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.