Ramblings

Last semester (Fall 2011) was my first semester teaching full-time.  As such, I have learned a lot of lessons about what bothers me and what does not bother me.  However, the biggest thing I noticed is that when certain behaviors bother me now, I actually want to do something to prevent them from happening again in the future.  But during my eight years of teaching part-time, I never did anything about it. That got me thinking about why if those behaviors bother me so much, why I never did anything about them in the past, as a part-time instructor.  Here…

The last couple weeks in my Pre-algebra class have been especially frustrating for me. We have started working with negative fractions and the placement of the negative sign seems to be a major stumbling block for a few of the students in the class. I can only repeat myself so many times before we run out of time, I become frustrated, and I start to wonder if they even hear what I am saying.   I know that most of the students in the class want to do well and that the majority of them really want to know what's…

This is my first semester teaching as a full-time instructor.  And even though I have only been in my position a few months, I have already begun to push like mad for the initiatives that I want to implement that I believe are best for my students.  I have chosen to do to this because I really care about the success of my students and I want the very best for all of them.  I want my students to look back at their college experience and be satisfied because they know that their instructor invested time into doing what is best for…

It's the Fourth of July -- Welcome to Summer!  This definitely won't be the most thought-provoking post I've ever made, but it's not about you!  It's about me clearing out the thoughts that have been in my mind since I wrote this post about my Summer Plans two months ago back on May 4. I definitely could not have predicted any of what has happened to me this summer since I wrote that post.  I've completed only a fraction of what was on that list and the majority of the list has since been abandoned since I found out in…

I have a very hectic summer ahead of me.  I have vowed not to slow down just because summer has arrived.  If you're bored and have nothing to do this summer, think of me and all that I will be doing -- 1.  Conferences:  One of my goals for this summer is to attend as many conferences as possible for my own professional development purposes.  The ones that I've registered for so far are: MAA Conference, May 6 - 7, Kalamazoo, MI ACMS Conference, June 1 - 4, Santa Barbara, CA MCC Math and Technology Conference, August 8 - 12,…

This has been an exceptionally frustrating semester for me.  If possible, I try not to make a major issue out of student behavior during class.  However, this semester there has been so much rude behavior in many of my classes that I have felt no choice but to step in and try to put a new calm to the environment for the good of the class as a whole. There is one student in particular who has been on my mind lately for constant illogical, irrelevant, and irreverent comments before, during, after, and outside of class.  This student has about a 33%…