It is almost the end of the semester, and I am feeling my students' pain. I always tell myself it's their problem, not mine, but it doesn't help. I feel the anxiety they should feel because they haven't fulfilled their responsibilities for my class and are heading for a failure. If they only felt some of it themselves, they probably wouldn't have this problem.
This semester I am teaching a class on research and argumentation for the first time in many years. I am a little rusty at this. So I did not plan the class in a foolproof way, that would guarantee their papers would be ready at the end of the semester. Instead, I told them to follow the sequence of assignments I have been giving for a couple of months, which was supposed to assemble the paper a piece at a time--topic, question, research, plan, draft, works cited, final. But naturally they did not follow the time table and most dragged their feet and are still puzzled about what to research. Meanwhile, it is way too late for that.
It's not as if all of them have screwed up. At least a few have taken me seriously and are doing fine. They asked for help when they needed it, and I gave it to them. I even went to the UCI library to help students do some research, though actually they did better at finding sources on the topic than I did! But I suppose it's all something to learn from. Next semester I'll be ready to deal with this.
4 comments:
Isn't that the beauty of teaching? There is always a new semester waiting for us.
Yes that's true.
You clearly are a wonderful, caring instructor, and as I've said many times--they are lucky to have you! I know it's tough to let go when students are feeling the end of semester stress--I've been there, too!
Procrastination is a given with some people. As I said earlier today, some of us even work better under pressure. Who knows--maybe a couple of these students will be able to pull it together and produce great papers! Whatever happens, you have given them time, energy, creativity, your remarkable fount of knowledge, and perhaps most of all--heart!
Thanks Robin. That is sweet praise and I love seeing you visited the blog!
Next semester I will use what I learned this time into making a new syllabus that will help them to build up the paper from the beginning, a piece at a time.
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