Awake before the alarm. Up by the third snooze. Shower, coffee, touch up the lesson plans. Head off to campus. It's the first day of school!
As is my practice, I spent last night reading last semester's course evaluations and thinking on how my approach should or shouldn't change. True to form, my students told me I'm a "really, really hard grader" but "lots of fun" and that I'm a good teacher. One person clearly hated me but you can't win them all, right? I made some syllabus adjustments earlier in the week and after glancing at the feedback again, I tweaked my plan for the first day.
For any of you teacher folks, I recommend visiting Dr. Mark Stoner's web site. A dear friend and professor, Mark offers tons of teaching resources on his site. In particular, I love to visit his COMS 222 Practicum section and revisit the links there. My favorite is from the Honolulu community college system which offers a wonderfully organized set of links with a boatload of information for planning courses, developing syllabi, creating lessons, offering activities, etc.
I met my students this morning and they seem lovely so far. I'm teaching small group communication yet again but also my first upper division class, "Relational Leadership in the 21st Century." It's my first time completely designing a course from the ground up so do wish me luck!
Happy first day to the rest of the teachers (and students) out there!
xoxo,
Shawna
Labels: school, teaching, Things That Make Me Happy