Post #1: Reflecting on a Semester from the Beginning

  After reading (partially) an article about reflective writing and teaching in the AAC&U publication, Liberal Education, I decided that I needed to do a regular and frequent reflective practice this semester. It is time, and I am trying to focus fully on my teaching—online and f2f—this semester, shake some things up, develop some empathy with boundaries for students, follow the science of learning, and mostly be fully aware and mindful. Truly, I have let overloads and extra responsibilities and my personal projects overshadow teaching and students. I am tired of that, and especially for my online students, it means I waste time from not being organized.

This semester I have 8 classes. Yes, that’s too many, but let me explain. I am teaching the equivalent of four one-hour classes, so those are not the same as three-hour ones. Then I have two fundamentals of speech courses, one online business writing, and a course for the University System’s ecourses. So, 16 hours. That adds up to well over 200 students. So, I have to be in total control of my classes. About half of the students are online.

One is a “repeater” course for the Perspectives students who failed last semester. Quite a few of those. Then two traditional ones for Perspectives. I have revised those to be less time-consuming for the students and me. My real goal is to have a very clear and streamlined online course design and syllabus, in the belief it will minimize unnecessary emails to explain unclear (or perceived unclear) design.

In that vein, I spent close to two weeks after Christmas revising, improving (hopefully), and uploading my classes. It was tedious at times but it also helped me clarify my own thoughts on the courses.

Two days ago we started the semester, and now by Wednesday night I am exhausted. I normally walk my dogs in the evening, but I can’t muster the energy. I am thankful for a long weekend already! No classes Thursday, but administrative work, and lots of it.

So, about the reflection. In the article I read, the author said he reflected at the end of the semester, and he said he used questions like what went well, what did not…. I think he’s got the wrong approach. First, that is not timely, and second, the questions. The first part of reflection is to think clearly what happened, not to evaluate it. I firmly believe this, from my research on reflection—reflection starts by clearly thinking through an experience, then putting it in perspective/context, and not immediately jumping to evaluation or meaning-making.  That is too dependent on emotional factors, although emotional factors should not be ignored.  

Reflection should be weekly, or more, especially if one is intentional about improving one’s teaching. So, here we go.

Every semester in Fundamentals of Speech, on the second day I do a buzz group kind of exercise. I put the students in (assigned) groups (good ol’ counting off) because I don’t usually want them to get into the habit of picking the same partners for groups. The whole point of the class is to create a community of speakers, so they have to get to know the whole class, at least somewhat. This time I improved the questions (same content, better wording).They create a poster of their brainstormed answers, and this semester I had all the members stand and talk about their poster—in the past I just had a spokesperson. This way, they all gave a short “speech” today. The thing is, the questions I changed beforehand, but the “everyone speaking” came to me in the moment, and it made so much sense. In grad school I learned about reflection in actin—which is basically not being automatic and habitual in everything.

By the way, these questions are for them to articulate how they can benefit from the class and use the information, rather than me telling them. A professor telling the students why the class is important is somewhat silly and naïve, at best.

Another important principle is “less is more.” I had three main topics/goals today, put them on the board as agenda, expected some level of involvement rather than me just talking, etc.  I reminded them of expectations and deadlines. These I normally do, but I did it at the beginning and end. (I have two identifical classes at 8 and 9:25, 75 minutes long, so three hours essentially. That’s why I’m exhausted tonight.)

Now, in regard to yesterday, when I met my Perspectives (first-year-seminar) students, we started with a get to know you using Soularium cards, which I highly recommend. The first class at 9:25 bought into them more than the 10:50 class, but at least they saw they could not hide. I have a saying I used in a promotional video: College is not about sitting still, and I am proud of that. I expect them to move, walk around, stand, talk, not just sit and listen.  How horrible!

I had an awful time with my Perspectives students last semester, and I am determined to drag everyone of them to an A. Not really. I am determined to have an engaging and useful (whether they see it or not) learning environment/experience, but they have to do the work. Some of them got all Fs in the fall, and I am not kidding. That’s hard to do; it’s totally ignoring every class! But the goal is clarity, clarity, clarity of expectations, etc., but absolutely no wiggle room. If they choose not to read a 500-word article and write a short summary every week, then I can’t help them. Realistically, I have too many students to let them turn things in late.

In that class, I really wanted to come across chill. Not like the Type A I am. If not chill, then warm, friendly, interested in their success. Full of good ideas and enthusiasm. I got very frustrated, sometimes curt, with them last semester for not turning in work (and I mean not turning in anything). I was clearly not happy. That won’t happen again. They don’t get to cause me grief. No longer.

This is the first of these posts, which I am doing for my own benefit but perhaps someone else will be motivated to engage in regular reflection based on reviewing the experience before evaluating it.