Keeping UP with Projects and Life

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About this time of the semester, the standard perspectives start rearing their ugly heads. Students believe that every instructor views his or her own class as the only class a student is taking; they further believe that we have set up a conspiracy to schedule all projects to be due at the same time.

Nothing could be further from the truth. First and foremost, I like to remind students that each instructor on this campus in the general education program has earned their degree, which means they had to take classes at some point in their history. For most of us, we had to do so while dealing with “life’s little challenges.” Many of my colleagues had children before they went to college. Most of us worked at least a part time job or two during our degree programs. I personally worked between 2 and 3 jobs each semester after my first two years; the only reason I was able to delay work for that long was because my family was adamant that school was my priority.

Second, your instructors don’t contact each other regarding schedules–at least not outside of a department. We plan exams, tests, and projects to be due at particular intervals for a variety of reasons. For example, I often schedule due dates in Introduction to Oral Communication to help students have a better opportunity to earn points earlier in the term. This allows students to have a much better idea how they are progressing through the course overall. Further, I try to balance the types of assessments (tests versus project assignments) so that a student who is not good at one type of assignment can balance their grade out.

Finally, please take a moment to remember at this time that your instructors want you to do good in the course! We rejoice when you excel and are sad (or frustrated) when you don’t. If you struggle with a concept, come see us! If you don’t understand something we cover, ask a question. If you have prepared effectively, most of the midterm assignments and exams are fairly straight-forward at this point. You know how we test, how we grade, and what we expect.

All this to say: I have faith in you! Keep your head up and work hard to learn this material this week! You can excel in the course if you try!

Who is responsible?

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Let’s be fair: I was a teacher’s kid, so my view of education was always a little skewed. I knew there were deadlines and expectations, so I was told to adhere to them all through my K-12 education.

Then came college.

Like a lot of students, I found my first semester to be a real challenge, largely because it overturned nearly everything I had experienced in high school. As a teacher’s kid, I was used to someone being over my shoulder telling me if I was “on the right track” or to remind me there was a deadline approaching.

That didn’t happen in college.

When the instructors handed out the syllabus, policies, and schedule, they expected me to know and understand that on my own. My job was to ask questions or confirm deadlines.

WHY!? What had I done that would make them so callous as to not care enough to let me know when something was due or to go over the assignment details all the time?

Truth is, they had. Those documents WERE my reminder. They provided the instructions and guidelines. It was my responsibility to meet with them by appointment to ensure that I understood their expectations. I had to learn to put dates in my calendar, to break down assignments with smaller deadlines, and to stay on top of reading WHILE doing it.

But, my younger mind screamed, surely they know how HARD these assignments are!

Yes, they are a challenge, but college is a challenge. So is every grade level as you go through school. Think back to Kindergarten now–looks pretty easy from here, but ask a 5-year-old how tough learning to read can be.

I had to learn, too, that my instructors ALSO had done a lot of assignments to get where they are now. It wasn’t about punishing me as a student, but challenging me to expand my brain.

While my instructors provided me with assignments, policies, and guidelines, it was on me to do the work. Now, I’m the instructor, and I appreciate how hard it is to step back from a student’s work, to let them learn it on their own, and to then evaluate it. It’s exciting for me when a student excels, but devastating for me when a student falls short or submits an assignment they clearly didn’t try too much on.

The takeaway here: DO YOUR BEST.

Finding the Balance in Projects that Work

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One of the biggest challenges I face as a teacher is finding a way of assessing them that works. In the last week or so, I have been working diligently on my next semester plans, honing and shaping each assignment to be more effective. At the same time, I have been trying to take a mental step back, assessing how effectively each project or assignment meets my goals.

The challenge here lies in finding a balance within a variety of assignments without overwhelming the students (or me, for that matter). Ensuring that each course objective is met reasonably, directly, and concisely, I can ensure that students actually do what we say they will, but without getting to the point where they are engaging in “busy work.” Rather, I desire meaningful assessment activities, focused on engaging students in developing abilities.

Teacher friends, help me out! Ideas for how you ensure that students meet goals in a rather subjective discipline…

Why Units, rather than Chapters?

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Some of my students struggle to understand why I make them think about multiple chapters at a time, rather than just covering materials in the course solely the way the book presents them. There is a relatively simple explanation for that: communication, like most of life, has a lot of overlap.

For that reason, I structure our course where we will place focus on a single chapter within a particular class period; however, my mentality is that there is a lot of interplay of concepts and ideas. For example, when we talk about perception, we also need to consider listening skills. After all, perception is about taking in information, and listening is one way we do that.

Similarly, we talk about both nonverbal and verbal communication in the same unit. We can talk about verbal messages for weeks on end, and can do the same with nonverbal messages. Indeed, many universities and colleges have entire courses devoted to just nonverbal communication. But the two work together to create meaning. How we say something (including the tone, pitch, volume, and speed–what we collectively call paralanguage) is as important as the words we use. Some researchers have even found evidence that our use of paralanguage and nonverbal movements can be MORE important than the words we say.

Here’s a simple exercise: try to think of the variety of ways someone can say the following sentence.

You failed the test.

Consider, as part of that, how it would sound coming from your best friend, your parents, your instructor, your siblings, your advisor, or other people. Each of the words can have more emphasis. The speed, the tone, the emphasis, etc., all drastically alter the meaning of these otherwise very simple 4 words. As we discussed with unit 1, our relatively simple message can be complicated through our efforts both to encode (present or offer information) and decode (interpret and understand information).

For more information on paralanguage, check out chapter 5 of your textbook!