned is probably what a perfectionist means by mediocre (since in my experience, as a profession, academics tend toward perfectionism), then a perfectionist's "mediocre" might be pretty damn good. Then again, the writer may be one of those "deadwood" professors we always hear about. But giving the benefit of the doubt, it's possible that the writer feels like his/her output is mediocre, but those looking at the product probably think it's pretty stellar.
The last observation struck home with me though because from an outsider's perspective, the life does look pretty easy. First, there's little direct oversight (or at least very little that's directly observable from outside the institution). What little performance evaluation the public might see is on sites like RMP, in which even professors identified as "bad" by students remain in a job for years. Of course, the evaluations of students on RMP are problematic, which is why they aren't always a good indicator of effectiveness.
Second, even when oversight seems to be in place, the visible portions of a professor's job - the time spent in the classroom - seem minimal. Six hours a week? Doesn't seem like much, does it. Even the 13 hours a week I'm in the classroom sounds pretty small. But of course imagining that's all there is to the job is similar to imagining that the time spent on stage by any performer is all the time spent on the job. So U2 make millions for a few hours work three or four days a week while they're on tour? Not really. Then again, maybe a rock group like U2 isn't a good example since what they make for all they do is proportionally still much larger than a professor. But even an actor in the local playhouse, who makes much less, puts in many, many more hours than those spent on the stage. The job involves much more than just the performance itself.
Third, if indeed the myth is believed by people who imagine what little work they'd be able to get away with doing if they didn't have a boss, then we're talking apples and oranges when it comes to mindset. If you can imagine you'd do much less work without a boss, then you don't have the same mindset as a professor, who tend as a group to be highly self-motivated. In fact, I would suspect that if as professors we had bosses looking over our shoulders every day, we'd actually do less work. The work I do, I do because I'm motivated to do it, not because I know someone else is watching. If someone else was watching, I might not do as much because I'd probably resent the implication that I was not the best judge of what I should be doing with my time. That's what years and years of post-secondary education will do for you. There's so little structure in place to monitor professorial output because they don't need it, not because they are lazy and are avoiding it.
Personally, I don't know that the myth of the lazy professor is that prevalent, though perhaps the people I meet just are too polite to express it to my face. But it nevertheless serves as excellent fodder for Chronicle articles so that those both from within and without can reinforce as well as counter it.
Much of the counter arguments against the lazy professor focus on how busy professors feel their jobs to be (not something I'm arguing with, though I find it interesting that this was the dominant form of evidence produced). In response, one commenter suggests that professors feel overworked because they have no idea what life is like in the "real" world. Another suggests that the only way to not feel overwhelmed as a professor is to learn to let unimportant deadlines lapse and to accept doing a "mediocre" job in most things, while yet another suggests that the myth arises because people who have bosses imagine what they would do if their boss wasn't watching all the time and then suppose that professors slack off the same way they would.
The first one, of course, makes me laugh. I've worked in the "real" world at a similarly high-motivation job, and although I always had way too much work to do there, I still felt much less compulsion to work evenings or weekends to compensate. I just prioritized and kept going, which meant that things got done when they got done. As a professor, I am far more invested in the job because I see it as an extension of myself, it's my identity, and so I am far more inclined to put in extra hours because it reflects back on me. (Interestingly, adjusted for inflation between that job and my current one, my compensation was roughly the same...)
The second one about doing a mediocre job is a bit disturbing, but only because it sounds like "mediocre" is less than excellent. When one understands that the "mediocre" mentioned is probably what a perfectionist means by mediocre (since in my experience, as a profession, academics tend toward perfectionism), then a perfectionist's "mediocre" might be pretty damn good. Then again, the writer may be one of those "deadwood" professors we always hear about. But giving the benefit of the doubt, it's possible that the writer feels like his/her output is mediocre, but those looking at the product probably think it's pretty stellar.
The last observation struck home with me though because from an outsider's perspective, the life does look pretty easy. First, there's little direct oversight (or at least very little that's directly observable from outside the institution). What little performance evaluation the public might see is on sites like RMP, in which even professors identified as "bad" by students remain in a job for years. Of course, the evaluations of students on RMP are problematic, which is why they aren't always a good indicator of effectiveness.
Second, even when oversight seems to be in place, the visible portions of a professor's job - the time spent in the classroom - seem minimal. Six hours a week? Doesn't seem like much, does it. Even the 13 hours a week I'm in the classroom sounds pretty small. But of course imagining that's all there is to the job is similar to imagining that the time spent on stage by any performer is all the time spent on the job. So U2 make millions for a few hours work three or four days a week while they're on tour? Not really. Then again, maybe a rock group like U2 isn't a good example since what they make for all they do is proportionally still much larger than a professor. But even an actor in the local playhouse, who makes much less, puts in many, many more hours than those spent on the stage. The job involves much more than just the performance itself.
Third, if indeed the myth is believed by people who imagine what little work they'd be able to get away with doing if they didn't have a boss, then we're talking apples and oranges when it comes to mindset. If you can imagine you'd do much less work without a boss, then you don't have the same mindset as a professor, who tend as a group to be highly self-motivated. In fact, I would suspect that if as professors we had bosses looking over our shoulders every day, we'd actually do less work. The work I do, I do because I'm motivated to do it, not because I know someone else is watching. If someone else was watching, I might not do as much because I'd probably resent the implication that I was not the best judge of what I should be doing with my time. That's what years and years of post-secondary education will do for you. There's so little structure in place to monitor professorial output because they don't need it, not because they are lazy and are avoiding it.
Personally, I don't know that the myth of the lazy professor is that prevalent, though perhaps the people I meet just are too polite to express it to my face. But it nevertheless serves as excellent fodder for Chronicle articles so that those both from within and without can reinforce as well as counter it.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Tech school saves the day!
I keep thinking up blog posts when I'm in no position to blog (driving, walking to class etc.) but they don't get written because my life is pretty full of being a teacher right now.
Those three new preps are keeping me busy, but I'm also keeping on top of them, so it's good. So far.
But since time's the source of non-blogging, it seems appropriate to blog about saving time.
I have a non-credit upgrading course for students who aren't ready to take university level English. Foolishly, I thought something that looked like a grade 12 curriculum would be fairly easy to organize (not to teach mind you, just to put together) because I'd be able to use a lot of material from different periods, genres, and places. I figured I'd then be able to use nothing but texts with which I'm already familiar.
That of course turned out to not be the case since there are some pretty strict requirements for the structure of the course. But I did figure out how to make the prep for that course easier.
I've discovered that the first year writing course I taught at the tech school I was at is actually at the right level for an upgrading class, which means that at least the assignments and exercises we did will be suitable. Hooray! I fairly danced when I figured out I had a set of in-class exercises that would do what we needed to in this class already prepared from the previous one.
Now, it should be obvious at this point that there's something amiss here. Materials that I first developed for students in a post-secondary first year writing class will be useful in teaching students who perhaps have not even finished high school. But yes, the level of preparedness of the students at that tech school and the one I'm at now are radically different. And what I can expect from my students (even the non-credit ones) here is slightly higher than what I could expect from my students at the other school.
In theory, one would hope that an introductory English class at one school is relatively similar to that at another. But in reality, that's not always the case. On that level, this observation is a sad one.
But, boy, am I glad to have found some ready-made materials that just need a little tweaking to help me prep for this class!
Those three new preps are keeping me busy, but I'm also keeping on top of them, so it's good. So far.
But since time's the source of non-blogging, it seems appropriate to blog about saving time.
I have a non-credit upgrading course for students who aren't ready to take university level English. Foolishly, I thought something that looked like a grade 12 curriculum would be fairly easy to organize (not to teach mind you, just to put together) because I'd be able to use a lot of material from different periods, genres, and places. I figured I'd then be able to use nothing but texts with which I'm already familiar.
That of course turned out to not be the case since there are some pretty strict requirements for the structure of the course. But I did figure out how to make the prep for that course easier.
I've discovered that the first year writing course I taught at the tech school I was at is actually at the right level for an upgrading class, which means that at least the assignments and exercises we did will be suitable. Hooray! I fairly danced when I figured out I had a set of in-class exercises that would do what we needed to in this class already prepared from the previous one.
Now, it should be obvious at this point that there's something amiss here. Materials that I first developed for students in a post-secondary first year writing class will be useful in teaching students who perhaps have not even finished high school. But yes, the level of preparedness of the students at that tech school and the one I'm at now are radically different. And what I can expect from my students (even the non-credit ones) here is slightly higher than what I could expect from my students at the other school.
In theory, one would hope that an introductory English class at one school is relatively similar to that at another. But in reality, that's not always the case. On that level, this observation is a sad one.
But, boy, am I glad to have found some ready-made materials that just need a little tweaking to help me prep for this class!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
De-feet and teaching
I'm looking through my shoes, trying to decide what to wear tomorrow so that I'll survive the day. I have 5 hours solid in the classroom, and that pretty much means 5 hours of standing, so I need something with a bit better support than last week. After the first day of teaching, my legs ached from the unaccustomed standing.
I did walk a lot over the summer, but I also sat a lot. I didn't stand in one place (or relatively one place) much though, and the 3 hours of teaching last week made my legs and hips sore.
I realize you might be thinking, "why don't you just sit down while you teach?" but frankly, that's always struck me as a bit odd. It seems too casual somehow, and I wonder if students at the back of the room might get distracted because they can't see me properly.
I know some of my colleagues regularly sit during lectures, but that just feels too casual. I also move constantly throughout the room during exams. I don't want to catch cheaters - I hope none of my students feel the need to cheat. But I also think that many students cheat because it's an opportunity crime. They see someone else's answer sheet and copy. Or they see that the teacher isn't watching and pull out their phone. I figure if I'm constantly moving through the classroom, varying the pattern of my movement, I keep them on edge and less likely to be tempted.
Besides, I've been in a class as a student where others were blatantly cheating because the prof was seated at the front of the room with his head in a book. That really ticked me off, and there was no way to even catch his eye because he didn't look up at all. I can't help but think that if he had circulated through the room, those students wouldn't have cheated. /rant
I actually had a student comment on my standing last semester. He seemed surprised that I never sat down during class - apparently many of his other profs did.
But I like to move around at least a bit, so I end up standing a lot. I do sometimes sit on top of a desk while we're having a discussion because I often don't need to actively participate in them when the students start talking to each other. But when I'm lecturing or leading the discussion, it seems necessary to be able to maintain eye contact with anyone in the room, and being on the same level as they are would make that hard.
Perhaps it's odd, and maybe at some point I'll find it too hard and have to sit. But right now, I need good shoes to stand in for 5 hours...
I did walk a lot over the summer, but I also sat a lot. I didn't stand in one place (or relatively one place) much though, and the 3 hours of teaching last week made my legs and hips sore.
I realize you might be thinking, "why don't you just sit down while you teach?" but frankly, that's always struck me as a bit odd. It seems too casual somehow, and I wonder if students at the back of the room might get distracted because they can't see me properly.
I know some of my colleagues regularly sit during lectures, but that just feels too casual. I also move constantly throughout the room during exams. I don't want to catch cheaters - I hope none of my students feel the need to cheat. But I also think that many students cheat because it's an opportunity crime. They see someone else's answer sheet and copy. Or they see that the teacher isn't watching and pull out their phone. I figure if I'm constantly moving through the classroom, varying the pattern of my movement, I keep them on edge and less likely to be tempted.
Besides, I've been in a class as a student where others were blatantly cheating because the prof was seated at the front of the room with his head in a book. That really ticked me off, and there was no way to even catch his eye because he didn't look up at all. I can't help but think that if he had circulated through the room, those students wouldn't have cheated. /rant
I actually had a student comment on my standing last semester. He seemed surprised that I never sat down during class - apparently many of his other profs did.
But I like to move around at least a bit, so I end up standing a lot. I do sometimes sit on top of a desk while we're having a discussion because I often don't need to actively participate in them when the students start talking to each other. But when I'm lecturing or leading the discussion, it seems necessary to be able to maintain eye contact with anyone in the room, and being on the same level as they are would make that hard.
Perhaps it's odd, and maybe at some point I'll find it too hard and have to sit. But right now, I need good shoes to stand in for 5 hours...
Thursday, September 09, 2010
I LOVE teaching!
Okay. I have to say it, and I have to say it now, because I know the bloom will be off the rose very shortly.
But I had a *great* first day!
This, despite the fact I have an 8am class (Brit Lit II survey... some strange scheduling there!). I don't like mornings. 9am classes are good. I'm not one of those people who complains if I have to come in before noon. But there's something about getting up that one hour earlier that gets tougher and tougher as the semester progresses.
But today? I had a fabulous day. I met the survey class students bright and early, and all but one were there are ready at 8am. And I had two former (non-major) students signed up. The course is open enrollment as long as you meet the pre-reqs, but I was still a bit surprised to see their names on the roster. I wonder if they realized they got me? As part-time, my name doesn't go into the calendar, so they might not have known originally.
Then again, maybe they knew it was me and came for that reason. Who knows?
My GenEd students in the afternoon looked kinda sullen for much of the class - you know, the syllabus explaining, schedule distributing part - but at least some of them perked up with the brief discussion we had at the end of class. I can see some potential conflicts between strongly held beliefs ahead though.
But I also got some interesting responses when I had them fill out a short questionnaire indicating why they chose this class. I had a few of course who said it was the best of the three horrible options they had, but I also had some who seemed genuinely enthused and thought it would relate back to their majors, which is what GenEd is about after all, so by the end of the class I was pretty excited (but tired!)
I actually had to cut off the discussion to end the class, so we might get some good give and take going, as long as I can keep some of the dominant ones (I can see some of them already) in check to allow other points of view.
But it was a very satisfying day overall.
Only problem is, now I have to get ready for the other two classes. Here's hoping they're as enjoyable (at least in this first week) as this one was!
But I had a *great* first day!
This, despite the fact I have an 8am class (Brit Lit II survey... some strange scheduling there!). I don't like mornings. 9am classes are good. I'm not one of those people who complains if I have to come in before noon. But there's something about getting up that one hour earlier that gets tougher and tougher as the semester progresses.
But today? I had a fabulous day. I met the survey class students bright and early, and all but one were there are ready at 8am. And I had two former (non-major) students signed up. The course is open enrollment as long as you meet the pre-reqs, but I was still a bit surprised to see their names on the roster. I wonder if they realized they got me? As part-time, my name doesn't go into the calendar, so they might not have known originally.
Then again, maybe they knew it was me and came for that reason. Who knows?
My GenEd students in the afternoon looked kinda sullen for much of the class - you know, the syllabus explaining, schedule distributing part - but at least some of them perked up with the brief discussion we had at the end of class. I can see some potential conflicts between strongly held beliefs ahead though.
But I also got some interesting responses when I had them fill out a short questionnaire indicating why they chose this class. I had a few of course who said it was the best of the three horrible options they had, but I also had some who seemed genuinely enthused and thought it would relate back to their majors, which is what GenEd is about after all, so by the end of the class I was pretty excited (but tired!)
I actually had to cut off the discussion to end the class, so we might get some good give and take going, as long as I can keep some of the dominant ones (I can see some of them already) in check to allow other points of view.
But it was a very satisfying day overall.
Only problem is, now I have to get ready for the other two classes. Here's hoping they're as enjoyable (at least in this first week) as this one was!
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Bad rhetoric
A recent article at the CHE on teaching got me thinking about rhetoric, so I thought I'd share. From the opening paragraph:
Then the third sentence contrasts teaching with recreation and research, which by implication suggests that teaching has not had money lavished upon it or the latest technologies installed in classrooms. That's where I have a problem with this introduction because it sets up a false comparison. It pits recreation and lab equipment against teaching "equipment" and technologies. But most teaching is still the interaction between teacher and student, an embodied, sometimes visceral, most often corporeal interaction. And even in online learning, the use of language by the student and teacher, even when facilitated by electronic rather than face to face means, is still intensely personal.
I don't mean that student and teacher become friends, or even that their language use is colloquial and intimate (though the colloquial does occasionally emerge (and I hope the intimate does not)), but that the process of teaching is one human being sharing knowledge and experience with another. There's little need for fancy doodads and gadgets to make that happen.
And yes, it's not like teaching doesn't need support through resources and technologies. But the crux of the relationship - a mentoring one many times - is still one human being talking to another. And all the bells and whistles in the world won't change that.
That's what annoys me about these kinds of false oppositions. They lose sight of the very different kinds of activities that research (labs), recreation, and teaching/learning encompass.
With lavish recreation centers and sophisticated research laboratories, life on college campuses is drastically different from what it was 100 years ago. But one thing has stayed virtually the same: classroom teaching.In all fairness, the quote does go on to talk about how the work of the professor, to design lessons and evaluate has stayed relatively the same, but the parallelism of the first sentence: "lavish" recreation centers and "sophisticated" research labs implies resources have been poured into these two areas. And by resources one gets the sense that the structures that house recreation and laboratory activities have gotten the latest upgrades, including the latest technologies possible.
Then the third sentence contrasts teaching with recreation and research, which by implication suggests that teaching has not had money lavished upon it or the latest technologies installed in classrooms. That's where I have a problem with this introduction because it sets up a false comparison. It pits recreation and lab equipment against teaching "equipment" and technologies. But most teaching is still the interaction between teacher and student, an embodied, sometimes visceral, most often corporeal interaction. And even in online learning, the use of language by the student and teacher, even when facilitated by electronic rather than face to face means, is still intensely personal.
I don't mean that student and teacher become friends, or even that their language use is colloquial and intimate (though the colloquial does occasionally emerge (and I hope the intimate does not)), but that the process of teaching is one human being sharing knowledge and experience with another. There's little need for fancy doodads and gadgets to make that happen.
And yes, it's not like teaching doesn't need support through resources and technologies. But the crux of the relationship - a mentoring one many times - is still one human being talking to another. And all the bells and whistles in the world won't change that.
That's what annoys me about these kinds of false oppositions. They lose sight of the very different kinds of activities that research (labs), recreation, and teaching/learning encompass.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
This is gonna be some ride!
After being yanked rather reluctantly from my own research back into the realization that the semester is soon upon us, I realized that it was high time I started prepping courses since there's lots to do yet. I may be in for quite a ride this semester.I only have one conference this semester, unlike some when I've had as many as two conference papers to produce, so I've been trying to finish off that paper. It's roughly sketched out, but still needs a really good draft completed before we get to the point where classes start.
Speaking of classes, because I have three new preps in the four courses I'm teaching, I have a lot of new material to develop. I'm teaching the survey class again, which is good and the only thing I changed was the novel. I switched from Doris Lessing's The Antheap to R.L. Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, which I'm much more conversant with, so that's not a big deal. But I also have the poetry course, my gen ed course in "making humans" (which I'm VERY excited about!) and an upgrading course. This means I have to:
- read and develop lectures/discussion activities questions for 4 novels I've read before
- read and develop lecture material/activities for a novel I've never even read before (thank goodness it's a short one)
- read a Shakespeare play - Othello - that I haven't read in years and develop a drama unit for the upgrading class
- write 9 new assignments - of these, two will be versions of a research paper, so I only need to tweak existing research assignments, but that still leaves 7 new ones (this doesn't include exams unfortunately)
- prepare about 4 dozen poems for discussion/lecture materials
- read and prepare lecture/activities for half a dozen short stories
When I sat down to put together the syllabus for the upgrading class, a lot of the material that I had in front of me from which to fulfill the requirements was material that I haven't taught before, so a lot of the new reading comes from this course alone. I'm still looking forward to most of that reading and the challenge of developing the material, but it will be a lot of work!
The bright spot in all this is that my two lit classes - poetry and the survey - are not full, so I should have fewer papers to mark in those than usual, and the fact that I'm not teaching any composition also means I'll have less marking to do than I usually have. In fact, the upgrading course - which will probably require the most handholding on my part - consists of a number of unit tests as well as a couple of shorter writing pieces, so the marking in it should be fairly light as well.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Summer, where are you?
I refuse to turn on the furnace before September. I refuse to turn on the furnace before September. I refuse to turn on the furnace before September. I refuse to turn on the furnace before September. I refuse to turn on the furnace before September. I refuse to turn on the furnace before September.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Finished... sort of...
Finished all 4 syllabi for this semester - hooray!
I say I sort of finished them because although the actual syllabus is finished for each class, there are many, many assignments yet to write - I think I've got about a dozen new ones this semester - and I don't feel like I've finished the syllabus until I've at least drafted what I want those assignments to say.
Funny how I don't feel the same need to write exams ahead of time, but writing assignments and presentations I do.
I say I sort of finished them because although the actual syllabus is finished for each class, there are many, many assignments yet to write - I think I've got about a dozen new ones this semester - and I don't feel like I've finished the syllabus until I've at least drafted what I want those assignments to say.
Funny how I don't feel the same need to write exams ahead of time, but writing assignments and presentations I do.
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