So, good news - next semester I get to teach a couple of night classes.
Bad news - I’ve only taught 3x/week classes as a GA in grad school. This was easy, and I had little problem holding student attention, structuring activities/discussions/etc. in that environment.
However, I’ve never done this “once a week class” thing and I’m having trouble envisioning how I will organize activities, properly time lectures, and so on in a way that won’t feel totally scatterbrained to the student. Who else has taught such a class, and how did you use this extended, all-at-once class time effectively?
I’m looking for advice…but I’m also looking for encouragement, hoping that I can actually do this properly!! It’s freshman English composition classes, if that helps
I haven’t taught any once a week classes, but I have taken some! I had a couple of once a week classes in college. The teacher would organize mini-groups that were to correspond with each other via email during the week. For instance, he would set the assignment - write 5 pages of the project, and send to these people in your group, by Sunday. By Wednesday, all members of group will email comments to the author, and the professor is to be copied on all correspondence. Friday we meet to discuss. He loved to bake, and would usually provide cake of some sort, as well. Wonderful professor, and wonderful baker as well.
Another once a week class had a rotating slate of professors, and again, there was homework that was to be completed independently, and it worked well. Those classes were some of the most enjoyable, honestly.
The classes mentioned above were Lit/Creative writing classes. Comp might be harder to pull off, but some sort of online activities would work to hold the class together, I think. My English comp classes used Hacker’s rules activities, if that helps.
Are the lessons themselves exceptionally long? Unless they are, they should be structured like any other lesson the same length.
How accesible are you expected to be between lessons? How accesible are you allowed and willing to be? By which means? Are students expected to work together or individually? I’m currently taking an online course with weekly lessons which has a forum for students to post their questions to the teacher, and another to post our answers to the teacher’s questions. Some teachers answer in this second forum, generally in an encouraging way (“that case you explain is very interesting”… “I see that we have students from many different sectors, that’s good”); others, we don’t even know if we’re being read until we get the grade, which comes as a curve-based letter with no additional feedback… God but did my undergrad school pamper us! We were 15 to 240 and we were required to discuss every individual exam with the teachers; these guys can’t provide two lines of individual feedback even when the class is 4 people as it was in one of the subjects.
Hi Adeste: congrats on finding some teaching work, many of our adjuncts have lost their spring courses due to enrollment issues
A few questions for you:
-Does the department teach 101 as a non-fiction, (genre) fiction, or mixed course?
-Do you know what the department’s policy (explicit or implicit) is on using film/TED talks/other media as teaching tools?*
-Does the institution use Canvas/Blackboard/WebCT virtual teaching spaces?
*This can be difficult to gauge as an adjunct . . .
If I had ever done it, I would have scheduled a good long break in the middle. Since an "hour " is only 50 minutes, a 3 hour course would be 2:30. Say if it were scheduled 6-9, I would do it 6-7:15 and 7:45-9. The main objection is that you may lose students not coming back from the break. But you really cannot go 3 hours (or even 2 1/2) without a break.
I taught night classes at a local college for 16 years. Usually I taught just one class per semester which was 3 hours on one night a week for 16 weeks.
Does the school give you a syllabus, lesson plan, and/or a book to use? That should give you an idea of what the school expects you to teach. Chances are it’s a lot.
As far as keeping the students attention, keep the pace somewhat fast without losing most of the students. If you do have students who require extra time, work with them after class or towards the end of class if there is time.
If you run out of things to say, allow the students to do projects; homework; or hold discussions on the subject. This is the time that you can also give some students needed attention.
Make sure that you know the school’s policy of releasing students early. My school frowned upon it so much that the administration would often walk the halls checking if the class was still in session towards the end of the evening.
I don’t think there is a significant amount of expectations, but I tend to be fairly accessible, and work a lot one-on-one with students when possible. This particular semester will be different because of the remoteness and distance from me - my “outside of class time” will be strictly limited because of how far I have to go to get there, so I’m going to try and make good use of the technology available to help everyone.
There is a syllabus and a book that must be used, but within that framework there is a lot of freedom.
Keeping attention was one of the things most concerning. When I was in grad school, for example, we had 3 hour, once a week classes, and it could sometimes be hard to sustain attention that long, and that was in a subject I am interested in. Many students are there and really would rather not be!
I am planning some time for one-on-one work during the class period. In a composition class, I have found before, that kind of work is very helpful.
They are against releasing students early, but then I’m on board with that. I know students don’t feel like they are getting what they should if they have a disinterested teacher that cuts out early.
You’re going to need to assign more homework, and you’re going to need to allow for correspondingly more opportunities for your students to contact you outside of class for help. No, your students are not going to like it. Yes, you will have more students than usual drop the class as a result. All I can say is, don’t take it personally. Compressed classes like this are inherently brutal.
