21 Eylül 2021, Salý
saat: 21:19
recently I was asked to serve in a panel for first year faculty and new colleagues wanted to discuss sticky teaching situations and I was like listen the best piece of advice I can give you is that you will learn even more from your crash-and-burn lessons than the ones that go brilliantly, and when you crash and burn it’ll be tempting to never think of that lesson again, but actually that’s where you gotta dig in and teach yourself how to take it apart. why didn’t this work? what could I have tweaked that might’ve helped this succeed? what did they seem resistant to and what are three different explanations for why that might’ve been hard or uncomfortable or not useful for them? at what point could I have ditched the planned lesson and just winged the rest of it, and why didn’t I? what would I have tried if I had? etc etc. it’s nothing groundbreaking, of course, but I think it’s the type of structured idea-generating activity they needed at this stage - and courage to fail, and fail better :)
I am also thinking about next semester's capstone seminar, because last year's experience almost killed me and I want to take my own advice, lol! this time I want to have them define a core research focus, then begin to generate clusters of possible research questions or directions for inquiry around that central focus early on. since they are tempted to procrastinate, our focus really needs to be on breaking down the logistics of creating and implementing large-scale independent projects that involve lots of moving parts. I want to, uhh, not scare them exactly but just impress upon them how much work goes into these kinds of projects and how many other people’s schedules have to be coordinated to ensure all the parts get done, to kinda drive home the idea that you cannot pull a couple all-nighters at the end of the semester to finish!
I think it will be a two-part seminar, where the first half is dedicated to taking apart and analyzing the literature and research methods, and the second part concentrates on students own projects - nuts and bolts of operationalization, empirical analysis, etc. To do that, though, I basically need understand what they are interested in and why, so I may want to send them a survey and see how they answer the following questions (which can also be used to generate an initial project focus) before the semester starts:
Something I’m really curious about...
Something that really bothers or frustrated me...
Something I’ve noticed is missing (in my past research, in courses I’ve taken, in my understanding of my field, in what I’ve observed in my own research)...
Something I would like to have in my role or position (as ROTC cadet/ as an aspiring diplomat/etc)... (or something I would have found helpful)...
Something I am well-positioned to provide or offer or create (because of my training, community connections, specific skills or interests)...
A religious/historical/political concept I want to analyze is...
A group or community of people whose experiences I want to better understand is...
then I can ask them to begin articulating some more specific research questions—basically, like, once the student had answered the above questions and settled on a general focus, how did they begin to develop a more focused list of questions and directions for inquiry (“to answer this question, I’m going to have to explore / answer / better understand all of these sub-questions and related topics”) - maybe this approach can work better than the toned-down version of this from last year? I mean, I kinda understand why things did not work out in the way it was planned last Spring: students missed out on a year and a half of in-person classes so when it comes to what they’re able to do in small groups they were closer to sophomores than seniors. I need to do more structured work to build them up to independent work instead of setting them loose too early (even with detailed instructions).
OKAY well that gives me some things to focus my meta-reflection on this week as I plan next week’s lesson + the agendas for this week’s individual meetings. now, back to the salt mines!
