Thoughts on Teaching – 2/26/2012 – A grading weekend
OK. I’m cheating on the date a bit here, since it just turned past midnight here, but I will probably get a Monday blog out, so I went ahead and put this with a Sunday date.
Just a note here as to why I haven’t posted all weekend. It’s a grading weekend! I took Friday off from grading after working through assignments last week, but Saturday and Sunday were full-on grading extravaganzas. For any of you who teach out there, you know how it is. I spent a good 8-10 hours each day working on my grading. My mom, who also teaches at a community college, sympathized this morning, although we have opposite schedules on our big grading times. Her strategy is to get up earlier and earlier in the morning to grade, whereas I just stay up later and later grading. This weekend, I stopped grading after 10pm each day, and this week is going to be similarly busy, as I have a lot of grading left to do. That’s the problem with setting up the class to have three major turn-in points for the students, as it means that when each of those points hit, I have around 2 major assignments from each of my 180 students to grade. I typically try to get things back to my students within a week from when they gave them to me, but that’s not going to happen this time. I am actually on the week after schedule so far, but I can already tell that I’m going to fall behind that schedule very soon, as there simply are not enough hours in the day to get things back that quickly. But I will keep working and keep the students notified of my progress, and that should be ok. I’ve noticed that, as long as you are honest about when the assignments will be graded, the students don’t mind not getting their work back for a while. It’s only when they have no idea what’s going on and when they are going to get anything back that they start to freak out.
In all of it, I must say that the grading went well. I did my usual of holing myself up in the back bedroom for both days, putting on either music or movies and just pounding out the grading. I graded roughly 50 essays each on Saturday and Sunday, graded using a grading rubric in turnitin.com. Also, today, when I finished up the second set of 50 essays, I then had to grade the discussion forum participation for each student and figure up final grades. For this assignment, I had the 2 essays and a discussion forum that figured into the grade for the online class. The first essay (the longer one) counted 40% of the grade, while the second essay and discussion participation were 30% each. So, at the end of my grading time this evening, around 10:45, I posted all of the grades up for those online sections.
And, of course, just as a note for all of those who think that teaching college is some cushy job, no, I don’t get paid anything more for working all weekend. Yes, I could just give all of my students multiple-choice tests and not have to worry about weeks like this (as this grading session will at least last through next weekend, if not longer), but I strongly believe that my students should write and need to write a lot. Yes, I teach 6 sections. Yes, I have 180 students signed up for my classes. But each of them will be assigned to write at least 20 pages for me over the course of the semester, and many will do a lot more than that, as my published word counts are only minimums. Most students will find that completing the assignments in the minimum word count is very difficult, and for many, I will read up to twice that much from them in the semester. Although I might curse myself while I’m in the middle of grading these things, I hope that by getting them writing and thinking and by providing them with feedback to help them improve, I am contributing to their further education and growth. Maybe that’s idealistic of me, but there’s still a little idealism left, even after 10 years of teaching.
Thought on Teaching – 2/24/2012 – Grading the first assignment
OK, so the first major assignment is coming in, and so I am just starting to grade them. It’s always an interesting point when you get to see the first major set of assignments from a group of students. All they’ve had to this point are some chapter quizzes to keep them moderately honest in what work they are doing for the class, but here at the third of the way through point, the real stuff is coming due. I have multiple writing assignments over the course of the semester (6 for the online class and 8 for the hybrid class), and these are the first written ones. So, not only am I seeing their work for the first time, a lot of them are doing real work for me for the first time here. For each of us, this is the point where the class really starts. This is especially true for the class that I just finished grading. I teach the two halves of the American history survey, and so in the spring, I mostly teach the second half. However, I do have one online class that is the first half. Whereas many of the students in my second half class are ones that I’ve had before, all of those in my first half are new to me. So, it really is a new experience all the way around.
What they had to do was work through a Critical Mission within the Connect History system associated with our textbook. There were two written assignments out of that. The Critical Mission had them take on the role of an advisor to Moctezuma as Cortez and his men are approaching. The students have to advise Moctezuma on whether to take a militant approach to Cortez or whether to greet him peacefully. The students are given evidence to work with for it, and they have to put together an argument using the evidence. Anyway, the details aren’t all that relevant, but it does give you the idea of what the students are doing for me. So, I graded their two submissions and discussion forum over last night and this morning, getting all of those out to them early this morning.
It is interesting to see how it goes. First of all, there were 30 people in the class when we started. We are down to 26 now with drops by this point. Of those, 4 have not logged into the classroom in over 14 days, so they are also not really counted. Including those, 11 did not turn anything in for this project, despite multiple reminders throughout the weeks leading up to the project. So, of 30 that I started with, I actually graded 15 projects. The overall results were pretty good for a first assignment. I mean only one or two really hit the mark completely with regards to my expectations, but the results were good overall. What I was actually most impressed with was the discussion participation. I give them a couple of topic options to write on, and generally they give 2-3 sentences at most on the first time out in an online discussion. Instead, here I got long thoughtful discussions with replies that showed they actually had read the other person’s writing and had thought about it. It was impressive for a class of people that have not had me or known my expectations before this point.
I guess I really don’t know what else to say about it. Nothing all that profound here at all, just wanted to share what was a pretty decent feeling for me about an assignment. Yes, so many people didn’t do much of anything on it, but those who did participate actually turned out a good product. That is always gratifying, as it makes me feel like I put together a good class with good instructions if they were able to succeed like that.
P.S. I apologize if this is a bit rambling in nature. I’ve been doing a few other things and keep coming back and adding a sentence or two at a time. So, if it’s disconnected and disjointed, that’s the reason. I’m not going to go back and read over because I’m tired and ready for bed, so everyone will have to take this one as it is. Talk to you tomorrow.
Thoughts on Teaching – 2/23/2012 – An excellent discussion
Just a quick post today, as I need to get some grading done.
I had a spectacular discussion yesterday in one of my sections. We were working through the issues of a Critical Mission from the McGraw-Hill Connect History program. I started off the discussion by asking, “What did you think?” Then, an hour and fifteen minutes later, I ended the class. In other words, they talked for 75 minutes in a productive discussion with no further prompting from me except to interject some comments and call on people to make sure people got to talk. Rare but quite satisfying.
Thoughts on Education – 2/22/2012 – Getting a liberal arts education
Back to thinking about education after a couple of days doing other things. I’ve been trying to get something up here every day, but things have been so busy over the last couple of days, that I’ve been taking a quick way out a couple of days. So, I want to get back into thinking about some of the big educational ideas out there. There have been a few articles on getting an education, largely about getting a liberal arts education, that have passed through my Evernote, so I thought I’d bring them together here.
I wanted to open with this chart. It comes from a short article here. I don’t even really need to say anything about it, but I will anyway, as the chart is certainly provocative:
I guess the questions out of this are, what does the SAT really test and what does looking at a standardized test tell us about student progress. The first I learned from a summer of teaching for Princeton Review, which is that the SAT tests you on your ability to take the SAT. That’s about it, since if you know the tricks of taking the SAT, you can do well regardless of your actual knowledge. I can only guess that the fact that SAT scores increase as you go up in income probably reflects the greater availability of SAT prep courses as you go up in income. Or even sadder, maybe it’s that our whole education system is set up to help the richest succeed overall, so what knowledge that is tested on the SAT is more likely to come from the wealthy. On the other side is, of course, the question of how well a standardized test actually measures student ability or progress. Increasingly we come to rely on these high-stakes tests, but do they actually test ability, or do they just test access. In other words, if you are rich and can afford to send your kids to the best private high schools, are you more likely to do well on the SAT tests because of that. I don’t know the answer, but I suspect it’s a combination of all of this.
Then comes two articles on what value there is in the education that students get out of the college they go to. This discussion apparently followed out of a previous article about the ties between Wall Street and the Ivy Leagues. I’m not so interested in that, but I thought the further discussion about the liberal arts degrees and their relevance today were interesting. Of course, my own background as a history major makes me even more interested. I like this paragraph as a starting point from the first article: “Let’s say you’re a history major with a specialization in 18th century Europe from Yale. It may be that, from the economy’s perspective, your time at Yale taught you to think, research and write, which are all skills that can be used in a wide variety of upper-management positions. But that’s not what you think your time at Yale taught you. You think your time at Yale taught you about 18th century Europe. That’s what you spent all your time studying. That’s what you got graded on. And that’s why you’re nervous. There aren’t all that many jobs out there asking for a working knowledge of the Age of Enlightenment.” We talk about these skills that we expect our students at a community college to come out with, but I never really thought about the fact that students might not see or value those skills, as it is not obvious that is what they are really learning. It’s really a question of perception here. As Ezra Klein notes, “. . . it’s a problem that so many kids are leaving college feeling like they don’t have the skills necessary to effectively and confidently enter the economy.” While he is discussing high level education, I think there’s a similar problem at the community college level, as students are even more skills focused at that level. They want to know explicitly what the value of their education is. Simply telling them that learning history will be valuable in the long run doesn’t do much for them. Yet, when you point to these skills — the ability to read, write, think, evaluate, argue, and so forth — they don’t see those listed in the jobs they are seeking, even if those are the skills that employers might really want. I’ve heard this described before as college being short-hand for employers that a graduate has these skills, but that doesn’t help the actual graduate get a job if he or she does not know that they are valuable for that reason rather than for the degree they have. I think this is something we need to emphasize more from the college perspective, but I think that employers also need to be more open about it.
Following in that vein, there was a similar article discussing the results of a concentration on a liberal arts education. Daniel de Vise states – “We tend to offer some – typically our more disadvantaged, low-income populations – a more limited education that may prepare them for jobs for two or three years before they need to be re-trained. Meanwhile, we tend to offer others – disproportionately a more privileged group – a lifelong, liberal education that appreciates over time, preparing them for entire careers, and for jobs that may not even exist yet in our rapidly evolving economy.” We certainly go with the first side at the community college level because that is what we see ourselves as, as much technical trainers as transfer teachers. We do think of ourselves as teaching transfer students in the standards, but the reality is that many of our students are even pursuing a degree for the work advancement that it can bring. And this article comes back to that issue of skills. What he calls “liberal education” is at the center of the transfer of those skills from the Klein article earlier, in that a liberal education delivers an ” education that focuses on the development of capacities such as writing, effective communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and ethical reasoning. These skills are practical, transferrable, and essential for the life-long learning that we all need if we are to thrive in a world that is complex, diverse, and ever-changing.” He warns against taking away that education in focusing in on technical education in fields that might not last or in training that will have to be renewed soon. Again, I think we need to emphasize these skills more. And, I guess I’m pointing to myself here, as I never really make it all that apparent that these are the valuable skills in the whole process. I know we get caught up in the specifics of our subjects, but delivering a course as simply learning history or english or math or whatever will never be as valuable to a student as learning skills for the real job market out there. As well, if our students graduate or transfer only knowing that they have accumulated the correct courses to graduate, then they will not see the value of what they are learning. Of course, as I noted above, if employers aren’t honest about what they want out of a college graduate, then those skills won’t be seen as valuable either. They need to be explicitly sought in the job market for it to be relevant for me to tell students that they are learning these valuable skills. It has to be a circle starting somewhere, I guess. But should it start from my end or from the employers?
On the theme of a degree telling employers something, this article on the value of a graduate degree is also relevant. As noted, a master’s degree or higher “signals to employers that recipients can complete a demanding program and that they have already been vetted by an institution.” It denotes a set of skills rather than a specific skill. While nothing in this article is particularly groundbreaking, it really just extends the last two I’ve discussed here into the graduate realm. Of course, the value of the graduate degree does vary by field, and I found their graphic to illustrate this well:
This, or course, shows that for me, there was a bump for getting my degree, although certainly from a lower level to start and a lower gain as well. Also, as noted a master’s degree is quickly become a standard rather than an option. This is true for me. So, regardless of the skills that I’m supposed to have learned from my degree, I simply had to have it. I could not have gotten my current job without a master’s degree, regardless of what skills I actually gained. And this, of course, is the other side of all of this I’ve talked about today. If the degree is a symbol of skills learned, then we have to be teaching those skills. I think I am, but are we all? Does every college education show those skills? Just something to think about.
Thoughts on Education – 2/21/2012 – A day with publishers
I got a few of my own things done today, including teaching a class, but the majority of today was taken up with activities involving publishers. This was not a bad thing, it’s just different from normal. It was all with a single publishing company, which shall remain nameless. I met with two representatives just before my first class today, and that was very productive. They represent the book that I am currently using and also represent the book that we are probably going to be adopting starting this next school year. It’s not the exact same book, but is instead the brief edition of the one I’m using now. We discussed some of the issues and problems I’ve been having, and it would have been nice to talk to them longer, as we could certainly have talked more at that point. It was nice, as I do like the one-on-one (two-on-one here) interaction, especially with a product that I am currently using.
After my class today, the representatives took the history people out to lunch, and we had a great time just chatting and eating good food. I don’t go to On the Border much, but what I had was very good. It is funny, as they had this symbol used in the menu that represented “healthy choices,” but it was only on three items out of the whole entire menu. I ended up with a fajita salad, which was not marked as “healthy,” but I left off the sour cream and guacamole, which made it not very bad for me at all.
Came back to campus for a bit of office hours and finished up a few things, then it was a drive to Irving. Long drive. A huge accident at the 121/183 split backed up for miles and led to a very long and slow drive. Finally, I made it to the hotel where the history focus group was being held with the publishers. Essentially, they were showing off their product and getting reactions from us as to what we liked, what we didn’t like, and what we would change/improve. I had seen most of it before and was the only one there who had used all of the products shown. Unfortunately, since I do like to talk, and since I had a lot to say about the products that were being used, I probably did talk too much. Still, I hope it was helpful to the others there, and I hope that what I had to say was also helpful to the publishers. It was an interesting evening, but i know that it was more helpful to them and the others than it was to me specifically. It was not a wasted evening by any means, and I did like discussing the material. I also ran into a couple of people from my earlier conference in Key West last fall, but I must say I liked that format better than this one. I know the intention is different, and Key West is nice as well, but I just like delving into the issues over a 2 1/2 day conference better than over a 2 1/2 hour conference. I felt like we just were not able to go into much detail and kept having to move on, whereas I would have loved to just keep going. I guess that’s the education nerd in me, as I could just talk and talk and talk about this stuff all day long. Probably better to keep it short anyway, as I would have just continued to talk otherwise.
And now, I’m back home. Tomorrow, I’m going to have to get to the actual grading I need to do, but it was nice to do something very different for a day.
Thoughts on Teaching – 2/20/2012 – A slow day
Today was an uninspiring teaching day. I have reworked lectures at various times over the years, and much of that has been to shorten earlier in the semester lectures so that I can make it further into the time period that I’m covering. Today was one of those lectures where I made cuts that disconnected the material from its real point. So, I struggled through the first delivery to connect everything together and show the students why this was not just a collection of random material but instead was connected and relevant. It worked better by the second class, but both classes were also depressing for another reason. The big problem is that I felt the students were more disconnected than usual today. The drops are starting, so some students are getting out of the class now, but I really have a large number of people simply not showing up. And, of those who do show up, it’s hard to peg very many of them as actually paying all that much attention. Again, it certainly wasn’t my best material at all, but it just reinforces for me the problem with a lecture. When my lecture is going really well, I might have 50-60% student engagement. Today, it felt like 20-30%, which is just depressing overall. In my second class, which is a two-way video class, the high school I was connecting to was not in session, and a lot of people were missing in front of me, so I ended up lecturing to nine people. Twenty-six out of forty in the first class was already low for this time of year, but nine is really depressing. And then to see them mostly disconnected is even worse, as there’s no hiding the fact that you’re not connecting on the material with that few students in the room.
I have been saying for a while that my lectures need to be revised soon, and this lecture was one that needs to be worked with desperately. It might work better as one that is not delivered but that is, instead, seen by the students not as an individual lecture but as a narrative supplement that I have available to enhance the hybrid class going on in the classroom. I guess that’s going to be the question when I do redo the class, whether it’s a full flip or not, which is do I present the lectures at that point in episodic form, like they are now, where there are distinct lectures, or do I format my own material like a book, putting it together in a narrative that the students can engage with like they would the textbook. They can read it in pieces or all at once. I’m thinking of an integrated lecture, with my PowerPoint images combined with the text from the lectures that can be read more like a book. I don’t know, just brainstorming here. I started that a while ago and made it through the first two lectures, coding them in Dreamweaver to bring together a web lecture. Nothing fancy except for integration of the images with text. Still, it would give the students something to read more interesting than just a Word document with an accompanying Power Point. And, this would give a good opportunity to rework the lectures, especially if I am to move beyond the delivery of the lectures and think about them more as a way to deliver my ideas to the student. I can imagine that the lectures would be different if they were aimed at being read rather than delivered. I don’t know. This will be something to think about as I move forward.
I guess all of us who teach have these days, but it was definitely less than inspiring. Beyond that, it was mostly small stuff at work, writing a recommendation letter and weighing in on the choosing of a new textbook for the class. I wish I could say there was more, but that’s about it. I have grading to do, but I did not get any done today, because that filled up my day, and by the time I got home, it was time to pick up the kids. Then, it was chores, homework time with the kids, and dinner. Now, all of the sudden, it’s 10pm. So, I shall sign off for the evening and hope for a more inspiring day tomorrow.
Thoughts on Teaching – 2/19/2012 – First major assignments due
It’s the joy that anybody who is a teacher knows — the joy of the first major assignment coming due. It’s the point where students who have skated by not doing much are going to have to put up or shut up. And for me, that point has been reached. In my hybrid classes, their assignments are scattered and due over about a 2 week period, so it’s not quite as bad with them, but with the online classes, they are turning in their first big one tonight. And, since I’m in online office hours tonight, I am here and witnessing it blow by blow. What that has meant is that I have been hearing and seeing all of the excuses roll by as to why something is not working or why things will not be turned in on time. Actually, I haven’t seen that many of those yet, but it’s almost 8pm now, and the assignment closes at midnight. So, as it gets closer and closer, the fear-induced excuses will grow. On the positive side, I have seen a lot of drafts so far, which is very good. Drafting means higher levels of organization and preparedness and generally leads to better grades overall. Of course, even then, the assignment has been open for 5 weeks, and I am seeing even drafts only in the last couple of days. I know it’s a joke to say an assignment is open for 5 weeks, as very, very few students will do any work on something more than a week before it is due. Most will do it a day or two before, so a good number are working furiously to finish it right now.
I’ve also thrown in a different wrench this time to their plans (lovely mixed metaphor there). They get all of the information for their assignment from the textbook website, but they actually turn it in on turnitin.com. So, they have to take the extra step of making sure they turn it in to the correct place. As of right now, I have already been contacted by two who realized they turned it in at the incorrect place, and I’m sure there will be more who will realize it at a later point. As to excuses, I’ve had two so far — a child in the hospital and a crashed computer — both are probably legitimate (the first definitely so), and those have been dealt with. The more creative excuses come as we get closer to the time when everything is due. I do take late assignments at a 10-point penalty per day, but I don’t actually say that up front, as I don’t want students abusing that option.
For now, it is the time when I start to see who is really serious about the class and who is not. It’s funny that it comes to that, but it is true as well. A good portion of my students do not make it even to the first assignment of the semester. They are already lost before they’ve even gotten any significant grades, and there is not much I can do about it. I can notify them that they have missed the assignment (we have an Early Alert system that sends them an official email and letter from the college), but that’s about all I can do. This semester, there has already seemed to be a larger number in classes overall here at my community college that are not showing up. One of my hybrid sections is already down a third in attendance. I’ll have a better idea of how the online classes sit after this weekend, so I can’t say anything there yet. I’ve talked to some colleagues and even my classes themselves, and everyone has noted a larger than normal number of students who have signed up for classes and not even made it past the third or fourth week. I don’t really know why or what would make this semester any different than the others.
And so I sit and monitor my classes for now. I have some other projects I’m working on, so I am doing those on the side while I’m here monitoring my email and my online office hours room, but most of it is just sitting here and monitoring. Not the most exciting thing, but then teaching, especially online, does devolve into a lot of waiting on the students to do their thing so that you can do your thing. By tomorrow, I’ll have a mountain of grading to do. But for now, I wait, do some other things, and keep checking to try to avert whatever crises I can.
Thoughts on Education – 2/18/2012 – Who can achieve academic success?
Back to your normally scheduled educational blogging. I’m feeling better finally, and I’m going to take a bit of time to blog here before starting on my main job for today, which is going to be grading.
‘Academically Adrift’: The News Gets Worse and Worse
The beginning has to be the continuing discussion of the assessment of how much students learn in their college education. The latest information that has been released shows a further problem with our higher education system: “While press coverage of Academically Adrift focused mostly on learning among typical students, the data actually show two distinct populations of undergraduates. Some students, disproportionately from privileged backgrounds, matriculate well prepared for college. They are given challenging work to do and respond by learning a substantial amount in four years. Other students graduate from mediocre or bad high schools and enroll in less-selective colleges that don’t challenge them academically. They learn little. Some graduate anyway, if they’re able to manage the bureaucratic necessities of earning a degree.” With teaching at a community college, I do, unfortunately, see mostly those from the second half. And, as I know from experience, when people think of college students, they don’t think of the students I have. Instead, as has been noted, the people who talk about educational policy mostly come from that first group and the people who create educational policy come from that first group. Students like mine are generally ignored in the debate about what to do about academics, which is why I often find the advice and discussion about education to be somewhat irrelevant to who I teach. In fact, even the failures of my students (and there are many) are generally seen as a failure on the part of the student. We blame the students for failing, even when they come into a system not designed for them and where their needs and abilities are not dealt with in a constructive manner. I don’t mean to say that the community college system or my community college is failing, it is just that when I have an expectation that 30-50% of my students will either withdraw, fail, or get a D out of my course, then we have to be working at a different standard. You don’t see that at elite or even normal 4-year colleges, yet most of what you see out there that involves higher education deals with those students. There are some community college specific resources, but they don’t drive the national conversation about education.
As this report shows, that bottom level of college students are more likely to come out of school with few skills and few prospects, where the likelihood is that they “are more likely to be living at home with their parents, burdened by credit-card debt, unmarried, and unemployed.” And, that makes it more difficult to justify an education to the students and to justify the cost of that education to those who pay for it. Of course, as I have noted so many times, articles like this love to point out the problems, but they never say much of anything about solutions. In fact, the implication of the end of the article is that maybe this research isn’t really correct and that we need to do our own research to find out the real truth. But I see the failures every day. We know that a certain number of students will simply never make it through, no matter what we do. It is sad, but it is true. But are we giving value to the rest of the students is the real question. I hope that we are, and I know that our current assessment craze is trying to prove that. I guess I don’t have anything more profound than that to say about it. It is definitely one of those things that makes teaching hard and makes justifying the money and time spent on teaching hard. But the question to ask always is, would we prefer a system where we never give any but the top people a chance at an education?
I came across two other related articles on teaching that I thought I would talk about for the rest of this blog post:
Colleges looking beyond the lecture
I picked this one because it is one of the things that pisses me off over and over in reading articles about changes in teaching. Here’s the reason: “Science, math and engineering departments at many universities are abandoning or retooling the lecture as a style of teaching, worried that it’s driving students away.” Where are the humanities and social sciences in this? Why is it only STEM that is trying to make changes. Yes, I can find a few history sites out there, but overwhelmingly if you’re talking about changing up education or the use of technology, it comes back over and over to STEM as the place where changes come from. So, wonderful, colleges are looking beyond the lecture in these areas because students aren’t succeeding with the lecture. Does that mean the lecture is working elsewhere? Or is it because the lecture is such an expected part of other areas of education that we don’t even question its utility.
So, the article goes on to talk about the challenges of the lecture system — low student learning, the ability of students to get the same information elsewhere, and low retention. What is interesting is the last part of the article that talks about the solutions, which is mostly to stop lecturing. While they don’t use the term “flipping” the classroom in this article, that is what is discussed over and over. So, nothing really new over things I have discussed in the past. What is interesting is that most of the solutions talk about “experimental” classes that are tiny in comparison to the large lecture classes. But, is that an acceptable solution? Obviously, we have large classes because that’s what makes the most monetary sense, and we are not going to switch to a situation where there are no more big classes. So, I found the solutions here to be unrealistic.
At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard
This article is certainly related to the last, and I include it here, as this is the direction that everyone looking at education reform is looking at, based simply on how many articles there are out there. It is, of course, also what I am considering, which is why I pull every article like this out to look at more closely. But then, what do I see? “The physics department has replaced the traditional large introductory lecture with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning.” Back to STEM. Back to ending the large classes. Sigh.
Of course, if we had the money and resources, I would certainly jump at trying this: “At M.I.T., two introductory courses are still required — classical mechanics and electromagnetism — but today they meet in high-tech classrooms, where about 80 students sit at 13 round tables equipped with networked computers. Instead of blackboards, the walls are covered with white boards and huge display screens. Circulating with a team of teaching assistants, the professor makes brief presentations of general principles and engages the students as they work out related concepts in small groups. Teachers and students conduct experiments together. The room buzzes. Conferring with tablemates, calling out questions and jumping up to write formulas on the white boards are all encouraged.” But, we don’t have that type of classroom, those types of rooms to work with, teaching assistants, or anything like that. Plus, as the first article made the distinction, is this something that only works with the top level of college students or could it work for the bottom as well? A big question that I do not know the answer to. But since this is where the current push to change the system is going, I am trying to find out all that I can.
That’s why I started with the first article, as I think that we do design and think about the top level of students first, but that often leaves the bottom level out. And, I teach a good portion of students who are at that bottom level. I am trying to change their opportunities, but so often it does seem like the solutions I’m looking at require more money, time, and resources than are available to me. And yet, we’re also facing continuous budget cuts because even at the level we are now, we seen as being too expensive. I don’t know what this means, but it does make the job more difficult. Being innovative, creative, and improving student success on the cheap is very difficult.
Miscellaneous Thoughts – 2/16/2012
Not a long post today. That tetanus shot on Tuesday is really getting me down. I’m surviving on Tylenol/Advil to keep going, but I just don’t have any real energy or drive at the moment. So, just a few thoughts here:
- Frankie really loves music, especially when I’m whistling along too it. We’re listening to Tool right now, and she is really responding.
- My wife reminded me last night that I had told her that it couldn’t be that bad when she got a tetanus shot a year ago. I admitted I was wrong.
- We had homemade spaghetti for the third time tonight. I’m going to freeze the rest of it, as three times in a row is enough of any meal.
- My wife is gone to class tonight and won’t be back until very late. She does that on Wednesday’s as well, so I am fully responsible for feeding the kids and getting them ready for bed on those nights. The other nights, we share the responsibility.
- I am very proud of my wife for finishing up her BA this spring.
- The kids had chore night tonight – vacuuming, emptying the garbage cans, emptying the dishwasher, and general cleaning. I did the dishes and am doing laundry.
- It just occurred to me that I should also go check my blood sugar soon, as feeling off and out of it is never a good sign for a diabetic. I’ve got about another hour until it’s been 2 hours since food, so I’ll check it then to see where I am. Then, I’ll have dessert. My dessert is something I made for myself, a low-sugar graham cracker crust, no sugar strawberry mousse (from a package), strawberry slices, and no sugar whipped topping.
- I have nothing else to say at the moment and will sign off for the day.
Thoughts on Health – 2/15/2012 – A New Doctor
So, we decided as a family to take a big step. We left our previous doctor and switched to a new one. We had been increasingly unhappy with our previous doctor, and it finally reached the point where we felt that we were no longer getting good care. I asked around at work and got a solid recommendation from several people. I saw him for the first time yesterday and was quite pleased with the treatment. I actually liked my previous doctor quite a bit at first, but he moved to a new office and joined a new network, and the level of care has declined since. A couple of examples (without giving away any specific medical information) can illustrate this. First, both my wife and I felt that the doctor tended to not pay very much attention to our health at any regular basis, but when we did go in, they always seemed to find some huge, panic-inducing thing wrong with us. Yet, we would get sent to specialists recommended by the doctor and get basically a run around with little ever getting solved. So, it quickly came to seem either like the doctor was continually overreacting or we were getting sent to people who couldn’t figure out what the problems were. Second, the doctor dropped off the map on preventative care, with me not getting a physical or blood work unless I asked for it, despite being on several medications that should require at least yearly blood work. In fact, before I was diagnosed with diabetes, it had been over 4 years since my previous blood work, and it was only because I asked if I should have blood work done that anything was even done on that appointment. Third, getting in to see this doctor became increasingly like a cattle call, with 5-6 people sitting back in rooms waiting for the doctor to come by and spend a few minutes with them. And, he was the only doctor in the building, with only a nurse practitioner helping him.
The contrast with the new doctor could not be stronger. I was the first in the family to see him, although we will transfer everyone over. For one, I had a 1:30 appointment, and it turns out I was THE 1:30 appointment, with the next appointment not until 2:30. That is amazing compared to my previous doctor who had multiple people scheduled every 15 minutes. I saw the nurse for about 15 minutes and then the doctor and nurse together for another 20-30 minutes. We did a complete account of my medical history, working both off of paperwork I had filled out and from our conversation as well. Then, he proceeded to analyze and discuss each of my issues separately, spending a good amount of time on each, discussing them with me, giving his opinion on how things were being treated at the time and where treatment should go, and finally giving me time to ask questions about each. I’m not going to go into all of the different things, but since I have already written about diabetes here, I will use that as an example. My previous doctor had diagnosed me with diabetes, given me a glucose monitor, a prescription, and some pamphlets. This doctor sat down with me and talked extensively about diabetes and the problems associated with it. He also listened to my own account of what I had done (lost almost 30 pounds since September for example) and gave me guidance. He also said the first step he wanted to do was sign me up for a diabetes education program, something not mentioned at all by my previous doctor. He also said that he wanted to see daily glucose reports as well as getting blood work done every 3 months to keep on top of my condition. I came away feeling that I was in good hands in this situation. We also did both blood and urine work there, so that a baseline could be ascertained. It wasn’t fasting, but it gives some basic idea for the doctor to work from.
He also believes in preventative care more than my previous doctor. He insisted on a tetanus booster, as I was about 15 years out from my last one. I can’t thank him for that today, as my arm is very sore, and I’ve been feverish and achy for most of the day. But I do believe in preventative medicine overall. I was also impressed that when I left, the nurse, who had been there taking notes the whole time, handed me a printed out summary of what we had talked about, what the treatment plan was, and what else needed to be done. I know one visit is not enough to establish everything, but I really do feel in better hands. So, I can say that this was a very positive step, especially with the multiple chronic health issues that I have. I’ll keep reporting back in between the education coverage here, as health is becoming more and more of an important part of my life as well.
Thoughts, Ideas, Ramblings, and Other Things 