I have subtitled my blog “Educating an Educator” to remind myself and my readers that I am actually an educator right now responsible for teaching 44 lucky students at NDSU. However, this educator still has a lot to learn, making me very fortunate to have the accepting students, classmates, and professors that I do.
I have always seen myself continuing in the field of academia. I think this is a result of never being in the real world working a 9-5 job, and being in school is all I am used to. When asked what I wanted to be when I grow up, I always wanted to be a teacher. During the last semester of my undergrad, I was required to take “Materials and Concepts of Health Education” in which I learned many teaching and organizational skills such as lesson planning and the importance of addressing the many learning styles students have. This class further led me to wanting to at least try teaching. Having my own classroom and students for the first time this semester will definitely play a key role in whether being a teacher is my ultimate goal.
The Communication Department is very organized in the fact that they hold a week long orientation for new graduate teaching assistants. Us newbies were also required to attend the general NDSU graduate teaching assistant orientation in which we quickly found out how fortunate we are to be guided through this transition from being a student a mere three months ago to teaching and leading a classroom. The first reading assignment and the assignment for this week proved very helpful and somewhat of a refresher from orientation. However, I wish I would have read the “First Day to Final Grade” textbook over the summer and had this information before the first day of class. Had it not been for the second-year master’s students that had been through all of this before to answer my questions about the first week, I would have been lost!
Some helpful tips I took from the “First Day to Final Grade” were:
- Get to know the names of your students. Knowing the names of your students can increase your credibility, help class run more smoothly, and make you seem more conversational.
- Look at your classroom before the first day of class. I think this tip can be one of the most important. You must know where your classroom is and what the room is equipped with for proper planning. Arriving on time is crucial and planning activities around the arrangement of the desks or technology available can prevent unorganized and inefficient class meetings.
- The section on dressing up was one I read carefully. I have had professors that dress casually and I always took them just as seriously as those that wore ties everyday. However, these were established professors, not a graduate teaching assistant that is actually younger than some of her students. I think the cons outweigh the pros, but dressing up is something that is a must to establish authority and credibility when you are in my situation. I had to buy more dress clothes, which are significantly more expensive than casual clothes, but I think it will be worth it in the end.
- One last important tip is balancing being a teacher and graduate student at the same time. Not being overly adaptable and available to meet with students can be a challenge for some new teaching assistants that want to be liked.
Tips that showed up in both texts can easily be implemented into any field of teaching.
- I have 22 students in each of my classes, so this is a very reasonable goal to know all of their names within the first few class meetings. I found my roster on Campus Connection and went over names for pronunciations. The text suggested possibly looking for pictures with the roster or checking Facebook. I do not think searching for my students on Facebook would be very productive. I can only wish I had time to search Facebook for that long as a new grad student! I have also personally decided that I will not accept any of my students’ friend requests on Facebook until the semester has ended like many professionals across many fields may also agree with.
- Being too accessible to students and colleagues may lead to you using your time less efficiently. Whether you are a business executive or teacher, you must set aside specific times for anyone to come in (office hours), time for checking e-mails, personal time, time for coursework, and other time for important parts of your position. Do not let people pop in at random times. This will lead them to think this is acceptable and interrupt your work so you have to take the needed time to regroup and begin from where you were before.
- Dress codes need to be implemented in most fields also. Dress codes establish credibility and also help with performing the job you do. If you work in construction, you would want to wear appropriate clothing for your duties, just as a professor wants to look professional and dress a step above what the students are wearing to establish authority.
Most of the readings and discussion topics have had me jotting down notes and suggestions all over my notebook. These ideas are things I can still implement for this semester, and also things I can do for the first day of next semester and the semesters that follow.
- When I go over the syllabus on the first day of next semester, I will stress the importance of the attendance policy more. Since the COMM 110 syllabus was already made for us by the department, I will make my syllabus more detailed so there are no contested policies.
- I have dressed up every class meeting so far and plan to continue to do this. I definitely think the students take me more seriously than if I was wearing jeans.
- I have been doing well in getting to know the students with ice breakers and activities. I had the students make information cards as suggested in the text and challenge myself to hand them out to the right person at the beginning of each class. Today I had a student volunteer to try to pass them out. Public Speaking is a unique class that you get very close with your fellow classmates as you encourage them along the way and grow as a communicator together. Something I faltered with a bit on the first day of getting to know students was not completely actively listening. I did an activity where students had to share a fact based on a color of candy they picked out. One student did not take any candy and just told a fact. I then asked them to share another interesting fact, not completely processing that they had just shared three.
- I also checked out my classroom before the first day. This is one of the best tips out there. I have never taught a class before, so I went in my assigned room when it was empty one night and walked around the desks, the front of the room, and pictured myself lecturing. I noted there is a white board with markers, the desks can be moved, and I have all the necessary technology I will need. This answered a lot of questions and enabled me to make a quiz I could simply put on the document camera instead of printing one for each student. I also found that standing in front of the room on the first day was a little less daunting because I had pictured myself there already.
The readings for this week were helpful, and they only covered what to do while preparing for and teaching on the first day! It's going to be a very educational semester for this new educator! Here are a few links to some teaching tips.
Florida State University has an entire section of their web site devoted to preparing for teaching. I found the "Prepare for your first semester" section the most helpful. http://learningforlife.fsu.edu/ctl/firstSemester/index.cfm
As cheesy as they are, and as much as people hate them, ice breakers are beneficial and really do "break the ice" to get people talking. Here is a site with many ice breakers that can be adapted or used with many age groups.
http://www.teach-nology.com/ideas/ice_breakers/
Finally, in all seriousness with a little humor, the following is a must read that addresses the dress code of teachers and what to never EVER wear.
http://www.theapple.com/careers/articles/8431-what-teachers-should-never-ever-wear?page=1
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