Re: Being a teacher

[jameswing]

@zsazsa

@sarge

I know exactly what you are talking about. On my reviews I get really high marks on everything including organization. However, I feel out of control and totally disorganized. The only thing I get marked down for is I talk too fast sometimes.

I think what impresses them is that I use a lot of tools to help stay organized. They don’t realize the amount of time I spend setting things up, and my reasoning behind things.

I started at this college last year and took over a department that had been just about left to die. When you walked into the room it looked like you were going back to the 70s, and the curriculum hadn’t undergone content reviews in 8 years, and no changes to the required courses had been made in 15 years. In this time the technology and role of a draftsman has changed dramatically. so I was off on a mighty mission.

Last year I reviewed curriculum for 4 courses and remodeled the room:

http://www.mccd.edu/academics/divisions/it/drafting/images/cropedsm.jpg

This Semester I have attacked the curriculum again, adding 2 new programs, 6 courses, and revising another 6. People are amazed at what I have done, but all I see is what still need to be done, and don’t think it was really that big a deal. It took 30 hours spread across 4 or 5 days throughout the semester.

As for how I “organize things” I use moodle for all my classroom materials. I have set goals for each week, “Lecture” and introduce the lab, on the first day, lab the second day. The lecture notes are posted to the website, and include only bullet points (because I can’t stand it when people read slides), and images. This semester I started recording my lectures as well. All assignments are posted to the site, as well as rubrics (to help me in grading), and quizzes are online. I also set aside one day per week where I stay late and grade labs.

I got an interactive Whiteboard last year and LOVE it. It allows me to go through page in whatever order I feel like, not just what I had preset. I am also looking at ways I can do other things to help my students, while making it easier for me. All of which will require extended prep time.

We do have a bunch of other admin stuff to do, but most of it is moving online, and easy once you get the hang of it. My biggest problem with it is I will get distracted and start working on something else. I also get frustrated with other professors who are constantly complaining about the administrative stuff, when they have 4-8 people to share in the workload, and who don’t do any new preparation for each new semester.

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