Syllabus Reflection #2
I really appreciated the opportunity to workshop my syllabus with Ani and Michelle, and felt further enriched by our large-group workshop too! What a productive use of time....I only wish all professors had the chance to do this before every new course! Having so much prep time, and getting the chance to hear others feedback will inevitably shape the teaching all of us perform if and when we conduct these courses, and I think that makes us and our future students really lucky! (Side note: Because this was such a positive experience, I am considering committing myself to developing some sort of support group for profs who want to do this sort of thing before courses. Maybe inter-departmentally, or not. I'm in the process of creating a "Socially Engaged Scholarship" group with another Comm student, so maybe this could be part of it. Let me know if you're interested!)
Because we're supposed to keep these entries short, I'll list the top three most helpful things I took away from the workshop:
1) Remember that I am a *worker* and that I should not exploit myself with an unnecessary work load, as it will ultimately also be a disservice to the student (in terms of quality of my feedback, etc).
2) remember to invite guest speakers into the course! Another great way to de-center hierarchical structures and learn awesome things from different voices!
3) give specific writing guidelines/expectations in advance of any written assignment to avoid really terribly structured (but perhaps good content-oriented) papers
Sharing this class with all of you was wonderful! Looking forward to our last session!
I really appreciated the opportunity to workshop my syllabus with Ani and Michelle, and felt further enriched by our large-group workshop too! What a productive use of time....I only wish all professors had the chance to do this before every new course! Having so much prep time, and getting the chance to hear others feedback will inevitably shape the teaching all of us perform if and when we conduct these courses, and I think that makes us and our future students really lucky! (Side note: Because this was such a positive experience, I am considering committing myself to developing some sort of support group for profs who want to do this sort of thing before courses. Maybe inter-departmentally, or not. I'm in the process of creating a "Socially Engaged Scholarship" group with another Comm student, so maybe this could be part of it. Let me know if you're interested!)
Because we're supposed to keep these entries short, I'll list the top three most helpful things I took away from the workshop:
1) Remember that I am a *worker* and that I should not exploit myself with an unnecessary work load, as it will ultimately also be a disservice to the student (in terms of quality of my feedback, etc).
2) remember to invite guest speakers into the course! Another great way to de-center hierarchical structures and learn awesome things from different voices!
3) give specific writing guidelines/expectations in advance of any written assignment to avoid really terribly structured (but perhaps good content-oriented) papers
Sharing this class with all of you was wonderful! Looking forward to our last session!
Raechel, thanks a lot to you and Michelle too for making the workshop so useful and thought-provoking. The idea of a support group for prof.s (and maybe more for GIs/TAs) is a great one, I think. There are of course a lot of workshops etc. on different aspects of teaching or being a TA on campus but I am not aware of a space where GIs/TAs from different departments can meet and share their dilemmas and insights – and not just over making a syllabus. In fact this class was the only such space I have encountered. Maybe this could be a viable concrete idea to take from our experiences and to continue these extremely productive conversations beyond the end of the class itself. I guess this kind of sharing happens to a certain extent in the graduate student offices of each department, but maybe there is a particular value to having inter-departmental dialogues as well – in one’s own department, I think, one tends to take certain shared vocabulary and disciplinary perspectives for granted, and moving somewhat out of that comfort zone could help hone the kind of communicative skills needed to design (especially) undergraduate courses that attract students from a wide variety of locations. (I guess I avoided this challenge for myself by taking on a grad course for my ‘dream syllabus!’)
A group like this would be particularly interesting if one of the stated goals was feminist/anti-racist/etc. pedagogy.