New Teacher

Reassigned Time wrote about revising a class from last year, including difficulties and challenges. I am particularly interested as it was a grad class and I will be teaching one of those in the spring for the first time.

This part I thought was particularly appropriate for my thought process:

I suspect that some people might say that these students shouldn’t be in an M.A. program. I suspect that some people might say that my “hand-holding” does them a disservice. Here’s the thing that I’d say to both of those potential criticisms: I’m trying to respond to the reality of my teaching situation in the most ethical and effective way that I can imagine. Now, I could ignore that reality, and say that I should run my seminar just how I experienced seminars in my graduate programs, and that would make a certain point, but I wouldn’t likely get work of the quality that my grad instructors got. I also wouldn’t likely be doing my students any favors in teaching them (most of whom are first gen college students, let alone grad students) the level of expectation for graduate study (and by the time they finish our program a fair few do decide they want to go on for terminal degrees). I hope that what I’m doing is giving them some tools to be more independent as they move forward in the program. And I hope that what I’m doing is to ensure that I get work to evaluate that really is of the quality that I think graduate work should be. I don’t know that my choices are the only ones or the “right” ones, but they are what I’ve come up with.

You will need to go read the post to see what else is going on there.

While I usually blow off .com emails that are really trying to pull traffic to their site, this one was just too useful to skip.

Online College has the 20 Best Blogs in the Digital Humanities.

I haven’t read all 20, but the ones I have read are very good.

Every year in full-time positions, teachers are asked to fill out goals. These goals are subdivided into different categories. Usually these are: teaching, scholarship, and service. How should these be filled out?

Norms
First, you should already be aware of the norm at your college. If you are going to a new college and they ask for your annual goals, ask if you might see two or three of the faculties’ goals from last year. This will help you figure out what you need to do.

At my last college, each section only needed three points and the chair advised that we only put down small things and that we make sure that we could absolutely meet/finish them before the March review. So that is what I did since that was the norm at that college.

Accomplish?
Second, you should not put anything on the goals you do not expect to accomplish. These goals are sometimes used for promotion, tenure, and pay raises. You do not want to have put yourself in a position where the goals you have given yourself cannot be met.

Think big and small
Third, while it is perfectly fine to think big, also think small. What small changes can you make in your classroom or what things can you implement that will make your teaching better? Don’t just think about the book manuscript, also consider the review for a high profile journal.

Example: Teaching
So, this year (and last) for teaching my goals included:
getting to know the textbook
creating a syllabi in line with the expectations of the college
learning the grading norms
using technology effectively within the classroom
creating assignments in which the students had to use technology

I had these for each of the classes I was going to teach. That’s a lot of goals if you know your annual schedule. It might be worth simply limiting it to a single class. But don’t limit your thinking to absolutely attainable goals; also you need to challenge yourself a bit.

Example: Scholarship
For scholarship, my goals went like this:
review X book for X journal
review Y book for Y journal
review Z book for Z journal
write A chapter for A book
revise my dissertation for publication
obtain readers
have a major person in the field write an introduction

Those might look like lofty goals, but they are less so than you might suppose. The chapter is due next week and is finished, except for a final edit. The X review is due in three weeks and I have started reading. The Y review is due in three months, but I have already read the book and taken notes. The Z review really should have been done by now, but my goal is to finish it by the first of next month.

I already have an introduction to my dissertation written by the leading light in my field. I have readers who have agreed to serve as readers. I have NOT begun the revision of my dissertation, but I will do that.

In fact, looking over this list, I see that I actually left off another scholarship goal which I will be meeting. I have a chapter requested for a major publisher which is mostly complete. They changed the parameters of the assignment and I need to add 1000 words and create an internet resource list; however, these are certainly doable.

Perhaps leaving this off my list is a good thing. Then, in March, when I have my review with the chair, I can say, “Oh yes. I also wrote a chapter for major publisher which has been accepted. This included an internet resource list, b, and c.” Then I will not only have reached my goals, I will have surpassed them.

Example: Service
For service my goals were far more circumspect. Although this is a major portion of my college’s expectations, I am not so sure how I will do these things. So I wrote:
find a place to be involved on campus
find a way to be involved with children’s education in the community (I have taught reading to inner city children, home schooled, and taught multiple extracurricular classes.)
organize and chair a panel for the regional conference (which I have done and am doing)
serve on the Executive Council for a regional conference (which I have done and am doing)

So my service, while wide-ranging and significant (which is required) is a bit more generalized. I don’t know how I will serve on campus or in the community. However, by putting these on my annual goals’ list, I have given notice that I know and understand that these are expectations which the college has.

Chair’s response
What was my chair’s reaction?

“These are ambitious goals.”

So, when they are met, this will be a significant positive in my new position.

Annual goals are worth thinking about. They are intended to make sure that we are progressing in our work, but if we are already focusing on that, they are not particularly onerous or overwhelming. These days if we are NOT progressing, we probably don’t have a job anyway.

Yesterday’s blog post referred to a small snippet of Minding the Campus’ Adjuncts and the Devalued PhD.

Today’s will as well.

The telling part, the significant kernel for those teaching graduate students or those who are considering teaching college English as a career is found here:

Back in 2003, Thomas H. Benton—the penname of William Pannapacker, then an assistant professor of English at Hope College—published the first of series of articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education (others following in 2009 and 2010) warning would-be graduate students of the pitfalls of pursuing a career in higher ed. “It pains me,” he wrote, “to tell some of my best students that the structure of employment in the academy has been hidden from them—that many faculty members make less than fast-food workers and have no health benefits.”
…
To smart, hardworking students, those motivated by genuine intellectual curiosity and used to being at the top of their classes, Benton’s message seemed to be, “Becoming a professor isn’t easy, but it is possible if you are the right kind of person. If you have what it takes and do everything right along the way, you have a chance.” That may not have been what Benton meant, but to headstrong students unafraid of competition, the obstacles to becoming a professor seemed merely the next and toughest set of challenges to be met and overcome.

Yes, some people make it.

I made it.

But it took me two years of working full-time as an adjunct (and more than full-time), spending more than I made attending conferences, writing fourteen articles, four reviews, and a book, to succeed. It took that much, and more, to win out over the 250 people also applying for my position last year.

249 people, many of them PhDs, wanted to teach at a community college and could not get a job because there were not enough positions available.

Bedford St. Martins has a post from Andrea Lunsford, director of writing and rhetoric at Stanford, on responding to student writing.

First, I’d make a distinction between responding and grading—and put most of my emphasis (and time) on responding. Grading is just the final act of assessing the state of the draft, comparing it to the criteria you have established for the assignment, and then giving the appropriate grade or the number of points: this part of the process shouldn’t take long at all. Responding, on the other hand, means engaging with the student’s ideas as well as the structure, syntax, and style of an essay. This is where all the time goes.

Then she gives some specific suggestions.

She has other tips that are linked off that page. Just look on the right side.

Do we as academics, professional professors, feel comfortable in saying to our students, “You should read this because it is good for you. Yes, there are many reasons. I will tell you several. But you should read it because I say so and I am the person who grades you.” ??? That’s my question.

It’s the title of an article in which I found this statement:

A couple of weeks ago, I went to our Provost’s “Student Retention Summit.” I wasn’t planning to say anything, but everyone else’s comments made me curious about something so I polled the room on this question: “How many of you make attendance mandatory for passing the course?” It turns out me and a guy from math were the only ones. The way I frame it, this doesn’t mean you have to attend every class. In a fourteen-week class that meets three times per week, I’ll give them four absences without asking for sickness, acts of God or whatever else they see fit.

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Ed by William Deresiewicz, entitled “A Jane Austen Education” has inspired me to go back and read Austen again. So many people love her work and I have not, but this piece made me think there was more there that I might have missed. (And, of course, after reading, I can then go read the zombie version!) The article is really about teaching. The author took the lessons he learned from a professor who was his inspiration, re-learned them through Austen, and applied them to his teaching in a way that changed his pedagogy for the better. I am intrigued and the story is an interesting one. I suggest you read it all, but here is one paragraph which speaks of how he changed.

He taught by asking questions, and so did I, but only now did I see how utterly different our questions were. Mine were really only answers in disguise, as if I were hosting some sadistic form of Jeopardy! I wasn’t a teacher, I was a bully. My students were the Catherines, coming to the marvelous world of college, bustling with new sights and possibilities, just as she had come, wide-eyed, to Bath. But I wasn’t Henry, I was Isabella. I wasn’t helping them, I was manipulating them—and doing so, to a far greater extent than I wanted to admit, in order to gratify my own ego. I was telling them what to think, even if, by trying to get them to say it first—in other words, by putting words in their mouths—I was pretending not to. I was trying to turn them into little versions of me, instead of better versions of themselves.

I want to make sure I am not doing this. How can I help my students to learn to think and to teach me?

You Can Teach Writing has an interesting post, Formal Assessment by Proxy, on peer coaching.

Along with a definition and description, Aragoni includes discussions of when peer coaching will work well and when it will fail.

One of the successful hints is that there should be minimal reading.

The questions are short, focused. Even students who read poorly can learn the drill by hearing the questions a few times.

I would not have thought of that one, even though I am used to reading the essays to my students to make sure that they “get” them.

One of the failing techniques I also would not have thought of.

Infrequent use. Like all writing strategies, peer coaching has to be done often enough that students memorize it so they don’t have to consult their notes.

I recommend the whole article, which was recommended by Dr. Lee Skallerup of College Reading Writing.

who would heed a lawyer, financial advisor or doctor who showed up in dirty jeans, a frayed sport shirt, filthy running shoes etc. etc., who carried his professional papers in a nylon backpack? Not even a department dominated by radical egalitarians would hire a job applicant who arrived as if he was on the way to the beach. This would be insulting, a sign of disinterest in the job, and these egalitarians would be right.

At a minimum, dressing well informs students that one is serious about classroom responsibilities. If I can spend an extra hour before class matching ties and shirts, checking for stains, polishing my wingtips, combing my hair and all the rest, you can certainly pay attention.

from Professors Should Dress Like Professionals

This is something I have struggled with all of my academic career. My professors at my undergrad dressed nicely. The men wore suits. The women wore dresses or nice pantsuits. I was shocked when I went to Purdue and the professors showed up in pants and shirts, male and female. But now I don’t dress up as much as I used to. I wonder if part of that is a problem of my own perception.

Any comments on how we dress like professionals?