Last night was my first time teaching a night class for a couple of years. Debate is a different animal and fulfilled my night teaching duties -- but, the students are different.
Last night I had a good, adult night class full of eager ethics students!
I tried something new -- asking them what student and professor behaviors bothered them... I figured that we could have the discussion before they knew me and before they knew one another.
The results were predictable -- they don't like hearing tangents about the professor's private lives, especially following instructions to be on time because class time is valuable. They don't like students who have side conversations or whose cell phones go off. They also don't like to have one or two students dominate discussions.
I told them that the solution to the last one is to be prepared to speak-up -- and if necessary get a little group of students to take turns speaking up in class... I told them that instructors keep calling on the dominating students because nobody else is participating...
yea, I think it is going to be a good year.
Wish me luck with my 7:45 logic class... I'll try the same things with them, I wonder if it will work :).
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Nice work! I was thinking of trying something similar with my students this year: I want to have them talk about what's great, what's hard and what they'd like others to know about being a leader/teacher or a member/student (that way they'll have perspective to offer on both sides). I'm hoping to generate some similar responses to what you got.
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