Journal entries - Katie's first class

Impressions after first teaching experience - 9/17/09
Well, it went better and worse than I expected. I didn't forget anything crucial. We didn't run over our alotted time. But I did forget a few things I meant to mention, and I did get exhausted towards the end, and Toby finished up the last part of the class. No more teaching for me until AFTER maternity leave. I was glad Toby was there, but it also made me a little nervous, just mostly that "being watched by your boss" feeling. And my classes will be different than hers - do the choices I make to not copy what she does imply criticism where none is meant?

It's very hard to tell when all the students are behind computers - especially in a room as wide as the one we were in this morning when you can only look at a few people at a time - who's following along and who's not. I know I tend to talk fast, but it was hard to tell whether they were "getting it" or not. I tried to ask a lot of questions about what they already knew and had already used so I didn't waste time covering things they were familiar with.

One of my main goals was to keep the introductory lecture at the beginning to five to seven minutes, because after that they start to zone out. This meant I had to save a couple things, like subject searching and RefWorks, for halfway through the class and interrupt their searching. Worrying about time probably didn't help me slow down any, but knowing I had a limited amount to cover did. I also made sure to tell them at the beginning what our basic agenda would be for the class, although I almost forgot to introduce myself. One thing about saving the coverage of subject searching vs. keyword searching was that I got to talk with the regular instructor about whether she thought that was something they already knew about or not, and she thought it would be good to cover. By waiting until they'd done some keyword searching before bringing it up, they had more context for what I was talking about. So I think I'll definitely use that approach again.

Even with the handouts we pass around, and even with a description on the board of what the small group presentations should include, some students were STILL confused about what they were going to be covering, so I have to make sure to be extra clear about that in the future. And even with prompts from the handout and the board, two of the three groups didn't explain what kind of materials (reports, articles, books...) were in their resource. I hate to feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but I guess those are things worth repeating; maybe next time we revise the handouts we can put some things in bold type. It's so much easier sometimes to tell what people are and aren't getting when someone else is teaching, because you can see their screens from the back of the room as they try to follow along.

Overall I thought the groups understood their resource, that they reacted well to me, and that they learned some useful information about our resources - I wanted to write this down before I checked their survey feedback to see if that's right. If this had been a lecture-style class I'd be more nervous, because as I said it was hard to gauge their understanding as a group of 21, but walking around asking and answering questions one-on-one and in small groups they did seem to know what was going on, and I was able to answer a lot of questions. Biggest thing to work on next time: slow down, try to find a way to make sure they're with me, and don't be afraid to summarize after the small groups. I was afraid of giving them the impression that their presentation was so bad I had to do it over again, but I think done correctly it can be a big help, especially if they miss a point or two. Toby did that part today, because by that point I was wiped out. Also, if a group forgets to mention something and I notice it in time, I can (and did) prompt them with a question, and that seemed to go over well. I definitely didn't get the impression they thought I was some weird old lady.

Now to read the survey feedback...
The bad news: For "How would you search for the research topic of effects of the media on child obesity?", less than a third of the class got the right answer; half the class selected "Media effects on children and obesity" instead of "Media and children and obesity." So next time I should take the time to cover - briefly but clearly - using AND, OR, and NOT, and the basics of keyword searching. Toby does this, and mentions not to use prepositions, and I started to but then got distracted by explaining something else. And even though Toby covered it in her session last week, those students got similar results in their survey. Hm.
The good news: 20 of our 21 respondents thought today's information was "useful for their class." Only 2 people didn't like the group format. And my favorite, almost everyone responded "no" when asked if there was anything they were still unclear on. I'll call that a successful session.

Journal entries - Katie's first set

Impressions after 1^st orientation:

Our first meeting to talk about what we’re doing this semester – mostly about instruction – felt like a lot of information and hardly any information at the same time.

On the one hand, we saw a lot of different parts of the Wiki, saw a list of all the classes that need to be scheduled and the ones that are already scheduled, saw how to use the classroom reservation system, and heard tidbits about some of the individual professors. I couldn’t write it all down, and wondered: how much of this are we supposed to remember? Which parts are most important? Will I be able to find it all again?

On the other hand, we didn’t really discuss anything about the content of the courses, except that it varies, that we break them up to work in groups, and what some of the most common databases to cover are. I wouldn’t say I felt any closer to being ready to teach at the end of the session than at the beginning, but Toby said we usually observe two or three classes and then assist with one to three of them, so we’ll find out more about the content of the sessions during that process.

I’m nervous because I’d like to get trained as soon as possible so I know I’ll get some teaching experience regardless of when my maternity leave ends up being. Based on how the schedule looks now, I’m not sure if that’s going to be possible. There are several sessions that haven’t been scheduled yet, though, so anything is possible.

Impressions after 1^st observation:

Observing Toby teach one of these for the first time answered a lot of my questions. I think I was most curious (and honestly, probably worried) about the students. I haven’t been a college freshman for a long time. Toby warned us that sometimes there would be students who just sit and check their e-mail and refuse to participate, and that it’s a good idea to tell them at the beginning to put away their phones. I was worried that they’d be rude, resistant, sluggish, or just completely unable to follow the instructions and report anything useful back to the class. I was pleasantly surprised on all counts – I’d say their impromptu group presentations were better than ones I’d seen by grad students in my own program, either because they found the content easy, or they were comfortable with their classmates, or just because my LIS peers are a particularly public-speaking phobic group. Everyone in the class explored the databases. I didn’t see anyone texting or checking e-mail. That’s not to say they were super excited to be there and jumping at the chance to answer questions, but they were respectful and reasonably cooperative.

It didn’t even occur to me to wonder how involved the class’s regular teacher would be, and I imagine it varies, but this instructor was very engaged. He was obviously familiar with the resources Toby had the groups working in, and would chime in occasionally to either comment to the whole class or to ask a particular student a question that would help them learn something about their group’s resource. It definitely helped set the tone, and indicated that he thought that what Toby was covering and what the library had to offer was important and useful.

I admit I was a little relieved that so much of the time was spent on group work and so little was Toby lecturing – that made it feel more do-able. It still seemed daunting to answer questions as they arise and check on all the groups to make sure their presentations are going to go well, but hopefully that will come with practice. The portion at the beginning of class where Toby talked about the library and its website seemed kind of all over the place. I took notes but will definitely have to hear it a few more times before I have enough sense of the rhyme and reason to be able to give a similar introduction myself.

The scariest thing was that even as a third year grad student and frequent database user, I learned a lot from the students’ presentations. I’ll definitely have to spend some time in some of the databases I haven’t used much, and some time using the RefWorks bibliographic software, if I’m going to be any use at all in answering questions.

Impressions about English 1B scheduling

Most of the classes we’ll be teaching are for English 1B, Composition 2; the rest are for freshman-only, smallish seminars called MUSE classes. One of the interns from an earlier semester had already sent an initial e-mail to all the professors and scheduled many of the classes, but there were still a lot of blank spots on the “where and when” spreadsheet. I volunteered to take over the job just as it became tricky. Instead of the 3 interns (plus me, out on maternity leave during the busiest part of the semester) we were going to have for teaching 40-60 classes, mostly in October, it turned out that there would only be one (plus me, still just as useful).

This meant that scheduling had to be a lot more careful to avoid overlaps so that we weren’t overbooked. To be on the safe side, Toby wanted things scheduled so that no two classes were at the same time, and no class was at a time she was unavailable to teach it. To keep things interesting, thanks to budget issues there are campus wide and library-specific closure days to watch out for and issues with particular meeting rooms. All the English 1B sections were listed on a spreadsheet I had access to, but there didn’t seem to be a list of MUSE classes anywhere, and Toby didn’t have a coordinated calendar. She told me to get the information about MUSE classes by checking the classroom reservation system, and that she’d e-mail me a list of her scheduling issues.

I’m a planner and a detail-oriented, logistics-loving person, so this both drove me nuts and had me cracking my knuckles in excitement. I couldn’t believe that the existing system hadn’t led to some major scheduling disaster already and really wanted whatever I set up to be something that Toby and future interns could maintain – and that we could all use. I set up a couple shared calendars on Google calendar with all the information from all the different sources. It took much longer than I thought it would, and even on my third re-check I found something I’d missed. So I’m nervous, but I think between the spreadsheets and classroom scheduler as additional data sources and with all of us inputting and monitoring things, we’ll be fine. And I recently heard from Toby that we’re going to have a couple more people pitching in to teach classes, so the already-existing overlap issues aren’t as much of a disaster as I feared.

On the communicating with professors end of things, it was much tougher than I thought it would be to tell someone they couldn’t have the date and time they wanted. I didn’t know what else would be affected on their syllabus. I’d never spoken to any of them before, so I had no idea how they would take bad news or what they’d think about it coming from some grad student they’d never heard of. I didn’t think they needed to know, or would care, about our logistical constraints or intern shortage. Fortunately I didn’t have to disappoint too many people, but one of the professors we had to reschedule practically bit Toby’s head off. Note to future interns doing initial scheduling: manage expectations. Note to self: be glad I’m not teaching his classes.

Even after 2 or 3 rounds of e-mail, 2 or 3 weeks into the semester, one professor still hadn’t responded. I think I’d rather have my head bitten off – at least then I know where I stand.