Coaching sports at a smaller university can be tricky for three reasons:
1) You will have some athletes there, sometimes from other teams, playing for the scholarship only.
2) Many of these athletes are true freshman, meaning you get to be the coach they have right out of high school.
3) Regardless if they enjoy your coaching or not, many of them will not put in the work if they don’t have to.
Teaching an intro course can be tricky for three reasons:
1) You will have some students there, typically not from that major, taking the course to “get it out of the way”.
2) Many of these students are true freshman, meaning you get to be the teacher they have right of high school.
3) Regardless if they enjoy the class or not, many of them will not put in the work if they don’t have to.
See what I did there?
Lately, I’ve been noticing some resistance to learning more material. Since REVEL is out of the picture (thank the Lord), there really is not pressure put on our 1010 students to learn new material. They could use this time to prepare for the test, but why would they do that when they can cram the night before? It’s okay, we’ve all been there.
One of my sections really values learning material, but they don’t read. Therefore, the activities are not as plentiful or rewarding for them. So, before the beginning of my lecture this week, I told them
how important it is they read and listed all the reasons why. I continued to get blank stares so I blatantly asked them why most of them aren’t reading in which one of my students replied, “Chelsea, with all due respect, we all have better things to do from other classes that actually have points associated with them.” (As Kevin Howard would say, “The blatant disrespect!”) So, I told the class I understood, encouraged them to read for our next class period, and moved on.
how important it is they read and listed all the reasons why. I continued to get blank stares so I blatantly asked them why most of them aren’t reading in which one of my students replied, “Chelsea, with all due respect, we all have better things to do from other classes that actually have points associated with them.” (As Kevin Howard would say, “The blatant disrespect!”) So, I told the class I understood, encouraged them to read for our next class period, and moved on.
I could not stop thinking about this conversation, so I did something crazy.
In my classes, I rely heavily on discussion with a liiiiittle bit of lecture. I honestly try to make activities short so we can have more time to talk about them. This same section seems to not really enjoy that I don’t just lecture them. So, I took some of Kahl’s thoughts and taught my class a little bit about why I do things the way that I do.
I introduced them to the Banking Model of Education, lectured about Paulo Freire, and finished with explaining how I respect them SO much that I don’t want to use the hegemonic system in my classroom (believing they know nothing, that I know everything and do all the thinking, that I am forcing my thoughts onto them). This was a great transition into our activity regarding hegemony for Language, Power, and Culture week.
I introduced them to the Banking Model of Education, lectured about Paulo Freire, and finished with explaining how I respect them SO much that I don’t want to use the hegemonic system in my classroom (believing they know nothing, that I know everything and do all the thinking, that I am forcing my thoughts onto them). This was a great transition into our activity regarding hegemony for Language, Power, and Culture week.
I saw an intense mood shift in the room once I was finished with the short lecture. My typically disengaged class was all-of-a-sudden perked up out of their seats and some were even nodding and smiling. One student even said, “Thank you for not thinking we’re stupid.” We finished class after our Privilege Walk activity (that they all enthusiastically participated in) and even though I accidentally went over by 3 minutes, no one stopped me or started packing up their stuff.
When you’re playing sports, there are times where you’re going to question what your coach is doing. They may make you run laps all practice and you may even become frustrated that there is no immediate reward. It is not until the end of the season that you realize all of those laps you ran helped you become a better athlete, a better player, and a better person. The same philosophy can be used with teaching, but may be times in the semester where you will need to explain to your students the method to their madness to avoid leaving them in the dark, build trust, and push them to achieve the goals.
#Pedagoalie
When we talk about students who are in Comm1010 who do not be their, I think that we can do several things that will make them want to engaged.
ReplyDeleteFirst, do not try too hard. I think that this is really important because students can see when we are trying to hard. Additionally, students are D-Bags, and they feed off of this negativity. When we just do enough to get their attention, I think that this is all that we need to do.
Second, making sure that you come to class prepared. I think that this goes without saying. If we do not, then the students will feed off of this, and make snarky come backs.
Third, I think that we should have the following mentality: even if we impact or reach-in some way, shape or form-one student, then I think that we have done our jobs. This means that we should not be looking to change the entire class outcome. When I have had that mentality, I have been very successful insofar as getting a large amount of students to participate.