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February 17, 2010, 02:00 PM ET
What’s on your mind?
How’s your semester going?
Do you need advice or feedback about something related to life and work in higher ed?
Do you have advice or feedback to share about something related to life and work in higher ed?
What would you like to see covered at ProfHacker?
Let us hear from you in the comments!
[Creative Commons licensed flickr photo by Sebastiano Pereira]
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is an assistant professor of English at the University of South Carolina Upstate.
Read George's ProfHacker entriesis an associate professor of English at Central Connecticut State University.
Read Jason's ProfHacker entriesis an INKE postdoctoral fellow in Digital Humanities and Information Management in the Electronic Textual Cultures Lab at University of Victoria.
Read Julie 's ProfHacker entriesis an undergraduate student majoring in the digital humanities at Central Connecticut State University.
Read Alex's ProfHacker entriesis a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross and an assistant professor of political science at Saint Mary's College.
Read Amy's ProfHacker entriesis an assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi.
Read Billie's ProfHacker entriesis a CLIR Postdoctoral Fellow and Emerging Technologies Librarian at Emory University.
Read Brian's ProfHacker entriesis an assistant professor of English at Converse College.
Read Erin's ProfHacker entriesis an assistant professor of history; of telecommunication, information studies, and media; and at Matrix: The Center for Humane Arts, Letters & Social Sciences Online, at Michigan State U.
Read Ethan's ProfHacker entriesis assistant professor of Physics at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL.
Read Heather's ProfHacker entriesis associate professor and chair of history and American studies at the University of Mary Washington.
Read Jeffrey's ProfHacker entriesis professor of Media Studies at Pomona College, and Co-coordinating Editor and Press Director of MediaCommons.
Read Kathleen's ProfHacker entriesis an associate professor of English at the University of Houston.
Read Natalie 's ProfHacker entriesis associate professor and chair of rhetoric and professional writing at the University of Hartford.
Read Nels's ProfHacker entriesis the "author" of the guest posts on the ProfHacker blog.
Read Prof.'s ProfHacker entrieswill start in August as Assistant Professor of English and Director of Writing-Across-the-Curriculum at St. Norbert College.
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is an assistant professor of English at the University of South Carolina Upstate.
Contact GeorgeCopyright 2010. All rights reserved.
Comments
1. William Patrick Wend - February 17, 2010 at 03:04 pm
I asked last week, but didn't get any replies, but what is a good WordPress plugin for displaying my CV on my domain?
2. Stan Burnett - February 17, 2010 at 03:37 pm
I want to know if anyone has strong opinions, one way or the other, about Nota Bena (http://www.notabene.com/). Is it worth the money? How does it compare with MS Word?
Thanks!
3. Jessica - February 17, 2010 at 03:59 pm
I would love to see a post about interpreting student evaluations that are heavy on stats and light on narrative. I am now at an institution that has about 10 questions on the numerical evaluations and 3 on the narrative. By the time the students get to the narrative evals, they are worn out from the bubblefilling and they don't tend to write much (my old institution had 2 questions on each and the narrative evals were very detailed and helpful). I truly believe that these evaluations can be useful in improving my teaching, but I am not so sure about how to understand this sea of numbers.
4. Courtney - February 17, 2010 at 04:01 pm
Seeking tips for dealing with chronically unwilling/irritating students (the baseball caps, the eye-rollers, the under-the-desk texters, the asleep, the studying-for-another-class, the droolers--the UNENGAGED). There are never many, but they really get under my skin! My current strategy is to ignore the behavior as long as possible, then eventually lose my patience: 1. stopping my lecture/activity, 2. inviting the Unengaged to leave the room if s/he would prefer, 3. reiterating my policy on not taking attendance, 4. acknowledging to the class that the topic is absolutely less entertaining than 5. asking for ideas about the topic's value/purpose Motivated as it is by my ego and temper, I suspect my response is problematic. What do you do?
5. Courtney - February 17, 2010 at 04:05 pm
I write my own evaluation instruments that emphasize narrative and administer them on a different day from the institutional evaluations.
6. Jessica - February 17, 2010 at 04:12 pm
These stressful experiences often lead us to react in ways we know are ineffective (and even, as you note, undermining the class). What I have been trying to do lately is to make students even more responsible for their learning than I was doing before. I use more directed group work (and by directed I mean work that has to produce something for the class as a whole) than I used to, and I rarely do a straight lecture. This tends to minimize the problems you mention because 1. the rest of the students are just as bothered by disruptive students as you, and the more of an interest they have in censuring disruptive behavior, the more likely they are to do it; 2. sometimes what we consider "unwilling/irritating" students are looking for more involvement, and channeling their involvement into something more productive than rolling their eyes at me helps. This is especially true of encouraging them to disagree with me in a sophisticated way.
Of course, this does not mean my classroom is an ideal space of joy, but it does at least make it so I do not lose my temper embarrassingly.
7. Billie - February 17, 2010 at 04:44 pm
Courtney, this sounds like it should fall under the "disruptive student" category of posts we have at ProfHacker. Thanks for the suggestion (but sorry you are experiencing these type students). We'll pull something together.
8. William Patrick Wend - February 19, 2010 at 05:21 pm
the baseball caps
Yeah, I suggested students get rid of the caps/hats/etc when entering class, but I am not enforcing it.
I don't mind the under the desk texters that much to be honest. My thinking on it is, I'd rather they spend 20 seconds and send out a text than be distracted all lecture by the need to send that Very Important Text to whoever. Just be discreet. I am pretty up front about this, and, for the most part, my students are good about it.
9. Jason B. Jones - February 21, 2010 at 10:27 am
William--not sure! I haven't seen one yet that I love.
10. William Patrick Wend - February 21, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Yeah, me either. I will keep looking.
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