Part-Time Job Number 2

Things never happen in a nice neat way and that's kind of the story behind my new part-time job.

This all started in early January. I was at school for a meeting with the other instructors who would be teaching Biology with me this semester and one of the FT instructors told me about some PT Anatomy & Physiology positions at another nearby technical college that needed to be filled ASAP (this was two weeks before the semester started). Now, A&P certainly isn't my forte, but I know enough that I could get through a course and I figured I had nothing to lose and I applied. I wasn't incredibly surprised when I heard nothing and a week into the semester I assumed they weren't interested.

Flash forward to Sunday, January 31st. I checked my e-mail around 11AM and found an e-mail in my inbox with the heading "URGENT." It was from the associated dean at the other technical college (from now on, my original school will be TC and the new one is NTC) saying that they still needed an A&P instructor, the course would meet 3 times a week for 3 hours each and let her know right away if I could do it. I debated for about 20 minutes. When I applied to teach an A&P position, I really didn't think I'd get it - and so I was now faced with having to teach students this subject that I wasn't that comfortable with. Also, NTC is actually in downtown of the city we live near and would be about a 45 min drive each way. Of course, more teaching experience is never a thing to turn down and the extra 9 hours of pay a week (I get paid by the hour, not a flat rate for a course, but that actually works in my favor) wasn't something to laugh at. I wrote back and said I'd do it. Five minutes later the associate dean called.

She began my thanking me, then explaining a little bit about the course and then started mentioning how, after looking through my CV thought I might be more suited to teach a Microbiology course. True, but what does that have to do with filling an A&P spot? Turns out that through a series of unfortunate events they also had a Microbiology course that was in need of an instructor. We agreed that that was the best route for me and so I was hired around 1PM on Sunday. My first class was going to be Tuesday at 8AM - and the course had been going on since January 25. So not only was I walking into my first week AMAZINGLY unprepared, but I was walking into a class mid-semester.

I went to NTC on Monday to meet everyone and get the paperwork started. That night I was up until midnight cramming Microbiology notes into my head. Tuesday wasn't the best lecture I've ever given, but I must say that the students were incredibly patient with the fact that I had just been hired. That whole week was rough - I didn't have keys to any rooms, I didn't have a copy code, and most importantly, I didn't have access to the NTC intranet - no e-mail, no Blackboard, which was a huge problem. I made it though and this week has been far more successful. I can post my lectures on Blackboard, I can contact my students and post their grades. Overall, everyone involved is much happier.

I'm incredibly busy right now, but I'm thrilled to be working more. I finally feel like I'm contributing again and I like not having a lot of time where I wonder what I should be doing. All I need now is one more PT job and I'll basically be working full time. All the baby steps in the right direction will get me where I want to be someday soon

Stuff my students tell me

I'm not sure if it's something about me in particular, or just that I'm an instructor in general, but I know way more about my students than I should. I mean I know about bouts with cancer, deceased spouses, issues with kids, issues with husbands, accidents, surgeries - you name it, they've told me about it. And that's fine, in fact, I'm flattered (at times) with how comfortable my students seem to be with me.

And then there's the stuff that I know because it's popped up in e-mails explaining why someone missed a class. The excuse. I hate "the excuse." I realize stuff happens - that's fine - but it's difficult to gauge whether the excuse is truth, fiction or somewhere in between. How am I supposed to mark someone's homework down because it was late when "I had a family emergency (complete with gory details)" is the excuse? I actually tend to believe that one - as long as there's only one family emergency, when one's grandmother dies 3 times I get suspicious. On the other hand, when you tell me you were sick, I hardly ever believe that one (I'm horrible, I know). That's amplified if you tell me you were sick on an exam day.

But today I got the mother of all excuses.

Backstory - I have 2 students who haven't showed up for any of the 4 classes so far this semester. At 3 I can drop them, but I e-mail after 2 and drop after 4. I haven't heard from one and next on the to-do list is to drop him from the roster. But I did get an e-mail from the other one this morning......

And the reason she hasn't been to class yet went something like this.......my best friend was murdered (add way more detail here, including the victim's name).

Yikes. What do I do with that?

First, I went to the local news website - and sure enough - the story checks out. Yikes again.

She went on to tell me that she's ready for something to take her mind off the sorrow and that she'll do whatever I want to catch up in class and will I give her a chance. So, I'm giving her a chance - she's behind and it's not going to be fun or easy, but if she's serious it'll work out fine.

I, on the other hand, am pretty scared. I'm happy to help someone catch up with school work and I can answer biology questions with the best of them - but I don't know how to deal with shock, depression or angst all that well and I hope that a minimal amount of that will creep into my dealings with this student.

Never saw this one coming - but I guess that's what makes it interesting.

8 AM

I think I'm figuring out what the issue with the 8AM crowd is going to be. I mentioned that they seemed like a nicer group than last semester and I'm sticking with that. I do have two boys who are starting to whisper when I'm talking - so if I hear that tomorrow I'll be putting an end to it. Other than that - really they're pretty tame. I will chalk this up to the fact that they're really not all that awake for an 8AM class.

What I am seeing though, is a huge trend of lateness and as of yesterday, just absences in general. Yesterday I had 6 missing (that's 1/3 of my class). For them what does that mean? Homework that is considered late (at a penalty of 10% off of their grade), a missed quiz, missed next assignments (which means they run the risk of having late homework again) and a missed lab (so writing up that lab report will be kind of difficult). And those are just the grade-related things they missed. My class is 2.5 hours long. A missed class means a lot of missed lecture. I suspect the gravity of missing an entire class won't quite hit them until after the first exam when they do poorly on the sections I covered when they weren't there.......

Missing a class is just bizarre to me. I remember having serious panic attacks at the thought of not being able to go to a class based on how far behind I would feel and I have a hard time relating to people who (apparently) don't have as much of a reaction to skipping a class.

I realize that of my 6 yesterday, some of them were truly sick. But I also suspect that some of them didn't love the idea of getting going for an 8AM Monday class. Well, guess what? I don't love to get going for the 8AM Monday class either - but I'm there because it's my responsibility. Issues with an early class? Don't sign up for that time. Seems simple to me - but maybe I'm just mean.

Comparisons

Two classes of the new semester are done. On Monday I left the class feeling like this was a much better group than I had last semester. I sort of chalked it up to the fact that this group had signed up for an 8AM class - last semester I taught at 3PM. If they're willing to get up that early for class, they must be serious, right?

Well, maybe not. My mother is the one (they always know best, don't they? - it also helps that mine taught at a the college level for many years) who politely suggested that maybe the group seemed better because my confidence going into class on Monday was light years ahead of my confidence last semester. True statement. I had zero nerves going into class on Monday - I had added significantly to my syllabus based on the experience of last semester. I felt ready to deal with the situations and personalities of this semester.

Monday's lecture was an improvement on last semester too. The first couple of chapters last semester were given pre-deciding to handle my Powerpoint presentations differently. For this semester I've gone through those first few chapters and turned them into they types of lectures I was giving by the end of last semester. I was more comfortable with this lecture and I think that also helped me on Monday. In fact, I had a student stop by after class and tell me that she had tried to take the class last semester but had to drop out because she hated the instructor's style. She told me that she loved the way I presented the material and was happy she had signed up for the class again. That sort of made up for the girl who told me I was horrible at teaching after the first class last semester.

Of course there will be those who don't put in effort and there will be those who get upset when we get into serious stuff - like exams - and grades, but overall I feel much better about class this time around.

On a slightly unrelated note - it was truly strange for me to see a new group on Monday. I was so used to my students from last semester that through much of the class I would look out and see, not the new faces, but the ones who used to occupy those seats. I wouldn't go so far as to say I missed my former students, but I supposed I hadn't realized how comfortable we get with a certain group of people.

Time Flies

I meant to blog more last semester, really, but things - aka, life - happened. Teaching took A LOT of time. More than I expected. So.....when I wasn't actually in front of the class I was correcting homework or quizzes, I was writing exams, re-working Powerpoints, writing out notes or coming up with hands-on activities that would make things easier for the students. When I wasn't doing any of that I was trying to keep the house clean and occasionally spending a few minutes with the husband. Needless to say, when I had a few moments, one of the last things I wanted to do was write about my class. And so the blog suffered.

On top of the busy schedule, there was another reason I let the blog suffer. There were lots of interesting things that happened throughout the semester, but whenever I would think about the subsequent blog I could never quite find a comfortable place between giving you all the vaguest blog posts and sharing too much about my students who are completely unaware that I have this outlet of communication.

I hope that with the start of the new semester I can correct both of these issues. First, since I spent so much time last semester getting my lectures to a good place my class-to-class work load will be significantly reduced. I hope to use at least some of that time to blog - maybe with more time to think I will be able to tell you about some of the events that take place during class in a manner that is both informative/entertaining while still being respectful to my students.

That being said, I have one week until this new semester begins. I guess it's probably time to update my syllabus.......

They're not called stereotypes for nothing - Under the Radar Kid

I don't want my blog to become this place where I share horror stories about my students or where all I do is complain about my students or lament how difficult teaching is because of my students. Instead, I would like to (try very hard) to use my experiences in the classroom as learning experiences for me - because let's face it, that's what they are. I can't tell you how many times this semester I've had this reaction in my head immediately after I've dealt with some situation - "oh, ugh, you shouldn't have said/done/agreed to that - live and learn but never do that again."

Anyone who has been through a class - whether as a teacher or as a student - is well aware that students fill niches - or stereotypes. I've know this for a long time - I began to recognize the stereotypes when I sat through 40 classes in college. The difference is, back then I was one of the stereotypes. I didn't have to deal with the other attitudes in the class - for me, it was just me and the professor. Now, I'm not one of the student stereotypes and I have to stand up in front of 17 students twice a week and deal with all of their learning styles, personalities and stereotypes all at once. Yikes. Of course this is my first semester and while each semester will present its own new challenges, the stereotypes will still be there and the more familiar I become with them now, the better it will be down the road.

In order to tell you a bit about my semester up until this point, I thought I would approach it in this way - I'll write a series of blogs in which I tell you "The story of the _________" (fill in the blank with the personality du jour).

Because I've already written half a blog here, I'll keep the first story pretty simple and talk about the "Under the Radar Kid." You know who I mean. The under the radar kid is a good student who always shows up to every class and when he does miss one makes you wonder if he's dead on the side of the road because he's so consistently there. He does 99.9% of his homework and does it well. He gets at least a 90 on every quiz and does great on the exams too. He's the kid you don't have to think about at all......and sometimes you realize that you don't think about this kid at all.

It's not that I don't realize he's there it's just that he causes absolutely no waves in class at all. He's there on time at the beginning of class and is back early from the break - if he leaves at all. But I can count on one hand the number of times he's spoken to me (I think it's twice). He's a great student - he doesn't really need to talk to me. But the reverse is not true - I do need to talk to him. I need to make sure he doesn't feel like I have absolutely no idea he's there just because I don't worry about his grade. It's difficult. I don't know the under the radar kid nearly as well as I know the more verbal students or as well as the students who are really struggling. I can give you the excuse that it's because those two groups I just mentioned take up just about all of my time and my energy - but it would be just that, an excuse.

Ironically, under the radar kid is a difficult situation for me - I'm pretty shy and just randomly saying "Hey, how's it going today." is bizarrely hard for me. And so he provides me with experience in dealing with ALL of my students - even the really good ones that I could go an entire semester without speaking personally to.

Update

Bad blogger - that's me. Because of that I plan on having 2 posts today. First, I want to give you the "career update."

I'm very near the halfway point in my first semester of teaching - and I'm surviving, although it's taking up a lot of my time, despite the fact that I've only got one class. In my last post I hinted at how my approach to lecturing at the beginning of the semester wasn't working. Since then, I've taken a lot more time with each chapter - reading it, figuring out exactly the best order in which to present the material (I don't always agree with the book's order) and finding extra figures and information to present the material in a variety of ways. Very time consuming, but I think it's paying off.

Even though there's half a semester left it's time to think about courses for next semester. Registration for some of the students has begun already. I had kind of assumed that as a part-time I instructor that each semester would go kind of like it did back in August when I was hired - the associate dean (AD) looked at courses being taught and just kind of asked us if we could teach this or that and the holes got filled.

No. Not so much - of course nothing is that simple. Turns out that there's a process......the part time instructors got a sheet of paper last week with a list of the evening courses being offered next semester. We were to rank the courses we were interested in teaching. Happily, there was also an option to try and teach a day course as well if they were available. I really like the time of day that I teach (3-5:30) and very much would prefer a day course. On the other hand, I would rather teach a class than no class at all even if that means an evening course. As coherently as possible I filled out my form with a note on the bottom to that effect. Currently the AD is working with the full-time faculty and letting them take the courses that they want. He won't start dealing with scheduling the part-time faculty until a week or two from now, so I've got a bit of a wait before I know what and when I'll be teaching.

In the meantime I've been looking at the job postings again. It's definitely that time of year in which the faculty jobs start getting posted. I'm going to be applying for another adjunct position at a college more like what I want to end up at. It's to teach a 400 level cell and molecular biology course which is exactly what I got my Ph.D. in, so it's a good fit. I'll be sending my stuff along by early next week. I think it would be a good progression from one course to two, but still remaining part time for a bit as I continue to adjust to life as a teacher. We'll see what comes of it.

So there's the update about the job and career. I'll be back soon with a post about my current class.