Communicate Expectations
My revelation this week is somewhat embarrassing. I do a lot of relationship counseling (marriages, roommates, folks in churches and even work places relationships), and more often than not, I encourage people to: "communicate their expectations". The better one becomes at articulating what they expect, the easier it is for the other party to respond. I've taught two classes now (one each semester last year) and I cringed as I read this week's readings, especially Conquering the Content. I ended up moving about 4 or 5 major deadlines because students were "unclear" about what was expected of them for the assignment. It was a dose of my own medicine.
As I move forward, I will definitely use the formula of: 1. Objectives (what I want you to learn) 2. Learning guide (these are the ways you will do it) 3. Learning tasks (here is exactly what I want you to do and what it will look like) and assessments (now that you've done this work, what is your attitude and your level of knowledge and skill?). That is good stuff!
I gleaned a lot of "practical" tidbits from this week's lessons thus far. Now let's see if I can get it onto my Canvas page!
Jon,
ReplyDeleteI like your comment about "a dose of my own medicine". Thing is that I have taught certain linguistics classes for more than 15 years at D.C. now, and the way I currently teach those classes is totally unrelated to how I taught them 15 years ago. Just for fun, I kept my first course syllabus for this class, and if I compare it to the one I used last semester, then there could not have been anything more different. It's like I was teaching two totally different classes.
What I'm trying to say is that constant reminders both from students and from your own common sense are shaping the courses you teach in a certain way. But that happens step by step, at least in my case. I'm pretty sure that if you continue to critically evaluate your courses the way you seem to be doing now, that they will improve, to the benefit of both you and your students.
Jon,
ReplyDeleteAgreed.... that is all! :)
Very true! In my case I have to be double careful to make my expectations clear: As a foreigner whose mother tongue is not English but German I must be VERY disciplined to communicate my expectations as clearly as possible. I have learned to ask back in order to see whether I was understood or not. Sometimes this is quite frustrating.
ReplyDeleteWow - yeah, I had not thought about the "extra" step that teaching in a different culture (with a 2nd language) could create. Kudos!
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