Self Reflection (with the help of my students)

At the end of each semester, I take stock by talking to students, by looking at what went right, what went wrong. Thinking if I can make what wrong better or if not, what can I replace it with? But this semester my students were particularly helpful, insightful, and offered deep, meaningful assistance on what they thought went right, what went wrong, and how to fix it, from their side of the classroom.

So, this is what I've come up with, this is both my Lessons Leaned as well as my vision for the Fall.

I have come up with three things that I am going to introduce in my summer classes, then tweak them for the Fall classes. Why three? Three is a magical number in world civilizations. Three dimensions, three types of time, three prime colors, three is important in every religion (most Christians are Trinitarians, for example). The Christian god has three attributes (omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence). Hindus have a triumvirate of gods. Three branches of government. A syllogism is a three-part statement (If A=B and B=C thus A=C) and the Declaration of Independence is a syllogism. The old School House Rock series has a song about the number three. Entitled 3 is a Magic Number.

So, here are my Big Three:

1.      

         By the end of May, I will have recreated all Hist 1301 and 1302 PowerPoint presentations, recorded them using a screen grab program called Camastia I purchased recently. This will allow students to hear embedded video in Canvas and my on-campus classes will be able to see the videos instead of those annoying black boxes created by a clash of technologies. I will also upload all of those videos to my YouTube channel as some students said they would like access to new lectures after they have left the class. 

2.      I like the idea of organizing the documents, articles and essays in a more accessible way than chronologically. So, after talking it over with some of my students, I will identify themes, create folders for each theme, then place all the resources into their respective folder. 

This is going to take a bit of time. The OER students see in the Canvas class make up about 10% of the sources I have collected over the years. I do not want to overwhelm students, which is why I place just a fraction in the classes. But if I am placing the sources in a more accessible format, maybe its time to upload all of my collected OER. My ultimate goal is to create a class in which students would not have to purchase anything at all. Maybe it’s time to do that. My goal is to have this completed by the end of July.

3.      And the biggie . . . The one thing that I work on each semester, the one thing that I want to improve on the most, the one thing that I think I get better at, but the one thing that students point out that I fail at each semester, is to become more warm and fuzzy.

      I am concerned that being too welcoming would result in students taking advantage of my good nature. However, that could be unfounded anxiety (left over from my divorce -oh the baggage we carry). 

      Two assignments this semester changed how I will approach students. I will test drive the approach in the summer and if necessary make changes for the Fall. Here are the assignments: 

      This semester I had students in my Hist 1302 class write an optional essay on feminism. Those who did so provided me with an unexpected insight into what makes them tick. The assignment was to watch 12 videos of women from various political backgrounds talking about their definitions of feminism based on their experiences in the workplace. Then students were to draft their own definitions of feminism using evidence from the videos. Well, the essays used evidence from the videos but then explained why -that something in their past was not unlike what the women in the videos experienced. I was unprepared for that. And, I read the same experiences from those students, over and over again. First, I was impressed with these students for being so open with me and second, I was delighted to gain such insight into their lives because if I would have known this stuff earlier, that information would have helped me to have shaped the class more towards their experiences. To create a more meaningful class.

      The second assignment was an essay on how students came to the college. Entitled “The Road Less Traveled” around two dozen students wrote about their past experiences. Most started before high school. And their stories were quite similar. Lots of real human tragedy. Sorrow. Sadness. Again, I was impressed with their willingness to share that stuff about themselves with me and I had wished I had that knowledge at the beginning of the semester in order to better shape the class.

      There was almost nothing the students wrote about in these two assignments that I have not experienced. And, there is one thing that nobody wrote about that I have experienced. I know that most of you did not do those two assignments. But those who did know exactly what I am talking about.

So, here is what I am going to do.

A.    I am going to begin the class with my “Road Less Traveled.” I am going to be as open and honest with my new students as you all were in your essays. I am hoping in doing so that that will start the process of students looking at me less as an authoritative figure (I still think the haircut scares folks) and more of a person who will help guide them through the next 16 weeks. Someone whose experiences are not unlike their own.

B.     The first assignment will be “The Road Less Traveled.” Students will have until the end of the second week to complete this assignment. I will read these over the weekend and then at the start of week #3 I will re-chart or re-purpose the class to better align with the experiences/expectations of the students so that each class will have a particular focus or set of goals.

C.     Discussion will be a sizable part of the course grade. On the second day of each week students will be required to bring to class one question to ask the class. It can be about the syllabus, an assignment, or something they read.

D.    Finally, the Perfection Model is pushed in K-12, resulting in grade inflation (did you know anyone who graduated high school with a GPA in excess of 4.0?), an inaccurate belief in the significance of grades, and the belief that any grade less than an A is a failing grade. In every class, every semester, I do indeed have students who ask me for extra credit because they do not want to “fail the class” when their course grade is in the 70s. In other words, they believe that a C is failing!

“Failure is not an option” is an ideology supported in the K-12 arena (and sometimes by really bad managers in the business world) across the country for about 20 years. But, we learn from failure. Without failure we have no way of measuring success. So, here is going to be my motto, what will appear at the top of each syllabus in the Fall:

“It’s OK to fail. Not only is failure an option, failure is an expected outcome at some point this semester. Do not panic.”

And my new policy will be that if you earn a D or an F on any assignment (except the final exam), you may see me in my office and we will discuss what happened and what you will do in the future to avoid that or those things that resulted in a less than passing grade. NASA calls that “Lessons Learned.” Then you can redo the assignment. If you adhere to the assignment’s requirements, your grade will go from an F to a C. 

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

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