Semester #4

Wow. It has been a while since I have thought about posting. All of my prior posts occured during my first semester of teaching. Now I am in my fourth semester.

I guess that makes sense since I had started this to help new teachers know that they are not alone, to let them know what other new teachers have gone through. One of the scariest things about starting out (and possibly with starting out on anything new) is the feeling that you have no clue as to what you are doing and that you are the worst teacher in the history of teaching.

The fact that you are having those feelings probably means that you are not the worst teachers. The worst of the teachers dont even feel anything.

Anyway, just to get everyone up to date.

I finished that first semesrter. LOTS of work but very worthwhile. Unfortunately, I did have to fail some of my students. Departmental rule, they have to pass the final, so my hands were kind of tied. All and all it was a good semester though and it was a great learning experience for me.

My second semester I decided to try teaching a new course. Wanted to make my portfolio as broad as possible. I think that was my first mistake. Hindsight is 20-20 and I now see that I should have gotten more teaching experience under my belt before trying something new. That second semester also brought a new reality, the reality of cheaters.

My first class was just a really amazing group that I got really spoiled. It really came as a shock when I started catching people in the act. And dealing with the consequesnces of the cheating is a real mess full of crying and obnoxiousness.

Needless to say I am really glad that the second semester is now ancient history.

That brings me to the third semester. I went back to the basics and tought the same class that I covered my first semester. Things went much better this time. I had another really amazing class and it was just a great dynamic.

Some students didnt show up from day one, so i am not sure why they didnt just drop the course. But other than that it went really well.

Now on to the fourth semester. I am now teaching the same course as the first and third semester. I once again have a really great class. Its interesting because about half the class have already taken this course, they are repeating because they failed the first time around. I think the fact that they have seen all the material before is actually really helpful. This is probably the strongest class I have had so far.

What I have learned so far

Teaching can be fun
Teaching can be frustrating
Teaching can be rewarded
Teaching can be a lot of work

You can get out of it what you put in.

Every semester is different, even if you are teaching the same material for 20 years, the students and the dynamic is different. So stay on your toes