My first course evaluations

I stopped by the department office and got my course evaluations (from the course I taught in June), and it's pretty much what I expected: mostly positive, with some constructive criticism and a couple (but only a couple) of very negative reviews.  In the comments section, most of the criticism will be easily rectified by making each day's lecture's organization more explicit (pretty much all I'll actually change is that I'll make a single slide that shows the roadmap for where we're going that day), and also by faking confidence.  I learned how to handle questions that I didn't know by the end of the course, by when you're only teaching for three weeks, they remember the moments where you looked like a deer in headlights a little too well.

The percentage breakdown of the survey they filled out shows that the majority of my students rated me favorably, which is encouraging.  My highest scores were regarding my availability to help and provide feedback, and the respect that I gave to students and their ideas.  And by "highest" I mean "the majority of students rated me as 'excellent' on both counts, and the one student who was mad at me even conceded that I was 'adequate.'"  I'm really happy about both of those, because I worked really hard on being available to help, and on creating a respectful space within the classroom, and it's gratifying that they noticed.  With everything else, it was in the middling-to-good range, which I know is an okay place to start.  (The lowest ranking was regarding my clarity in explaining things, and that will be rectified by making small tweaks that I've been learning.  Hooray for teaching workshops!)

I had a small handful of really negative comments, but they're all a mixed bag.  Like, one student thinks that I don't make any sense in my lecturing, and another one thinks that the grading system was harsh but my lectures were "very effective [and] well put together."  I had one absolutely negative comment (likely the same student who gave me consistently low rankings, and likely the same student who was glaring at me on the last day of class): one student outright stated that I wasn't qualified to teach the course because I'm a specialist in an earlier period, but she/he was mostly was mad that they had to memorize IDs.  (It was a pretty heated comment: he/she ended off that comment with the statement "This is not an education," because apparently the whole course was based in memorization?)  I find that comment interesting, partly because other students specified that the IDs helped to guide them in their studies, and also because on an absolute basis, the short answer part of the exams (which is where the identification part came in) constituted a small part of the final grade, and put a lot of emphasis on evaluating significance rather than on regurgitating details. 

What can I make of that?  For one thing, it would have been interesting to get feedback after they'd gotten back their essays and after they'd written the final (with a three-week course, by necessity the essay is due right before the last class).  After the final, a lot of students expressed relief at the fact that I really didn't ask them anything unexpected on the final, and found the IDs part to be easier than they expected. 

So, on the one hand, I can be relieved that the majority of students had a favourable impression of the course, and then I can learn from the helpful comments.  They all reflect things that I've been already working on improving, and so I'm glad that I'm on the right track.  I'm a little amused by how some of the comments contradict each other (I'm both organized and disorganized?  I'm both a passionate lecturer and uncomfortable in front of students?  I should use slides both more and less?), but that's what you get from a diverse group.  I'm learning how to reach out to different kinds of learners, and I'll be a lot less terrified when I teach my next course, and so the unevenness in evaluations should level out in the future.

Now, all I can do is put these away, attend teaching workshops when I can, and hope that these evaluations were positive enough to help me get further teaching work.  And focus on finishing this dissertation.

Finally

I gave my last lecture today.  Tomorrow they write the final.  It was so nice spending the evening not panicking about my lack of knowledge about some battle or specific WWII event.  (Because I seriously had a steep learning curve with this course.  So much so that I worry about how the students answered the "Instructor is knowledgeable in the course content" portion of the course evaluations.) 

But tomorrow I just give them the final, and sit and mark their essays while they write.  Do you know how many times I've done exactly that, in all my years as a TA?  Finally I'm doing something that's in my comfort zone. 

And then I'm going away and going camping, leaving my marking behind for two whole days.  Two days where I'm not thinking about limited liability strategies, total war, tanks, generals, atrocities, and students' needs.  And where I'm far away from my email.  Bliss.

Quick teaching reflection

I'm deep in the midst of midterm-marking, but I noticed something that I do in my self-talk about my teaching abilities:

When I have a good day with the students, I think "Hey, today went well!" but when it's a bad day I think "I'm terrible at teaching and my students are probably disappointed that they decided to take this class from me!"

When a student does well on a midterm I think, "What a clever student! He/she really gets it!" but when a student gets a low mark I think, "I did a terrible job of teaching this! Was I really unclear that day?"

Huh.  Apparently I treat the good things as nice little aberrations, or things outside of my control, and I treat the bad things as being The Norm, and There's Something Wrong With Me. 

Blogging during my office hour

No one has shown up for this office hour, which is okay with me.  There was a big rush of students showing up for my office hours at the beginning of the term, because they were figuring out what to do for their major assignment, and some of the non-majors wanted to make sure that they understood what's involved in a history course.  Now, they've written the midterm but haven't gotten it back yet, and are at the stage in their assignments where they've figured out what they're doing but don't need feedback on preliminary written stuff.

That's all a long way of saying that I didn't expect anyone to show up today, and that's cool with me, because it means that I can use this hour to wind down after lecturing for two straight hours. 

I'm feeling a little more competent every day.  I gave a midterm yesterday, and it took them all exactly the amount of time I designed for it to take.  Nothing in the midterm surprised them, but it challenged them enough, and made them work for their mark.  And so I'm pleased with the quality of the midterm.  I know how I'd change it in the future, but I'm happy with how it turned out this time.

And then I spent the weekend giving myself a crash course in Japanese history, while reading a major book or two and one giant historiographical essay, and today was able to turn that around into a coherent lecture that the students understood.  I was able to handle any questions they asked, and tie it to stuff that they've learned on other days.  I sounded like an expert in the room and wasn't too self-deprecating.  Most importantly, I managed to teach much more than was in the textbook, and reflect on some of the claims that the textbook author made.  This is something that I felt like was lacking in my lectures that were about areas outside of my comfort zone. 

So, I guess I'm gaining confidence, and am becoming more competent as a result of it.  Maybe I'll survive the month after all.

Things are looking up

Earlier this week, I didn't know how I was going to make it through June.  I was having trouble keeping up with writing lectures, and feeling like I didn't know enough about WWII, and then in the midst of all my stress I got a computer virus and ended up wiping my hard drive.*  And then ended up having more problems with re-installing everything, and making silly mistakes, and ended up wiping the hard drive about four different times until I got it right.  Because, you know, in a week where you're hardly getting enough sleep and are buried under a pile of work, you have time to wipe your hard drive and re-install Windows and all your programs and drivers four times. 

Earlier this week, I also felt like I was The Worst Teacher In Existence.  I worried that I wasn't understanding the content well enough and that my students were not learning what they needed to learn, and maybe were regretting taking a class from a new instructor. 

And then things started to change.  By the end of the week, I had a couple of really good classes, and worked to make sure that I went back and reviewed the important stuff so that they understood.  And I started finding little ways to get through to them; having a couple of discussion classes helped so that we could all get comfortable with each other. 

It's nice having 35 students, and seeing them every weekday.  I'm gradually getting to know each student, and each student's particular learning needs and styles.  I'm learning how to communicate differently with the science majors and the English majors, and how to get each of them to understand how a historian researches and learns. 

And now? I love my students.  They're all so eager to understand everything and to do well.  They approach me before class, because they found a neat source and wanted to show me how cool it is.  They send me emails about colorized footage that they found on Youtube.  They humour me when I make them watch clips of Casablanca at the beginning of their discussion class, and laugh at the right parts. 

I felt so proud when I saw the student that told me she was too shy to speak up in discussion class make a real effort and take charge of her discussion group.  I get excited when I watch them all become friends, and watch as a class dynamic develops. 

At this rate, I think I'm really going to miss them after the course is over.

* By the way, thanks to Laptopocalypse 2011, I finally ditched McAfee, which was useless and then so very user-non-friendly after I wiped my hard drive.  I read a million reviews and have now switched to ESET, and I love it so much that I want to write about it in all-caps and many exclamation points all the time.  Half the price of McAfee! And apparently it's amazingly effective! And it runs so quietly in the background! Why the heck did I stay with McAfee for all those years?  Seriously, after the week I had, if I could hug a security suite, I would hug ESET.

Telegrams from Teaching Land

I am very tired.  Today I taught my third day (and sixth hour) of the 3-week WWII course, and each day it gets a little better.  I'm getting more comfortable in my role as The Instructor, especially as I get to know the students.  It's weird: I've done all the specific jobs that an instructor does (lecture, mark, design courses, facilitate seminars), but never all at once, and never as The Person Who Is In Charge And Has To Make Decisions.  It's a little scary, especially since I've never had to lecture outside of my area of expertise before, and I need act a little less frightened when I'm borderline-faking expertise.  (Why hello there, Second Sino-Japanese War and the entirety of China's history.  I only dealt with you briefly in a single Japanese History survey course ten years ago.)

I like my group of students more and more every day.  It's a big group for a June course, with the whole range from fourth-year History majors to first-year non-majors, from pretty much every single program at the university.  That's been one of my big challenges: finding a way to make it accessible for the beginners (especially since this is an entry-level course), while accommodating for the fact that some of the fourth-years know more about specific topics than I do.  (They intimidated me for the first couple of days.)  That's getting better: on the one hand, I'm learning how to explain things better for the beginners, to time for them to take notes, and to anticipate their questions.  On the other hand, I took twenty minutes this morning and made the class debate some difficult questions, which allowed the fourth years a chance to shine.

So, I'm surviving.  Each day is a little easier, and maybe at some point I'll get a little faster at preparing the lectures, and get a little more sleep at night.  But for now, if you're looking for me, I'll be napping under my desk, holding the textbook open at the description of Operation Barbarossa. 

Tales out of school

jo(e) asked about how the day at Chris's school went, and I thought that ought to be a stand-alone post.

Short answer: the day went really well, and it was exactly what I needed.

Long answer:

So, on Monday Chris took me with him to his school, where I was the "guest expert" in the Socials 11 and Film and Video 12 classes, which are back-to-back morning classes with roughly the same group of students.  In Social, I gave the kids a talk about primary sources, about the variety of sources and the various ways that historians use them.  At the last minute, the teacher asked if I could also talk with the kids about how Hitler came to power, and about how he managed to take as much power as he did, and I could easily do that (especially since I already had planned on addressing that in the Film and Video class).  In the second class, I went and gave the kids a talk about the context of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, getting them to think about documentary and propaganda, and then watched and discussed the last ten minutes of the film. 

The kids were fantastic.  They were so excited that I was coming to talk with them, because Chris talks about me uncontrollably.  They were also excited because they've been really getting into World War II stuff in class, and have been grappling a lot with hard questions, and with figuring out what historians do, and were excited to talk with a Real! Live! Expert!  It was fun for me, because this was exactly the kind of low-pressure situation that I needed, so that I could get comfortable again in the classroom environment.  There's one student who recently discovered that she's really interested in history, and it was so rewarding watching her get into all of this stuff, and watching her face as she grasped the more difficult concepts. 

Oh man, that primary source was so fun.  It really was like "Introduction to Social and Cultural History," as I got them to realise that potential primary source material is all around us.  (A quilt or a dish could be a primary source!  This was a big deal for them!)  It was good for me, in terms of my research, because I brought along a bunch of my own primary sources, and had to explain to them exactly how I could use a fictional source as a historical source.  Sometimes it helps me when I have to talk it out like that.

And then I sat down in a little office near the principal's office, and spent the rest of the morning making major decisions about the course I'm teaching in June, and the afternoon making some real progress on my dissertation.  So, apparently it helped me to clear out my head and talk with some enthusiastic students for a couple of hours. 

*****

In related news, I put together the finishing touches on my syllabus for my June course, and have finalised pretty much all of my plans, and I'm proud of myself.  And really excited about teaching this stuff now.  (Although I'm a little nervous about teaching about the war in the Pacific, because I really only know Europe and Canada.)

Back to high school

Very soon (two and a half weeks from now!) I'm going to be teaching a three-week course on World War II.  I'm terrified about this because: a.) after all this sickness and travel, I'm getting behind on my writing; b.) the syllabus is due on Thursday, and there is so much that I still haven't done;  and c.) it's been two years since I've done any teaching work (and I've never been in charge of my own class all by myself).  I know that I'm more than qualified: I did all the comps reading, I've helped to design courses, I've guest-lectured, and I've been a TA more times that I can count.  But it's still scary.

Chris knew that I was getting stressed out about all of this, and so he offered me an opportunity to ease back into the classroom environment in a small, pressure-free way: he's bringing me in to his Film & Video 12 class, to talk with the kids about Leni Riefenstahl and The Triumph of the Will.  They're going to be finishing watching the film tomorrow, and a required part of the course is to watch the film and learn about the context.  And boy, do I know about the film, the filmmaker and the context.  (I did a lot of research about Riefenstahl for a course I designed years ago.)  So, all I have to do is go into a small class, full of kids that I already know, and talk about a filmmaker, a film, and a historical period that I can't shut up about anyway.

The principal of Chris's school heard that I'm coming to school on Monday, and asked if I could also talk with the Social Studies 11 class about primary sources and about research.  He's encouraging me to show the kids some primary sources from my own research, to give them an idea of what a historian does.

You know, I'm actually giddy about tomorrow morning.  I'm going to get a chance to get used to talking to a class again, in an situation where I get to have a laid-back conversation about things that really interest me.  And then I'm going to get set up in an unused office and get some serious work done on my course and my dissertation.  (And, having forced myself to write at Chris's school before, I know that I'll make some good progress tomorrow: talking about history will clear out my head, and then the unfamiliar office will be free of distractions, with only my work to entertain me.)

Now I must sleep.  Early morning tomorrow.

Weimar at the high school level

My friend Derek, who is the English and Social Studies teacher at Chris's school, has asked me to do a guest lecture about Germany's Weimar Republic for his Grade 12 History class on Friday morning. Being me, I volunteered to come back on Monday morning and talk with the class about 1929-1933 (he was planning on do that on his own, but 1929-1933 is my comfort zone and I can't stop talking about it anyway).

It's an interesting challenge for me. I've done an awful lot of "Introduction to Weimar" guest lectures in 100- and 200-level survey courses, but I need to make sure I don't just treat this like it's a university course. Yes, this is roughly the same age group as I get in many 100-level courses (especially on this young campus of mine). And, since it's a non-required course and a private school, they're paying to be there just as much as my university students are. But here, I'm not resting in the knowledge that a high school teacher has at least given them a cursory introduction and they've at least seen the pictures of Germans carrying around banknotes in wheelbarrows. I'm that cursory introduction.

One of the biggest challenge is the fact that I'm dealing with provincial-government-set Prescribed Learning Outcomes, and the knowledge that these kids are going to have to write a standardized government final exam on this material. Because this is new to me, there's this part of me that's scared I'm going to miss something important because I'm focusing too much on stuff that's interesting or important to me.

Of course, that fear is irrational, because Derek has told me what I need to make sure I cover. But it's unfamiliar territory for me. However, I know that it'll be fun. I know the whole group already, and on the second day we're all going to recite together the most important words that I want them to remember: "Hitler was never democratically elected to power." I'm going to have it written up in big block letters on a PowerPoint slide (I'm using PP just for pictures and German names) and we're going to say it all together a couple of times.

We're also going to have a twenty minute question period at the end of both classes, and I'm going to encourage them to ask me everything they've wanted to know. Because if I can prevent a couple of kids from becoming future People Who Make Ignorant Claims About Hitler on the Internet, my work here is done.

As an added bonus, beyond that small block of teaching time, I'll be trapped for two solid business days in a comfortable and quiet work space, far from my phone and internet, with nothing but my dissertation for company. And there's nothing like talking about my work with a non-specialist audience for getting me thinking about my writing in new ways.

Side effects of too much marking

For the past half-hour, a noise has been driving me crazy. Is it the furnace? Is someone outside of my window, whistling? Is the gate open and creaking? I absolutely could not identify the noise.

Until I realised that it was birds. Chirping. Right. They do that. I'd forgotten about birds.

Note to self: get myself outside, once this batch of marking is done.

I am competent

Today I received my notification of my TA assignments for this year. I was happy to see that I will be getting a lot of work this year; money is always welcome.

But I confess that, leading up to this, I've been making a lot of noise about "wanting to teach something I know for a change." Every year since I arrived, I've taught one year-long survey course in a broadly familiar field (Canadian survey, European survey), and then I've gotten the Out of Left Field and Unrelated course, where I've had to do a lot of work because I didn't know the field. (See: medical history, Aztecs.) Of course, both Out of Left Field courses were taught by the same professor, and I began to suspect that he requested me.

But this year was going to be different! I was really specific when I filled out my request for TA hours. All I asked was one of their (many, many) courses in German history! How about some World Wars, or maybe some Interwar? How about some Weimar?

And then I received my assignment. I'm teaching four courses instead of two this year, and while one of them is the European survey, the other three were daunting and decidedly random. (History of Medicine, Technology, and the American West?)

And I panicked. The bulk of my teaching load is this semester! How could I balance that and my comps reading! Why did they always give the MAs the courses I wanted, and give me the tough assignments?

It took some talking-through with some good friends, but then I began seeing things differently. Well, of course they'd give the more junior graduate students the less-challenging assignments. Of course, they're not even guaranteed TA hours all the time, while I have so many.

And that's when I realised that my department gives me these assignments because they know that I can handle them. I have a varied teaching history, and a broad educational background that has prepared me well for the TA assignment I was given. I realised that I actually have a surprisingly strong background in the "history of technology," even though I'd never thought about it as such. I'm getting excited about the possibilities. (And what better preparation for grading papers on the American West than the fabulous PhD-level course I took on the subject?)

The medical history course is the same one I taught before, and the professor seems to request me each time. That's nice, because he's been a real mentor for me throughout this process. He also treats me as a colleague and frequently gets my feedback on his teaching style, trying to learn from me how to get his students energized and involved. And he's so helpful; he frequently moves around his course plans so that I can give a lecture close to my research topic.

I'm even starting to warm up to the idea of teaching so much while I'm preparing for my comps. You know, getting out there and leading seminars helps me to prepare for that oral exam. As much as the comps are preparing me for teaching, I'm beginning to suspect that teaching has been preparing me for the comps.

And so I'm going to stop complaining and embrace this year. I am competent and I'm going to try to make this my best teaching year yet. And I'm going to give those comprehensive exams everything I have.

Shiny New Year

Yesterday, I went in to get my allergy shot at University Health Services. The nurse and I were commiserating about the approaching First Day of the Semester. Suddenly undergrads are going to be everywhere. The first couple of weeks of the Fall semester are the worst: every single first year student seems to decide to spend the entire day wandering the university, every single day. They're constantly on campus. And there are Fun Activities and Campus Groups tables and vendors everywhere. Things really don't quiet down until the first midterms roll around, when suddenly the undergrads all discover that they're supposed to be studying.

The nurse warned me, "Remember to give yourself extra time for your allergy shot next week. Last year, we went from thirty patients a day to ninety patients a day on the first day of school."

When you're a hermit who loves the quiet of the campus in the summertime (just you, a few other comps-reading or MA-thesis-writing grad students, a few taking summer classes, and the ESL Summer Students), the madness of the first week of school is daunting. (Not to mention the fact that my day will soon be broken up with TA activities, and I'll be competing for office space again.)

But then...

I awoke this morning to the sound of Chris, madly rushing around and finding all the teaching resources that have been squirreled away in our apartment for the past two years. All his fun toys he's been collecting, and his crazy books on science experiments. Books and boxes and equipment, all being unearthed from obscurity in closets and storage rooms, and given a rightful home in a classroom. It was so exciting that I got to work as well, finding books that he could use when he teaches Grade 10 Social Studies for the first time. Students are arriving on Tuesday! Chris is a teacher!

Maybe I need to learn a bit from my husband and from jo(e) and get excited about the new school year a little more. (Maybe I also should learn not to sigh when I admit that I'm a "third year PhD candidate." "Third-year" sounds like I ought to have made more progress than I have.)

Re-inspired

I've followed a specific pattern this year: I work on comps reading. I start slowing down, and get discouraged. I start questioning why I'm doing this whole nonsense anyway. Then, I get some sort of reminder of how much I love either teaching or my research, and get re-inspired. (And then I work on comps reading again.)

Today was one of those re-inspiration days, and today teaching did it. I went to a fantastic workshop about teaching dossiers, oddly enough. The speaker was phenomenal. I have no idea how we managed to lure this faculty member away from the big universities where she used to work.

Part of what inspired me was that she really worked with us to identify our teaching philosophies and our ideals. And that's right down my alley, because I'm more than a bit of an idealist, especially when it comes to my teaching. I had this strange moment where I articulated for the group the ground rules that I set for my seminar groups: that in this space, we are all historians, and here is a list of all the ways in which we are learning how to think and act as historians. Everyone else got really excited about the ideas that I articulated, and it sparked this amazing discussion about how we need to teach students how to think as historians. It was so strange, because this has been something that I thought was really basic and commonsense, and here were faculty members acting like I'd said something innovative. (Of course that helped my ego a bit.)

The other part that inspired me was that she showed us some sample dossiers from professors that she's helped. These were all psychologists, and I think these were all professors who were up for teaching awards. But wow. Seriously, every single one of these people has done such amazing work with their teaching that I was at once overwhelmed by my own inadequacy.

Oh, right. I love teaching. And this comps reading is giving me the knowledge base that I need so that I can teach.

Unrelated link, mostly for the benefit of Ky, who really must see these pictures: I am very proud to say that this little girl is a distant relative of mine.

What also excites me

Part of what was making me feel so disconnected with my work is the fact that I'm TAing a course that has absolutely nothing to do with my research. Seriously, today I was leading a seminar about Aztecs and explorers. Aztecs! I last learned about explorers when I was in grade 5. And so how am I qualified to teach this?

So, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and under-qualified. I felt like I hardly understood the readings, and I was dreading how big my seminar group was going to be. How on earth was I going to get these students out of their shells and discussing?

The group seemed a little reserved when I came in, but I seem to always forget that we're all a little reserved when we first meet. But they surprised me when I went around the group at the beginning: name, program, initial thoughts on the readings, and favourite superhero. That "first turn around the group" took up a significant portion of the class time, because they had prepared so heavily for this session that they had a whole bunch of first thoughts. This initial discussion led quite naturally into the discussion questions, and the whole seminar ran itself.

Seriously: I had to make them stop discussing so that we could put the desks away and give the room to the next class. My entire job was to act as traffic cop and make sure everyone had a chance to talk who wanted to talk. I have a tendency of making a check mark every time each student talks, which is how I discovered that nearly every one of my 26 students volunteered something.

I'd forgotten that nothing gets me more inspired than my students being excited about history.

How to keep me together, TA Edition

"Thank you for all your hard work." That's the sort of e-mail that picks me right up and gets me marking with more energy.

Well-timed praise is always a good thing.

Other positives: Creating Christmas music stations on Pandora.com. I'm currently listening to one that's all instrumental Christmas carols. That keeps me happy. (Coming across an entire set of really good papers helps, too.)

(It's so easy to get complaining a lot, when I'm marking papers. The funny thing is that this is my favourite part of my job. Okay, I'm also big into leading seminars. But marking papers was my first love. I get so involved in the process, and I love reading what my students think and especially love seeing them learn. But sometimes I start to go a little crazy, especially when the prose gets really impenetrable and they start making lazy errors. And so I need to keep myself encouraged while I'm working.)

How to Make My Day, TA Edition

Instead of just relating a series of facts, interspersed with some randomly-placed direct quotations, provide some analysis of your own. Even question your sources!

It's like Christmas every time that happens.

I'm also a sucker for a well-crafted sentence.