My Teaching Experience

This year I have learned that I love to teach. I love sharing my knowledge with others and helping them to understand concepts that they did not know before. I also learned to have a greater appreciation for all of the teachers that taught me so much.

So it is with a little sadness that I say goodbye to teaching. After one year of teaching (on the college level) I have decided to take a break. While I love teaching, it has not really been meshing with my schedule, making my life more hectic than necessary. Also with my recent health problems, I think it is important that I focus on getting healthier.

I realized a couple of months ago that I was dreading going to teach. To me this means it was time for a change. The dread was from the hassle of having to go out after a hard day's work. It was becoming a pain to always get prepared and I have been feeling as though I have had no time left over for myself.

So maybe someday in the future I will go back to school and get my masters and someday, maybe, I will switch to teaching full time...

Fail

I just graded my last round of tests and two of my students failed and several of them made Cs. This makes me a little sick. My little class of 8 has managed to maintain a basically A/B status and this section was terrible.

I suppose I could blame it on the fact that I was in the hospital and missed 3 class periods and just handed out notes instead of actually lecturing ... it should have been much easier for them had they just studied the notes.

Maybe it has to do with the economy - 2 of my students have recently been laid off ... but one made an A while the other made a C.

One of my Fs was from someone whose daughter was in a car accident the night of the test, so I let her make it up the next class period... I suppose she could have still been traumatized by the ordeal.

I don't know, but as a teacher, it makes me feel terrible to have to hand back their test grades, even if it is their own faults for not studying...

Student-Teacher Evaluations

Tonight I received my student-teacher evaluations from the Spring semester. Overall I did pretty good. I definitely have room for improvement in some areas. But considering I had never taught before and didn't really know what I was doing, I feel like I did a pretty good job. If I continue to teach after this semester, I hope I continue to grow in my abilities of effectively communicating the materials.

Week 2 of Class

I am not going to lie, I was really dreading teaching tonight. My last class was so terrible, I had minimal rest over the weekend and then today was insane at my regular job. The whole time I was driving to Rock Hill, I just kept thinking how bad my class was going to be.

Thankfully, it was 100x better than last week. My students interacted with me. They answered my questions and commented. They seemed really interested in what I was teaching. It is amazing what a difference it makes when your class to interacts with you - I didn't feel like I was talking to the walls. I just hope this interest continues.

Teaching...

It is no fun to lecture a class and feel like they are not interested in what you have to say. I have got to find a way to make the lecture portion of my class more engaging. I know the hands-on portions will be better, but until then, I have a ton of information to convey to my students...

First Day of Teaching Fall 08

It is almost midnight and I am just finally slowing down. Where did the day go? 8:30am - 5:30pm was work. Then home for a quick dinner with Daniel. Then off to York Tech in Rock Hill to teach my 8:00pm Art Fundamentals class. Then back home.

When I came inside, I found Daniel in the process of trying to finish the kerdi in the shower - our goal is to start tiling this weekend. He was having some trouble so from 9:30-11:00pm I helped with the kerdi installation followed by 30 minutes of clean up.

The frustrating thing is that we have at least one more night of installation. Now I have an aching back and I am REALLY tired. I can't begin to express how happy I will be to have the bathroom finally finished. I am trying not to think about how long the whole process has taken.

Class went really well tonight. One thing I realized is that I talk really fast - I ended up letting class out after 45 minutes. I don't think anyone was complaining.

IT Faculty

Tonight was the kickoff orientation for all of the adjunct faculty at the community college I teach at. Since I began my first round of teaching in the Spring Semester, I missed all of this useful information the first time around.

For the Fall Semester I am only teaching one class. The thing that I find to be comical is this: I am teaching an art class. It is basically a Color Theory and Two-Dimensional Design class combined into one. This is straight up ART. The funny part is that I am technically listed as being a part of the Information Technology Department. What do ART and IT have in common? I am not quite sure.

I was late for the orientation (I had to miss the dinner), so when I got there I sat at a table with other departments. The IT Department table was full of guys - not a single female in the entire department (besides me and I am truly teaching an ART course).

Three More Nights

After tonight, I only have three nights left of teaching for this semester. I am planning on taking the summer off from teaching in order to have a break from the craziness that I currently call my life.

Teaching

It is hard to believe that it is already close to the end of the semester. I have 2 more weeks and then finals. I have really enjoyed the experience. Several of my students have wanted to know if I will be teaching any of the summer courses...

I guess this means one of two things: 1) They really like me as a teacher (and are hopefully learning lots from me) or 2) I am way too easy...

Hopefully it is the former and not the latter. I am thinking I will take the summer off to recoup, but I would really like to continue teaching in the future and may even return to school at some point to pursue my masters...

Posters

Tonight my Intro To Design students turned in their latest project - posters. I had them choose from one of three topics: The Environment, Voting and Genocide in Darfur.

Their presentations all went really well. There are definitely some students that are rising to the top of the class with their creativity and natural eye for design.

The most interesting part of the presentations were the two men in my class who both created political posters. They were on opposite ends of the spectrum and there was some heated discussion as they both, passionately shared their opposing points of view.

Thankfully I was able reel everyone in and everything has settled back down - not that it was out of hand, just a little passionate. I like when people believe passionately in something... to me it means that they are still concerned about the world.

Withdraw

On Monday I had to withdraw one of my students who had missed 7 days of class. According to the head of the department, whether or not she had excuses, 7 days equaled a withdrawal.

She had also missed several assignments and a test and never got around to buying a text book - I had been nice and let her use mine from time to time.

So I filled out the paperwork and then she showed up to class. I felt bad having to tell her that I had withdrawn her from my class, but not too bad since she had made little effort so far this semester. I told her that if she had any questions that she could take it up with the head of the department.

Interesting Observation...

I am having my Intro to Graphic Design students create awareness posters for their current project. They were required to choose one of three topics that I provided.

The topics they could choose from included:
1) Environmental Awareness
2) Get Out The Vote
3) Genocide in Darfur Awareness

My interesting observation is this: several of my non traditional students chose the political topic. I think one person chose the environmental topic and almost all of my younger students chose the Genocide awareness topic - I have to admit that this really surprised me. From what I have seen so far, several of them are coming up with interesting solutions for their awareness posters.

Its been a long day...

Started my first day at Enventys - so far so good. Tonight I am at class and very exhausted. I started losing my voice halfway thru the second class and was thankful that I don't do any lecturing for my last class.

I am amazed, my students are working on their current assignment and the person that I thought would have the least creative ideas really blew me away with her concepts for CD covers. I guess I better not judge a book by its cover...

I am ready to go home already... this 15 hour day is tough.

Compliment of the Day:

I just walked into the teaching staff office to check my mailbox. The secretary monitoring the area thought that I was a student. I explained that I was an adjunct professor and she apologized and said that I should take it as a compliment and that she would remember me in the future.

First Test

Tonight, traffic was bad so I was running behind for my Digital Photography class. I walked in 5 minutes late with my test saved on to my flashdrive. I quickly went over some information about upcoming projects and quizzes while printing copies of the tests.

I handed out the tests and was looking over my student's photoblogs when one of my students asked me if I had meant to hand out the tests with all of the answers highlighted?

I had accidentally printed off the KEY so that they all had the answers. So I had to take the tests back up. Reprint the student version of the test and hand them out again...

oops

First Time Teaching

Last night I taught my first classes. Overall it went really well. The first class of the evening was Digital Photography. As I went over the syllabus I was really feeling out of my element. But then I handed out the first assignment and I became more at ease as I talked.

The class is small - only 4 students. My first assignment for them is to keep a photoblog for the semester. Each week, they will be expected to take 3 different photographs on an assigned subject and then post the images to their photoblog. Class lasted about 40 minutes and I let them go early.

The second class was Intro to Design. I had 8 students for this class. I went over the syllabus, then talked about how design is all around us and how much design affects our lives. All of the students seemed really interested in what I was saying. Then I gave them their first assignment. They are to keep a critique book of good and bad samples that they are to collect and asses throughout the semester. They all seemed interested in the assignment and asked lots of questions. Again, we ended after about 40 minutes and several of them stayed to ask me more questions.

The third class was Photoshop II. There were only 3 students for this class, all over the age of 40. Thankfully this is the second half of the Photoshop book so they are familiar with the software. I went over the syllabus and then had them work through the chapter assignment while answering any questions they had about how to do things - it is amazing that I know so much and can answer all of their questions (so far). I am choosing to let the students work through the projects at their own pace since I know that everyone learns differently. I also showed them this speed painting in Photoshop video on YouTube to inspire them. It is amazing what a gifted and experienced person can do using Photoshop. This class lasted the full time and actually went 10 minutes passed the allotted time.

Two of the three students in this class were with me all night. These students are non-traditional and are learning a new field as they have been laid off of their jobs - mostly because jobs have gone oversees... It puts a different perspective on things for me to be working with these people who have been so affected by the economy changes in our world.

I think that my biggest challenge will be to not be the teacher that is so nice that I allow the students to walk all over me. I feel that I am a pretty firm person, but I also have the (human) desire to be liked.

Procrastination

One of my worst habits has to be procrastinating. I don't know why I can't get motivated - even if it is something I truly love to do. I think part of the problem is that I enjoy working under intense pressure and in an effort to create that pressure, I let things build up until the last minute and a deadline that forces me to complete my project.  My teaching experience begins in two days and I cannot seem to get my syllabus done. I have all of the ideas for my projects in my head, but I need to get them on paper for the students AND, ideally, I need to get a lot of the information online as well...

Job Update

Here is the most recent update about job stuff: I am not sure where things are at between Aquent and Enventys. I have been having a difficult time getting information. I continue to pray that it will work out, but at this point, things seem to be at a standstill.

On a brighter note, I had an interview this afternoon with York Technical College in Rock Hill, SC and I am their newest adjunct professor. I will be teaching 3 back-to-back evening classes for the spring semester on Mondays and Wednesdays.

I have to admit that I am a little nervous about teaching, but I know the material well, so I am sure I will do fine.

The courses I will be teaching are: Intro to Graphic Design, Digital Photography and Photoshop CS2.