Flexibility

I have been lucky and so far have not had to deal with any major issues in my classes.  Still, Showalter points out the most important lesson for dealing with any situation is flexibility.  There is never one answer that will work for us in every situation.  Each situation depends on the students, the class, the university and our own emotional state.  Staying rigid and sticking to the syllabus would only cause more harm than good during a time of crisis.  The students would be too focused on what was happening outside of the classroom, and they would not be able gain anything from the lecture.  The students would benefit more from a pause in the course to address the crisis, even if it means taking something out of the syllabus.  By giving the students time to process the event, they would be able to focus better on the rest of the material. 

I have had some experience with individual students coming to me with personal problems.  In these cases, flexibility has also been my greatest ally.  One of my stronger students had to miss several classes due to a family emergency.  I was able to excuse the absences and modify the work she needed to turn in so that her grade would not suffer.  This way her grade reflected her actual mastery of the material.  Being rigid and sticking to the syllabus could have cause more trauma to the student who was already having a difficult time, and the grade would not have reflected her actual mastery of the material.  In this way, being flexible helps those students who need it most. 

I feel that we must be flexible and show a connection to the outside world not just in times of crisis.  I think it is important to be flexible with the syllabus and with class time by bringing in elements from the outside world.  We have read many articles talking about how students tend to only focus on the first part of the lecture and that we should differentiate the way we present information.  If the students are unable to process everything I say to them on the topic, then I feel that it is not so important to spend every single minute of class focused on the topic.  Taking five minutes to discuss something interesting in the outside world that maybe does or does not relate to the topic can be a good way to build a more open atmosphere in the classroom, which could help in class discussions.  It can be tricky to regulate this, but often times a student will have a thought that somewhat relates to the discussion and we may spend a minute or two on that student’s idea.  I might also give a story from my life that fits with the topic.  I think this brings a more collaborative nature to the classroom, and it promotes better classroom relationships

Grading

Grading

I agree with Lang when he says that grading can be the least appealing aspect of teaching.  I too wish that I could teach without grades.  I often times have students who are too focused on their grade and not focused enough on the material.  These students are not always the over-achievers either.   They are the students who receive a C in my class who would normally get an A or a B in another course.  They want to raise their grade but do not realize that the grade is actually a reflection of their understanding of the material.  They may have a tough time with second language acquisition and thus would benefit from more one on one instruction.  But the student never asks how he/she could better understand the material.  They never ask for study tips or tricks for learning a second language.  And there I sit in my office hours eager to help but no one ever comes to visit.  Instead, the students ask how they can raise their grade without thinking what the grade represents.  The student thinks less of him/herself because they are not receiving the grade they feel they deserve.  What the student does not see is how much they have improved from the first day of class.  Their test scores went from 70 to 77 percent and they certainly know a lot more now than when they started the class.  So, when a student comes to me about their grade, I always try to make them see what it truly means.

                This is why I have, in the past, accepted late work.  I want my students to see that there is value in doing the homework because it gives them a chance to practice the language on their own.  If I did not accept late work, then the student would not do the assignment at all, they would fail the class, and they would not have learned the subject matter. Ultimately, I am there to teach them German, not life lessons.  So, I have accepted their late work.  However, just as Lang points out, this has caused me a bit of a headache.  Grading goes much faster when you sit down and run through a stack of the same assignment all at once.  Students turning assignments in late or making up tests causes a lot of confusion and it ends up taking up much more of my own time.  This is why I am deciding to tighten the reigns.  A former professor once said to me that he expects a lot, but he also gets a lot in return.  If I do not expect much from my students, then I cannot complain when they do not turn in assignments on time.  It makes more sense to me now that doing the assignment later does not give them extra practice, it simply distracts from the new material, thus causing the student to fall further behind in their work.  We will see how my new approach works this coming semester. 

Cheaters

I remember the first time I caught a student cheating.  I was 17 and living in Germany at the time. My host-mother was grading papers and she kept going over one paper in particular.  She knew her students and this one student, she said, would never have produced this paper on his own, but she had no way of proving it and did not want to accuse him based on a hunch.  I was on the internet at the time so I asked to see the paper.  I typed the first sentence into the Google search bar and the first result was for an online service which sold term papers.  Obviously the paper was plagiarized and now she had the proof to confront the student.  I remember almost laughing about how silly it was to cheat when it was so easy to detect it.

In my classroom I have also come across some very blatantly plagiarized essays.  The students will use google translate to produce sentence structures and use grammar we have not covered and will not cover until the next semester.  I tell my students how easy it is to spot these plagiarized essays and still I will find them on essays from even my brighter students.  The internet of course has made it easier for the students to cheat, but it also makes it easier for us to spot cheating, so it seems very silly for the students to try and cheat.  

If I suspect someone has cheated, I always like to back up my claim with evidence.  I will pull up the sentence in Google Translate and show the student that Google does not aways work and that it gets things wrong more often than not.  I also like to explain to the students that they are only hurting themselves.  I remind them that they will not have a dictionary when they have to write an essay on an exam or quiz.  They will often come back with an argument saying that they did not know how to say something and only looked up that one sentence.  I would reply to that student saying that they are better off practicing the sentence structures and vocabulary from the current chapter, since that is what the test will cover.  The more they practice the material from the current chapter, then they can expect a better grade when tested on that material.  This is ultimately the point of the assignment, but many students fail to see that. 

This is again where transparency in the classroom becomes crucial.  When students know you as an instructor and they know why you assign certain activities, then the activity is worth more to the student because they see the purpose.  After explaining the purpose to the student who has cheated, they seem genuinely shocked that there was indeed a reason to complete the assignment on their own.  I feel that many students who plagiarize do not see the purpose in many assignments.  Perhaps I am a little too forgiving, but instead of giving a zero I let the student re-do the assignment for a partial grade.  My thinking is that by having the student re-do the assignment, I am reiterating that there is a purpose to completing each assignment.  I feel this will then deter further plagiarism because I will have built a stronger relationship with the student and ideally shown him/her the value in completing ones own work.  Furthermore, it teaches the student that plagiarism is not less work, but more because the student now needs to complete the assignment in addition to keeping up with the material.     

How much technology is too much technology?

How much technology is too much technology?

It seems that technology in the classroom is nearly unavoidable.  Even if you commit to only using the chalkboard in the classroom, there is no escaping the student emails which always seem to come at eleven o'clock at night with questions regarding the assignment due the next day.  Our students have grown up with technology and they not only expect us to use technology, but they will require it in order to be productive students.  I like technology in the classroom, but I feel that it has its time and place. 

Technology makes my life a lot easier as an instructor.  Instead of spending valuable class time write notes on the board in chalk, I can prepare them ahead of time in Powerpoint slides.  This helps move the class along at a nice pace and keeps me on track so I know where I am in my lecture.  I also take advantage of Blackboard when I can and I have my students submit their papers to me online.  This way, if the papers where due Thursday, I can have corrections submitted back to them that night, and they can revise or use that information to study for a chapter test on Tuesday.  However, if I collect paper copies from the students, then I cannot give their revisions back to them until the next class meeting, which pushes everything back.  The online submission feature also helps keep me very organized. All of their assignments are in one folder and a student cannot skip class in order to gain an extra day on the assignment.  

Still, I feel that I use technology minimally and rely on class participation, discussion and activities or passages from the textbook to make up the bulk of my lessons.  I do fear that eventually technology will replace those things.  Instead of a textbook students will have ebooks.  Class participation will become computer interaction and discussions will move to web forums.  Eventually even the teacher might be replaced.  Particularly in foreign language, many have suggested that computer based learning could replace the foreign language classroom.  I can only hope this never happens because I believe part of education is the human element. Even if the instructor is teaching an online course, there is still another human setting goals, outcomes, giving evaluation and providing an incentive to learn and to do ones best.  It seems that having a human element gives us motivation to do better and is still one of the most important aspects in education.  If not, universities would go out of business because all of the information one can obtain in an undergraduate degree program can be found online for free. 

For now, it is best to find the proper balance in our classrooms.  Just like Lang suggests, technology can be extremely time consuming in the beginning, but it can also save us a lot of time in the long run.  We must still be aware of what our students have access to and that we do not let technology overshadow our own personalities and enthusiasm in the classroom.     

Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes

I have taken a dozen education course, all of which were supposed to prepare me for the classroom and make me a better educator.  We spent various hours working on philosophies of education, developing learner outcomes, learning strategies to teach to different types of learners, and how to write picturesque lesson plans which were so structured, there is no way they would ever actually work in the classroom.  I left undergrad with an extensive knowledge on a lot of theories of education, and yet I had very little instruction on how that information translated into having an actual teaching job.  Though my studies as an undergrad and my student teaching experience prepared me fairly well to be successful in the classroom, I feel overly underprepared to handle all of the behind the scenes work; particularly when it comes to housekeeping and separating work and home life.  

When it comes to being a good instructor, what goes on behind the scenes is just as important as what goes on in the classroom.  Preparing lessons and grading play only a small roll in the behind the scenes work, yet they are the two aspects heavily focused on in teacher education programs.  Far more important is what happens after the papers are graded and after the lesson is taught.  After a few weeks of lesson plans and homework, the stereotype of the cluttered teachers desk begins to form as extra worksheets, homework assignments, quizzes, and tests mound on the desk.  The school of education could take a lesson from the business school when it comes to keeping files and everything organized.  I can keep my files in order on my computer by giving each class a folder and within that folder I can give each chapter or unit its own folder.  It seems simple enough on the computer, so I need to translate that type of file management from my computer desktop to my actual desktop.  Each drawer can be a class I teach and in each drawer will be the multiple folders with the materials needed to teach each lesson.  For homework I find a similar problem because I often find myself sorting homework and tests into piles for each student.  If I used an accordion folder and filed each student as I graded their paper or test, I could cut down on some of the clutter.

The other important skill lacking in most teacher education programs is figuring out how to separate work from home.  We have a very unique job which can often times require us to bring our work home.  With the increase in technology, the internet, and email it has become nearly impossible to leave work at work.  Students now expect to be able to email their instructors almost any day of the week and at any time of the day.  With the internet making our offices accessible at any time and with students turning in assignments online, work is always at our fingertips and it can sometimes feel like we never leave work.  I think this is where good planning and time management comes into play.  If I make a list of everything I need to do, I can schedule when during the day I am going to accomplish that task.  This way I can not feel guilty or feel like I am procrastinating, because I have my tasks clearly scheduled.  

Ideally, improving both file and time organization skills would then help me to separate work and home, and free up my evenings and weekends to relax, learn a new skill, or read a book and not analyze it.

There are so many teaching strategies and there is so little time to implement them all.  James Lang talks about how beneficial it is to change up our teaching so that we can „cast as wide a net as possible with your teaching strategies in order to gather up the most possible students“.  I enjoyed his approach to education much more than „Teaching to the Six“.  While I appreciate the idea that I will not reach every single student no matter how hard I try, I fear the logic behind „Teaching to the Six“ inevitable leads towards not even attempting to reach the rest.  Instead, I feel it is my responsibility as an educator to „cast as wide a net as possible“, yet I understand that some fish will simply elude my net and I cannot blame myself. 

In casting this wide net, I have found countless books on education and each book provides a wide variety of activities which address the multiple intelligences to engage as many students as possible.  All of these books at first seemed overwhelming as a new instructor.  I Thought that each lesson had to incorporate each type of activity and that I was somehow a poor instructor for not applying every activity to my lessons.  The more I teach, the more I have come to realize that these books are merely more than toolboxes, and that not every job requires every tool.  However, the more tools I have, the better equipped is am for more types of jobs.  The trick now is to learn when too use each of those tools the most appropriate way, and how to fit them to my own personal style.  

As educators we bring our personalities with us into the classroom.  Visiting  other instructors can in this way seem intimidating.  We get to glimpse into their own personal teaching style, and might feel discouraged that we do not use the same activities or  that we have a different kind of rapport with our students.  It is important to remember when we go into another classroom that although the instructor might have a different method of instruction, this does not mean that our own methods are flawed.  Just as Lang notes the different, yet equally beneficial preaching styles of his priests, it is important to remember that our teaching style can be just as effective even if it is different.  I even feel that attempting to adapt a style that does not fit your personality may negatively affect your effectiveness as an instructor.  

So the trick is then to figure out when and how to use these strategies we learn from our books and from each other.  Because so much of education relies on personality in the classroom, there is no way to learn this in a book.  Unfortunately, the only way to learn which techniques to use and how to implement them is through trial and error accompanied by immediate reflection and critique.  Through this process we can filter the information from the books and observations to find what fits best to our personality.  In this way we make these resources more manageable and cast the widest net possible to reach the most students.

Too often in education I feel that I forget to teach the basics.  In my classroom I use words like „subject“, „noun“, „direct object“, and „predicate nominative“ and I assume that my students know what I am talking about.  I forget that they are not linguists and that they have not studied languages for ten years.  It is easy to forget that my students are beginners who have never thought about language with these terms before, because they have never needed to look at why their own language is set up the way it is.

Just because a student knows how to speak English, does not mean that student knows the ins and outs of a language. Similarly, just because a student can read and reads often does not mean that that student has the skills to read and interpret literature.  Students in a literature course need to learn the basics before taking on certain texts.  As an educator this may seem frustrating.  Often times I will hear an instructor say „It’s not my job to teach them that“ and they will complain that they do not have the time to waste on teaching their students basic skills like close reading in a literature course or grammar terms in my German course.  

I understand their frustration, but not their reaction.  Taking the time to teach the basics may seem like it would take too much time away from the course material, but I believe this actually saves time in the end. Here I agree with the approach taken in „Teaching close reading skills in a large lecture course“ from Tinkle, Atias, McAdams, and Zukerman.  In this course, the instructors did not teach the students what to think, rather they gave the skills needed to learn how to think.  By teaching the students the skills needed to read closely, they instructor ultimately saves time lecturing on the meaning of literature and can instead look at the students’ writing to see what they took from the reading.  They can then use these interpretations for an engaging discussion rather than a lecture. 

The only drawback in this method is that they did not focus on critical editing like the Keleman article does.  Although, in my opinion Keleman puts too much emphasis on critical editing.  I feel that looking at how a text was edited is similar to examining a translation.  We cannot simply take a text at face value, rather we must examine who edited the text to get a full picture.  Translation is not an exact science which is why translations vary depending on the author.  Not everything is translatable and so one must pick and choose which elements of a text are important and which can be thrown out.  This happens with any edit and affects the way we read a text.  Still, I feel that this can be done as a part of close reading.  I feel both articles made very useful points, and that their ideas are best used together to create a well balanced classroom.