tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post7242552565023618528..comments2023-06-11T02:19:27.429-07:00Comments on Academic Cog: Finished, Finally! Or: How preparing a new course is a lot of workSisyphushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09880634753539329199noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-50589617589720810232008-12-22T14:27:00.000-08:002008-12-22T14:27:00.000-08:00Oh, re: interdisciplinary teaching, being qualifie...Oh, re: interdisciplinary teaching, being qualified, etc., there's something to be said for learning along with the students. You don't have to know everything, just more than them at any given point and enough to point them in good directions. <BR/><BR/>When I was at your stage I also taught all over the place - philosophy, sociology, human development, history - and it was all about learning curves and keeping my head in the game. Get some good stuff on the syllabus then use the class to work it through. <BR/><BR/>I remember talking about this with a trippy old woman who also hung out at my cafe in Oakland. She was mostly a neighborhood wise woman and storyteller at this point but she had taught in the schools for years and always been the one to say yes when a whatsit class would come open. The way she put it is that we "duck into the closet for a second," figure it out, then get down to business.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-48384432853751070962008-12-22T14:11:00.000-08:002008-12-22T14:11:00.000-08:00Agreed with Bardiac about the experiment thing. Al...Agreed with Bardiac about the experiment thing. Also, re: load, it's not so much about number but preps (I normally teach 4/4 but only two preps with three sections of intro). <BR/><BR/>Once you've been out and teaching a bit you find, unless you're perfect or dense, that the most important thing is not what readings you assign but how you design and manage the learning process in the room. You can have a great course with crappy readings - figuring out why they're crappy together can be especially valuable - and a terrible one with great readings. You can 'cover' a whole lot where none of it 'sticks', or you can poke at one little thing that opens out in all sorts of unexpected and valuable ways and changes lives. It's all about trying stuff and seeing how it works out.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, we old hands at regional teaching schools always know the newbie syllabi because they're crammed with all sorts of unrealistic, densely and earnestly scholarly, lovingly chosen and balanced, inevitably ignored by most of the students readings. And the question is, will she be satisfied talking with the two geeks in the class who actually crack that reader? Or will she find a way to streamline the content while enabling engagement from students of varying abilities, dispositions and involvements? In that sense I think your vanilla intro syllabus sounds like a good platform for tweaking for interviews with my kind of school.<BR/><BR/>Awesome: my spam verification word is "fartoodi."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-17239827137971871712008-12-21T07:47:00.000-08:002008-12-21T07:47:00.000-08:00One of the advantages tt folks have is that we get...One of the advantages tt folks have is that we get to try things more than once. You run a course, and then the next time, you know how to teach it for real. That's especially true if you're doing a course that's not really central to your area of study.<BR/><BR/>And now you've reminded me that I still haven't ordered books for one of my spring classes :(Bardiachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11846065504793800266noreply@blogger.com