Over the last month or so I’ve gone from only knowing the student perspective of a class, to getting a feel of how it is to be the teacher. I never knew I had an interest in teaching, turns out I do! And the degree I wanted a (Psy. D.) wasn’t going to cut it if I wanted to leave the teaching option open. I’ve realized that I don’t have to counsel people to help them, although it is a way. Teaching students is helping too! I think what really drove this point home is one night walking through residence life with a friend and a student stopped me and said, I think you’re my TA. And after getting to talking, she said that she really enjoyed the class and was thinking on declaring a psych/human development major. We probably talked only about 5 minutes just about psych/human development, classes, options, and experiences. This may seem a minor and insignificant conversation, and it very well could be, but who knows what the impact of the conversation will have. But what if that girl goes on to get a psych degree and goes on to teach or to counsel people? The numbers could be exponential. As a freshmen, professors, TAs, and all of the like were the bee’s knees and it was so scary but yet so helpful talking to them. I still remember two who really took time to mentor me, and give me advice.
It’s just really cool how my perspective on my other classes, as well as my goals are changing too. Before I used to just simply complain about a bad professor, but now that I’m gaining insight I can now go beyond, “This class sucks” to “What could he do to improve this class?” Though this doesn’t make it any less annoying, it is at least one step further, thinking wise.
Personal thoughts/experiences aside, I feel like this past week was when things really clicked into gear. I finally pin-pointed why I was having a hard time generating questions for this class, it wasn’t that I didn’t have any, it was that I felt like all the little observations and curiosities I had were silly, or that they were already asked, or the answers were already known. This past week I simply started jotting any sort of curiosity that crossed my mind down. Turns out, they seem less silly once their written down.
The first question that made it in my notes was, why do some students speak out loud while others raise there hand? Is it personality? Is it GPA? Is it age? Is it year in school? Class-size? Are there any significant correlations? This question came after a student had answered a question out loud, and then I noticed that not everyone’s etiquette is the same when it comes to speaking in class.
My next question was, do students learn more taking notes in class or listening and then writing down main points after class. This question came about when I repeatedly watched students break their focus on Dr. Gurung when he changed the slide, and switch between looking at the slide and at their note book. Once they were finished writing down the slide information they reestablished focus on Dr. Gurung, but what did that break do to their learning? I know for myself, a compulsive note-taker, the majority of my notes are overkill and do not help at all when it comes to exam time. Would students who simply paid attention in class and wrote down what they remembered still hit the main points? Without notebooks students would feel more obligated to remember information rather than be a lecture to note machine, would this impact the retention level of material not only for exams, but after the class is finished, how much would they remember?
The next thing I wondered was talking. There were two students in the very front row towards myself who were talking, and the majority of the conversation (that I heard) was not directly related to class material. How detrimental is that to learning? Is there a time/place when talking can boost learning? I also discovered that making eye contact with one of the people in the conversation is quick to end conversation. However this same method applied to two girls a few rows back was not as successful. Mostly because they did not look at me, and therefore I could not make eye contact with them like I did with the gentleman in the front row.
Then this week’s meeting peaked more questions. I’d be really curious to see if there was a link between students who were Dr. Gurung’s facebook friends, and the grades achieved in the course. But also I remembered my original idea for an experiment in Experimental Pych, I was really passionate about it at the time as I graduated from an online high school and now go to traditional college. Do students learn better on the computer or on paper? How do exam scores correlate, if at all? If given an option between taking the exam online and in class what would students choose? How would this change after the first exam? Would there be a difference in scores? After all students who were taking the class during the same term would be exposed to exactly the same material, would there be a significant difference between online and paper?
Those are just a few of my questions for now. I’m sure I’ll have more this week.
The last thing that’s on my radar is the review session. I’m excited to see my pod face to face and to take the lead on the session. But all in all I’m concerned about attendance. My math professor has a review class before every exam where he answers questions and gives us problems to work out, but the normal attendance of 20-25 plummets to barely 10. I guess only time will tell!
Until next time!