An Anology

This semester I have been teaching at a local college, teaching history. I LOVE the class material. I get excited prepping lectures, finding extra resources, grading papers even.

Then I get to class and it all falls apart.

Tuesday I was so frustrated I couldn't speak for an hour, I had to hole up in my office and stew on it. Let's just say that the class crossed a line beyond bad to worse as far as student participation went and the written response from students slammed that baby home.

I prepped the lecture, created the slideshow of images last night, but without the usual excitement.

The question nagging....what am I doing wrong? I know this material. I love it. When I prep at the Pizza Hut on weekends two of the waitresses sit down with me to find out what subjects I am teaching and THEY get excited about my class material. Why am I not engaging the students?

In a last minute effort, I put out a request on FB for suggestions. Quizzes. More quizzes. Small groups......my immediate response in my head was that small groups were impossible with the set up of the classroom......

It was then that it hit me. I am falling prey to the architecture of the classroom. Let me explain.

In my own graduate thesis I discussed how architecture, how the buildings themselves not only reflected the social history of the time but also dictated it. The classroom for my class is a theatre lecture hall with me at the podium. I was trying to fill that space. Even though that is not how I best teach, not how I feel comfortable, and not how I usually communicate. It becomes a theatrical performance, easily derailed by an unresponsive audience. *(Why I quickly left the theatre track I was on as a teenager....)

I wasn't being true to myself and therefore not connecting the students to the material.

I got to the classroom today an hour early, as I usually do, but instead of unpacking notes, drawing a timeline on the chalkboard, and setting up the projector, I stood at the back of the class. How do the students see me? The podium itself blocks their view of me. If I step aside, I block the chalked up notes. The screen looks faded by the sunlight and they can't possibly even see the images I put up.

As they started to fill the seats I reorganized the class structure in my head. By the time I shut the door, I was ready.

And class was awesome.

I divided them into groups and gave them 20 minutes to prepare their group to speak on the suffrage movement in the Western US, assigning Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and California. They were given prompt questions, and a task. I circulated and helped guide them towards specific things.

The presentations were lovely. Every single student participated.

I pulled a few aside after class and asked them what they thought of today's class. Overwhelming was the positive response, but also more timid feedback about how the lectures had been going from their perspective.

Change is good.  It takes 10,000 hours to get good at something. I am 85 hours in. I remind myself that every hour isn't going to be great, that I will fail before I get my footing, to just keep trying.