At the beginning of the semester, I wrote a very short paragraph about my goals for being a 2nd semester UTA. I am very happy to report that I feel like I have reached most, if not all of them in some capacity. The first goal was to get to know my students better. I definitely feel much closer to my students this semester than I did last Spring. I think this is because I always come to class with a question in mind to ask them before we get started. Throughout the semester, I would ask them about their opinions on the latest Game of Thrones, or about how they felt about Maryland Day, or whether or not they were stressed about midterms. It was really nice getting to talk with them and getting to know them personally. Another one of my goals was to participate more during class time. To achieve this, my professor asked me more questions during class than he did when I was a 1st semester UTA, and I was able to give more advice on how I did my assignments when I was an ENGL101 student.
I said that I would know if I have achieved these goals if my students came to me more often, and they definitely have. For example, I have one student who sends me her rough draft of every assignment so that I can give her feedback. It makes me really happy that she trusts me to give meaningful feedback on her work. Last year, almost nobody ever came to my office hours. This semester, it was still rare that someone would come in, but it actually happened a few times, which also felt really good. I also made it a goal to know all of my student’s names and distinguish their writing from one another. I think I have succeeded at this, although I’m still very shaky on faces, especially if they do not come to class every week.
The biggest change between this semester and last year was dealing with the online class space. Even during our last synchronous online class, I still had no idea how to be productive in class, and neither did my professor. In the beginning, I typically tried to work out any technological problems that students were having, but as the semester went on, this happened less and less frequently. Despite these challenges, I still feel as though my time in the physical class space was better spent, and that I was able to get to know my students a lot better than last year.
I said that I would know if I have achieved these goals if my students came to me more often, and they definitely have. For example, I have one student who sends me her rough draft of every assignment so that I can give her feedback. It makes me really happy that she trusts me to give meaningful feedback on her work. Last year, almost nobody ever came to my office hours. This semester, it was still rare that someone would come in, but it actually happened a few times, which also felt really good. I also made it a goal to know all of my student’s names and distinguish their writing from one another. I think I have succeeded at this, although I’m still very shaky on faces, especially if they do not come to class every week.
The biggest change between this semester and last year was dealing with the online class space. Even during our last synchronous online class, I still had no idea how to be productive in class, and neither did my professor. In the beginning, I typically tried to work out any technological problems that students were having, but as the semester went on, this happened less and less frequently. Despite these challenges, I still feel as though my time in the physical class space was better spent, and that I was able to get to know my students a lot better than last year.