"Just in Time for End of Semester..."
Profgrrrrl wrote a great post last week that's been sticking in my head ever since, about the end of the semester and student stress. I notice it every semester, that we get to the point where I stop worrying about class prep and try to make sure I spend a few extra hours in the office answering questions. We don't have graduate students like Profgrrrrl, but I do see some of the similar stresses she describes with my first-year students, which makes sense because we're talking about students entering a new discourse community, writing for new contexts and often in new styles. Jo(e) also writes a great post today about challenging students, figuring out when to push and when to let go.

I've been thinking about all those issues since returning to campus this week. When we get to this point, I start to second-guess myself. Have I told them all they need to know? Are they ready to complete these last projects? Do they finally get what I've been trying to teach them all semester? Then, I just remind myself that I've been doing this a long time and that I put a lot of thought into course content and progression of things. I think of my strengths is creating a course and putting things together, establishing a longterm vision and overall goals. Still, at this point, there's some questioning on my part.

And part of that comes from the fact that there are always some students who are struggling at this point. Is it because I wasn't clear about something? Did I raise the bar too high? Or is it because they assumed that what had worked in the past, whether it be high school or earlier courses, would work here? Did they try to coast or let things slide for so long that it's too late to recover? Or is it some combination of all these things?

But while some students struggle, others really do rise to the occasion. They come up with angles on the final projects that are truly original and not possibilities that had entered my mind before. There have been times I would open up an essay in Word and truly be surprised. And between the students who struggle or sometimes throw their hands in the air and the students who do impressive work, there are those who do what we ask them to do perhaps with an eyeroll or simple silence but who ultimately do what they need to do because shining takes too much work but failure is not an option.

In other words, some students excel, some students come up short, and some students do the job. And we're at the end of the semester when all of this truly comes to light.

A note to any students reading this, though. I'm not sure how all professors feel, but asking for extra credit in the final weeks of class is rarely an option. In my classes, I really try to spread the work throughout the semester. I also try to make sure that students have some chances to revise and some opportunities to drop the lowest grades on quizzes and such, and I know I'm not the only one who tries to create situations that allow students to learn and improve. Does asking for extra credit out of the blue ever lead to an instructor to say, "Yeah, okay, let's give you some"?

On that note, today is a deadline for revisions in one of my classes, and I haven't checked email since 5:00 to see how many chose to complete them. I have to say that I've loved having my students email their work to me and using Word's commenting feature for grading. I feel like my comments make more sense and are more helpful for revision. And I like having a file of everything that I have graded this semester. That's one thing from this semester I'm keeping in the future.
- posted by Nels @ 9:44 PM | | | Link |