End of the semester blues…
The end of the semester is drawing near and I’m blue about it. I can’t identify why, either. This semester started in such chaos with all the campus changes. Perhaps I’m just drained from it. I hope that I can re-energize after Rome this Christmas (a little under a month away). I hope that I can start the new semester fresh and psyched, unlike this August. I have excellent students this semester, which really carries me through the weekly grind. There are some definite changes I am making next semester, however. So, in random order:
1. I am adding a service learning component to the interpersonal class. There is a new “conversational partners” program on campus to help international students learn English. I am going to create a service learning project around the program. To that end, I joined this semester. I have a great partner. She’s Chinese and she’s a non-traditional student. She’s been a housewife here for several years after being on what sounds like a high-power career path in China (in finance). I’ve learned a lot and we’ve had some surprisingly deep conversations. For the class, I’m thinking about having structured journal questions and then the option of a paper or creative project.
2. I need to rethink the group project. I’ve never been satisfied with it. I do the standard “follow the Dewey steps” project. That style of project does not create enough impetus for interdependence. It’s too easy for everyone to go off and work on their little corner of the project. I need to find something that forces them to depend on each other more. Due to the high drop and/or disappearance rates at BRCC, I have to wait late in the semester to assign them to groups, which means that they don’t really have enough time to develop distinctive group dynamics. I need to force the issue somehow and I’m not sure what will accomplish that.
3. I’ve decided to trim my lectures substantially and leave more time for dicussion beyond the in-class activites. This will take some serious re-thinking. I’m considering posting notes on blackboard. I’ve hesitated to do that because I truly believe that students learn better when their hands move across the paper and that they stop listening in class if the notes are available. In my MWF classes, my lectures average 20 minutes, running from about 12 to about 25 minutes, with some a bit over. In my TTH classes, they run about 25-30 minutes, as short as 18 and as long as 35. I don’t really think 25 minutes of lecture is a bad thing, though I do prefer to keep it closer to 18. Still, my classes seemed very talkative this semester and I had to focus the conversation more than I liked.
4. I really hate teaching public speaking. Since my Gender and Comm class is going to get whacked, I’m fairly sure, I’m going to try to get the Intro to WGS and the Cyberculture classes done in the Spring so I can teach them next year. Since I’m stuck teaching this class, I’m going to make a concerted effort to show some videos of student speeches in class. In the meantime, I’m going to try to think of some ways to spice up that class. Someone on one the discussion lists posted some neat non-graded speech examples that I might try.
5. Also, totally unrelatedly, I’m going to get back to cleaning my office. I stopped at something like step 22 or something.
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