February 9, 2008
An Instructors' Blog - Teaching Praxis in Soc 203
Post on February 9 2008
Created on Saturday, 02/09/2008 2:10 PM by Robert Hanneman
I'm late in writing this week. This is the week during which construction people have come and torn out our kitchen, two baths, and other rooms. My wife and I are now camping in 3 rooms, along with our three cats. That, plus midterms -- it's been a long week.
Enough whining!
Thanks for the comments on the previous posts. I picked up on two things, particularly: the technology (or rather, my struggling with it) is sometimes distracting and takes away some of our -- too little -- time; and, more hours together working with the material would probably be good.
I really like the study group -- for those who have the opportunity to be involved, it sounds like it is a very useful addition to class time and self-study. Maybe there could be some way of adding group study time as a regular component of the course. It worries me a bit, though, that not everyone can (or maybe wants to) do the group study thing -- I don't want to see some folks at a disadvantage.
Talk about distractions due to technology! Three folks in class had major problems during the exam, having their connection dropped, not being able to get the system to accept their "submit" and not being able to type in the text windows on the test. I've been using testing like this for several years now, and I have had problems once and a while, but this was really unusual. There may be some problem with iLearn. My undergrad students also had problems taking their mid-term in the business school lab -- the system was really slow, and caused trouble on a long multiple choice test.
The main reason that I use the on-line testing, to be completely honest, is that it makes grading and grade entry much easier than paper and pencil. You've probably all had TA/grader experiences now, and you would probably agree that grading is the least-fun part of the teaching job. Is taking tests on-line an unusual experience for you folks? Is it better/worse/different? Does anxiety about the technology create stress?
The other part of the technology -- sharing group output with other groups through the multiple projection system seems to be working. You all seem to have mastered logging into and using the collaboration environment, and I'm getting there with the controller for the projectors/screens. Once mastered, this stuff seems to work, without wasting time or being distracting. But, it did take time from class to master it.
On Tuesday, we will have yet another distraction -- the videographer working for CHASS will be there for the first hour or so. He wants us to ignore him. I want to ignore him (actually, his name is Jim Brown, and he is a very nice fellow), I hope that we can. I, too, am getting a little tired of the interruptions and distractions. I really enjoy running the analyses and using them as talking points -- and I am impressed with the good ideas that folks are having from the "floor". The discussion of "modes" in a distribution last time was really very good.
Here's hoping that thing will run smoothly, and that we won't need to struggle with the technology for the rest of the quarter.