Posted in College, Education, Students, Teaching on Nov 2nd, 2007 3 Comments »
Dear Dumb,
Visitors to this site are welcome to their opinions; however, comments (such as yours) demonstrating a complete lack of control of the English language will be removed to spare other readers from suffering unnecessary idiocy.
As a repeat offender, you have been banished: I laugh at you and your ignorance, and you can’t do a […]
Posted in College, Education, Students, Teaching on Oct 30th, 2007 No Comments »
We’re in the midst of week ten of a sixteen week semester, and last week was midterm time, so over the weekend, the last significant wave of drops took place.
For the better part of yesterday, I had the feeling I was teaching at the Twilight Zone’s main campus.
Several of the students in my classes this […]
Posted in Argument, College, Education, Students on Oct 26th, 2007 No Comments »
I have a hard time reconciling where I stand when it comes to technology in education, and I blame my students.
I see the benefits of many technological advances; however, much of the positive is outweighed by students’ failing to take appropriate advantage of the tools at their disposal.
Here are a few examples:
E-mail:
When I was in […]
Posted in College, Education, English, Essay, Students, Teaching on Sep 28th, 2007 2 Comments »
I’m not sure why other people teach, and there are days I don’t know why I do, but I’m willing to bet none of us does it as a means to undermine the success of students.
There is very little joy derived from students who don’t succeed, and even if the lack of success is completely […]
Posted in Books, College, Education, English, Essay, Students, Teaching on Sep 25th, 2007 No Comments »
I used to try to hold regular class meetings on the days formal writing assignments were due, but I’ve learned how foolish it is to expect the average (i.e. procrastinating) student to finish up a paper and read something for a class discussion.
I’ve come up with a few ways to solve this issue:
The quick meeting: […]
Posted in College, Education, English, Students, Teaching, Writing on Sep 21st, 2007 2 Comments »
Grading essays is such an odd task: it combines evaluation with instruction, but each message is often lost on its audience. Marking papers is a time consuming and exhausting process, and not getting paid to do it only becomes more frustrating when I consider the effort is probably going to be ignored by the […]
Posted in College, Education, English, Students, Teaching on Sep 18th, 2007 No Comments »
I collected my students’ first formal written assignment yesterday, and I’ll begin the grading process later this evening.
One the positive side, I had a show-up rate of about 90% which is very high on the day an assignment is due, and the first reads I did yesterday evening showed promise.
On the negative side, the death […]
Posted in Adminstration, College, Education, English, Students, Teaching on Sep 14th, 2007 6 Comments »
The title of this post sums up the outcome of my dealings with the student who said to me,
. . .you can be as evil as you wish because I have favor with God. I can make it with out the belief of others. See you in class Wednesday and also…. thanks for nothing!
As happy […]
Posted in Adminstration, College, Education, Students, Teaching on Sep 7th, 2007 4 Comments »
Having hit the first wall, I quickly introduced myself, told everyone to hang tight, and scurried back downstairs to the dean’s office to start the process of switching rooms.
I love beginning a semester in chaos.
Now, switching rooms makes finding a shady parking space right next to the building look like child’s play—getting it done is […]
Posted in Adminstration, College, Education, Teaching on Sep 4th, 2007 No Comments »
The first day of the semester began with such smoothness, I thought I was dreaming. Not only did I find a spot in the small lot right next to my building, but also it was in the shade.
Each of these items separately is something akin to winning the lottery, and I scored on both […]