For their final blog post, I asked my students to critique the course. Was there anything they wanted to learn about the material, but hadn’t? Did they accomplish their own objectives for the class? What would they change about the course for next semester? The responses were tremendously helpful, and at times too kind to yours truly. Many of their critiques and suggestions will be implemented next semester, and it’s nice to know that what the students perceived and what I perceived wasn’t disparate.
Now that we’re at the very end of the semester, I realize that the students aren’t the only ones who’ve been learning. My students have taught me several things over the past 16 weeks, and as turnabout is fair play, I suppose I should blog about what I learned in this class too.
The greatest lesson I learned is that I need to be patient with others. I don’t think anyone would ever describe me as a very patient person; but I never thought I was all that impatient, either. Yet although I can work patiently on a project and I’m patient with animals, I am terribly impatient with students. It’s hard to remind myself that at one point, I too knew nothing about a topic or program and had to rely on someone to show me the way. I wasn’t always the easiest student to teach, but through the patience of my professors I was able to learn the material. I’m sorry to those students who felt the brunt of my impatience and I will endeavor to improve that aspect of my personality. As much as I hate to say it, Mom was right; Patience is a virtue.
Another obvious lesson is that learning isn’t something you can force on someone. Initially, I had an attitude that I needed to control everything about my class; but I quickly realized that complete control just wasn’t possible. It only took a week to figure out that there’s a balance between domineering a class and letting the wards run the asylum. I tried to find that balance by encouraging discussion about the material and emphasizing creativity and storytelling over technical accuracy. For many of the students, it was their first time creating a video, Soundslide or podcast, so it didn’t make any sense that they should do it perfectly the first time. With the expectations set to a reasonable level, students could focus more on the project and less on the grade. In the end, I think the students enjoyed doing their assignments and learned how to improve their work for the next time around.
I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with these students. They stressed me out. Made me laugh. Questioned me when it was needed. Listened most of the time and understood that these skills are important for their future careers. They surprised me in countless ways with their creativity and enthusiasm for the material. Even when the quality of execution was low, their desire to learn more and improve was always high. That probably had less to do with me though and more to do with playing in Photoshop. Nevertheless, I’m going to miss those little rascals next semester.
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