One quote in the text which I found interesting was the following:
"students spend 85% of their waking hours outside the classroom and most of what they learn, they
learn there - not in class"
While this seems obvious, my impression (as a TA here) was that some of the students -
particularly first years- hadn't actually discovered this yet. They still operated under the high
school paradigm in which "studying" and "doing your homework" are equivalent
statements, and not much of either really takes place at home. I thought of this often as the text went
on to discuss classroom management policies such as attendance, as well as order of assignments.
It seems as though with introductory classes one of the main things that students should acquire is
an understanding of what college is about. (So that at the end of the semester they don't hand in
pages cut out from an astronomy text and glued on typing paper as their "extra credit essay",
for example.)
The section here which I found particularly useful was the one on asking and answering questions
in class. One would think it would be straightforward to realize when one is not asking questions
well or when one is not treating answers well, but I think it's actually non- trivial. For instance,
it's hard to realize what one's expressions convey; I've run across this problem not only in classes
I've taken, but in ones I've TA'd. In one section I TA'd, one of the students smiled just before I
answered a question; when I looked confused at his sudden amusement, he said "That's your (facial)
expression for 'This is one of those engineering questions the TA isn't really interested in at all.'"
And it was. I think that for this kind of problem, videotaping of random classes is really helpful;
it's much easier to see the effect your comments or expressions have (not to mention seeing your
expressions at all!) when you're observing yourself, rather than when you're standing in front of the
room.
The discussion of group work was also interesting, though it didn't really address one of the things I always really hated about group work (as a student), which is keeping the work on a big project evenly distributed among the group members. I guess it's difficult to do this without being the "dictator rather than leader" as the text discusses. But it seems to naturally follow from human nature that the person with the most to gain from getting a good grade on a project will be the one to do the most work. So if you're borderline B/A and everyone else in your group is getting a C in the class so long as some project is turned in, guess who does most of the work? Presumably a "well-designed" group project would avoid such pitfalls, though I admit I'm at a bit of a loss as to how such a project would work. Maybe it's just safer to limit group work to study groups and in-class, not-graded projects.
I. Syllabus
Whoa, culture shock! If ever I felt like a freak of nature, it was while reading the "Memo to the
Faculty" about "the Syllabus". Maybe it was because I always had professors who were very gifted
writers-of-syllabi, but I don't recall ever having seen some of the questions syllabi are meant to
address, and I'm sure my first syllabus (I'm not including "syllabi" I've written as a TA,
where everything but my office hours and font size was not decided by me) wouldn't have included them.
I can't ever remember picking a course because it had a particularly attractive "objective" section.
I'm quite sure that if any syllabi had them, I would likely have skimmed or skipped such sections.
This is probably due in part to the reasons one has for taking a class: I'm taking quantum mechanics
because everyone in physics takes quantum mechanics and this is the first semester it fits into my
schedule. I've had modern physics so I have a pretty good idea what this course is going to be about,
and chances are good it will be like every other physics course I've had here. But I don't think this
is entirely the reason I never sought out a "good" syllabus. I took a course on medieval
French literature because it was a course on medieval French literature. I'm not sure what I could
have seen on the syllabus that would have convinced me not to take it, except maybe "no physics
majors allowed", and even then I probably would have argued it. I certainly "shopped" for courses, but of
the decisions not to take a class that I can remember, most were either because the class workload was
more than I could deal with, or because after going to class the first day and seeing the prof and the
class, I decided it "wasn't for me". Hmm. I wonder if my syllabi even had an "objectives" or
"advertisement" section. <goes to look>
Well, of the undergrad class folders in my office, about half contained syllabi: Modern Physics,
Optics, Linear Algebra and Endangered Languages. The only one that came close to having a "why
take this class" section was the Optics one, which starts off with a page-ful of prose about
the wonders of light and goes on to justify setting as text a book that costs $90. Maybe the lack of
introduction sections is because these aren't introductory classes? Maybe it's because one pretty much
knows what to expect from a Linear Algebra class? (It was pretty much as I had expected it would
be...)
What a revelation, to know that I was a poorly-informed course shopper! How on Earth am I
supposed to guess all of these things that "everyone" wants to see and I never did?
I can't help but wonder how many students really need the advertisement section; I would think it
would be much more useful to faculty on a course selection committee than to students. But chances are
good I'm not a 'typical' student, so who knows?
II. First day of class
Well, at least this was something I could relate to; I have decided to take or not take a class based on the first day or two of class. The Zahorski article addresses a number of the reasons that this happens, as well as the role that the first day plays for setting up student expectations of the class. (It is kind of odd reading these articles that talk about the "professor-student communication gap" when one is still a graduate student... but I have found that being a student myself didn't always help me understand the students in the class I was TAing.) His suggestions seemed very useful. It was interesting to read them and think of the discussions that Niescja and I had before her first day of class, which seemed to cover everything from whether to end early or cover something really cool, all the way to what to wear. Apart from the what-to-wear issue (North Louisianans and Texans have a really different ideas from, well, most everyone else about what exactly constitutes acceptable clothing...), the topic most discussed I think was the level at which the first class should aim. On the one hand, you don't want it to be too complicated, scaring off half the class, and on the other hand you don't want it to be too simple, scaring off the other half of the class. If you want to "begin at the beginning", you might start with a math review - but then she thought that might scare off the entire class- not only those who dislike math, but also those who can't imagine that there are people in college who can't add fractions. Eventually, she decided that the math review could be a separate workshop, not part of the class, and her TA led at least one of these review sessions. (If I remember correctly, she ended up doing some math review during class after the first exam, but having the 'preventive' workshops outside of class.) One thing which really struck me in our discussions was the level of detail which one had to deal with before the class even started. The various readings on the syllabus, classroom management and planning the first class period reinforced this- I guess the relevant saying here is that there's no second chance for first impressions.