First week of class

I cannot believe it is only Wednesday. It is only Wednesday, right? It feels like it should be the second week of class already. I have been so busy that it really feels like more than just 2 1/2 days have gone by.

Learning community: The first two classes of the Learning Community course have gone well. It's exciting to see students getting to know each other already. The only problem is apparently one student didn't realize the courses were linked and she has not come to the first two 8 a.m. classes, but we hope to get that resolved today. It's invigorating to be able to feed off the literature course and have students use it to link their writing thoughts to, but it is also draining because everything takes more planning. Everything that I used to do on my own I now also discuss with Denise. This is good because this kind of partnership means we get double the great ideas and the students benefit from the connection of the courses, but it also means that I am doing more work or more communication than I did before and I'm also thinking about one more class (even though I'm not teaching it, it's in the back of my mind there someplace).

On-line 102 course: It's hard to tell how any on-line course is going just by looking at the first week. To be quite honest, I'm not even sure if everyone has gotten into the class yet. I don't think I'll be able to know that until I put a grade in the gradebook. I haven't gotten used to WebCT6 yet. At any rate, the students who have done the self-registration and gotten as far as the discussion board seem excited and they all seem well-disciplined for the most part. That seems to be the one quality that really separates on-line students from more traditional students: the on-line ones seem to be so adept at balancing multiple commitments. Many of them work and have families and take multiple classes, and what's more, they seem to be good at it. The other thing I've noticed is so far there are no guys in the class that I am aware of. There are a couple of male names on my roster for the course, but so far only females have posted to the discussion board. We'll see what it looks like by the end of the week.

Traditional 102 class: Wow, by the end of the day yesterday, I really felt like I had run a marathon. I kind of had (well, for me anyway). I dropped off the printing for this class at 1:00 at the printshop, which is in the basement. Then I went up to the second floor English area to eat lunch because the print shop said it would take a while and there are no tables on the first floor at this end of the building. I chatted with Denise and Tess while eating and then had an idea (long story, won't go over it here). I ended up chasing that idea a little bit and then remembered I had to finish my lunch and get my printing still. This was at 1:45. I then went down to the basement for the printing, remembered I didn't have my roster, went up to the second floor to tell a student I was here and would be back to the classroom by 2:00 and hauled my butt all the way down to the 2000 area to my office to get the roster and books and a bottle of water. I hit the restroom on the way and managed to get back to the classroom before the other teacher had left. My students were all hovering in the halls waiting for the other teacher to stop talking. It was 5 til 2:00, so I just said, "We can all go in." It was a good thing too, as Chad (the other teacher) had a class at 2:00 that he had to get to and my arrival made it easier for him to wrap up conversation and get out of there. This long story is all to say that I was tired. But oddly hyper. Somehow knowing it is the last class of a long day infuses me with energy I didn't think I had. Also, I figure everyone else is tired too so I make a greater effort to be energetic so they don't drift off. But I think they all ended up thinking I was strange...which is okay. Two of them have had me in class before and already know I can be strange sometimes. : )

The 005 classes: For the first time ever, I decided to have students set the policies for the class. I've been thinking about doing this ever since taking the class on Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is all about how Freire used intrinsic motivation to teach illiterate adults in Brazil how to read so they could get the ability to vote and impact their futures more. All the research on learner-centered teaching says that students who are given choices are more invested in the class and learn more authentically than the traditional spoon-feeding kind of way of teaching. What I know from experience and what the research doesn't spell out as clearly is sometimes it goes smoothly and sometimes it does not. Even Freire says that sometimes students are resistant to this because they would rather stay with what is comfortable. Anyway, the 8 a.m. class was into it at first and really seemed to appreciate the fact that they were being included in the decision making process. Then I think it started to drag on a little because there was too much to decide. The 11:00 class had a couple of good participaters and then a whole bunch of quiet people. There was a good discussion about what constitutes success in a class (is is mere attendance or doing the work, can you succeed without attending, etc). I think we were all saying very similar things but in different enough ways that it looked like we were disagreeing with each other, when in fact, we were just sharing different perspectives of the same thing. The 8 a.m. class ended up with actual rules that need to be adhered to while the 11 a.m. class ended up with one rule that is meant to cover all behavioral aspects of the course.
8:00: 4 absences, 4 tardies allowed with penalties after the 4 tardies have been used. Late work policy of half credit on anything late.
11:00: must maintain a 75% in the class. If the student slips below, there's a probationary period before I have the ability to drop them at my discretion. Daily grades will be taken, so attendance isn't mandatory, but it will be hard to maintain a good grade without being in class regularly.


I just figured out why I'm so tired. I have been doing more work than usual this beginning of the semester. I usually just go to class, read through the syllabus and call it a day on the first days. This getting to know you and determining rules stuff takes so much more time and effort. We'll see how it goes as the semester goes on. But for now, I could really use a nap. Of course, I can't take one because I do have a bunch of work to get to still : (