Higher Education Observer

I used to think rigor meant a lot of work.  That means I have to grade it, and sometimes it does become busy work and excessive. I require short discussion posts about certain assignments, and I warn them to keep it to two sentences. "You don't want to write more and I don't want to read it." They get the point. Rigor means justifiable high standards, communicated clearly, with consequences but also access to needed resources.  Justifiable high standards: Writing should be reader-ready. I teach writing, so superficial mistakes are unacceptable. There are abundant tools to avoid it.  Communicated clearly: Transparency in teaching and learning is a valuable practice. Look it up. But don't, like me, overexplain.  With consequences: See my Revise and Resubmit  post earlier.  Access to needed resources: How I define equity. It is unfair to assign a task that not everyone has the tools to complete-- if they put the effort in.  I believe in the meritocracy of...

Is it me, or do you feel that with freshmen, we are mostly fighting what they have been taught in high school versus building on it? 1. "Our teachers didn't expect anything to be turned in on time during COVID." 2. "My high school teachers said college professors are mean." 3. "In high school I could take tests over."  4. "I got good grades in this subject in high school." 5. "We got to work on the assignments and homework in class in high school." What else? I'm sure you've heard statements like these--to say nothing about wrong concepts of the disciplines we teach.  This is the place for comments!

 Any academic who has tried to be published in a journal has probably gotten an R&R review: Revise and resubmit.  In regard to all the assignments I had to asses (grade) this week, I gave a lot of R&R (translated) grades or feedback.  Why? Because giving a F helps nobody. Because they need to do it right. They need to know that crappy work is not acceptable. We don't get by in life.  Now, how to handle this is a matter for debate and discussion. Should they get a penalized grade for the R& R (not full credit for the revision)? How much time do they have? How many are they allowed? How do you decide it's worth it? Doesn't this make more work for the professor?  Great questions. I would say there's a lot of wiggle room here. Maybe just one R and R allowed for the class (otherwise it creates a pattern). The professor can grade when he/she gets around to it. Only a few days for the revision to be submitted (it's overdue already). As for more work, well, ...

This semester, if I haven't said this yet,  I have a passel of students this semester.  Online course for the system: 24 Professional communication: 25 Two Fundamentals of Speech: 50 Four Perspectives (first year seminar):  20, 20, 50.  So, total of almost 200. And every single one had at least one writing assignment due this week. Actually, three in one case. So, I had 250 assignments to grade.  Well, not really, only theoretically. Because they all just didn't do them. In which case, it became my responsibility and obligation to tell someone higher than (or to the side of me) that the student is not keeping up.  Or that they are not attending class. A person who does not work in access higher education will probably say, "Well, don't the students know they didn't do it? Don't they know they are not attending class?" Yes, of course, but we are supposed to let them know, or I guess, that we noticed. Big Brother (or Sister) is watching!  It's a nudge. ...

Isn't grading the worst?   That's my lead (lede?) I didn't bury it.  I have probably 100 assignments to "assess" today and tomorrow. Some very short, some more involved.  The issue is how students perceive a grade, really, or how we have taught them to.  My intentionality project this time is to provide better feedback on the assignment, with more personal touch. I still have to put a number on it (using a rubric, of course). That's the worst part and all the students really look at, sometimes.  It would be good if Learning Management systems had a "read this first, respond, then get the number" framework.  I guess we could do that ourselves, somehow. We could require a response to every major assignment to see if there is understanding of the evaluation or assessment.  Yes, that is something to think about.  HUMMMM.  

I am balanced between f2f and online teaching. I really want my online teaching to be more visible and personal, so I am making a short (3 minute) video to introduce each week. Weekly is really the best; short modules is really the best for online. I finally see that. Giving them freedom is not good, because the day to day sitting in class that gives them rhythm and structure is missing.   Little bits is bigger than huge bites (i.e., short, focused modules are better than longer thematic ones).   My online classes are quite different. One is mostly repeaters of a first year experience course, and as of last night ½ of them had not done the first easy assignment (short video intro). They failed the first time, so….many of them had 1.0 or lower (as in .0) gpas last semester. The second is an intuitionally based professional communication course at 3000 level, and the third is a similar course taught for the university system at the 2000 level. I designed the first, not the s...

  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...