This week, I had the follow up to my teaching observation. My department chair and I are teaching at the same time, so we had a Monday follow up by way of Teams. I find Teams a bit clunkier than Zoom, but maybe that's because I no longer use Teams as much.
My purpose here is not to discuss ways to do meetings from a distance and which tech platform is better. Let me return to my original purpose, to talk about the teaching observation. The teaching observation took place two weeks ago, and I wrote a blog post about it the morning after. I thought it went well, and happily, she thought it went well too.
The one critique she had was couched in language of care: "The biggest challenge I observed was that the weight of the class seemed to be on Kristin’s shoulders rather than the students, and I wonder if there are ways to remove some of that pressure." She made some suggestions, and we discussed those and other possibilities in our follow up meeting. The vibe was not bossy, not "You must change, or we won't hire you again." She's had non-talkative students too. It was more like two colleagues discussing and strategizing.
In all my years of teaching observations, no one has had such nice things to say about my voice and presentation: "Strengths: In a mid to late afternoon class, an instructor faces the challenge of making sure students aren’t in a post lunch haze. Kristin uses her presence and voice modulation quite well to face this challenge head on. In an age where students seem to be less and less inclined to speak above a whisper, it is refreshing to see Kristin model what projecting your voice looks like. It makes a world of difference that students in the very back of the room can hear the instructor just as clearly as those in the front. I also mentioned her presence; students need to know that the instructor in front of the room is in command and in control of the space. Kristin does a good job of moving to shift their focal points and keep students engaged; additionally, the modulations were very demonstrative of the kind of tone that is appropriate for reading and experiencing Poe."
Wow! All those years of drama training pay off! In fact, I've said for years that my adolescent yearning to be on stage has served me well. Back then I was dreaming of a Broadway stage, but in my late middle age, I'm happy for this classroom stage.
Am I late middle age or early old age? I am 58, and in good health, if a bit overweight and fond of frumpy clothes, so it feels like late middle age. I don't think I can claim midlife with no modifiers these days.
Yesterday's teaching was oddly satisfying. I say oddly satisfying because we were discussing research papers and documentation, and I did not major in English hoping that I could make teach people to document more precisely. On the way home, I stopped at my favorite apple orchard, and I still marvel at the fact that my favorite apple orchard is on the way home. Well, sort of on the way--it's not just off the interstate, so it did take me about 15 minutes longer to get home. But I arrived home with two kinds of apples and sweet potatoes.
It was the kind of day that would make me envious if I read about it when I was living somewhere else. Not every day is like that--let me hasten to add, so that this blog stays real. But I am so happy for the days that are.
1 comment:
(Almost) 58 feels like late middle age to me, too, but I'm already enjoying plenty of elder privilege due to the white hair: people hold doors for me, offer to carry heavy items to the car, and don't give me a hard time for minor sins like trespassing and jaywalking.
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