The End--for Now

Thursday was my last official Teaching and Learning Center activity. For me, it's all over but the shouting--and the annual report. But not the end of this blog, which will chronicle my teaching experiences and put out questions in case people want to respond.

I have a policy. I am all business for the first 8-10 weeks of my COMM 1110 class, the one I teach the most. By then, I have "run off" (don't take that literally) the students who aren't going to stick around, either because they never planned to in the first place, or they have had personal issues (which I never condemn them for--it happened to me in a Ph.D. program), or they can't (choose not to) do the work. After that, I lighten up and shift the burden to the student. I bloviate less, leave the learning up to them, have more fun.

The nature of our students makes it unwise to lighten up any earlier than that.

What about you? do you follow a similar pattern? Or are you warm and fun all the way through? Or do you never alter your classroom demeanor (neither of which would I accuse anyone--we have far too little professionalism in the world now.)

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