Friday, September 4, 2009

First Week of Teaching

Some of you may now that I got a job teaching chemistry. I'm teaching one section of Intro to Chem, which is basically chemistry for non-majors and pre-nursing/radiology/med tech/etc. I'm also teaching one section of the matching lab. And yes, I already have grading, much as I attempted to avoid it. :)
My first day went pretty well--I didn't have a mass exodus when I told them I did NOT give multiple choice tests. I only had one student complain about using overheads instead of powerpoints ("Are you really not going to use powerpoints? Because...that was a lot of writing for me.) I did not get through as much material as I had hoped, but it's hard for me to know if that's because I was slow or because I don't have a good feel for my pacing. I did choose a few tricky examples, which meant taking an extra five minutes to convince them I was right...I'll try not to do that again. :)
Second day of teaching was long, since I have both lecture and lab in the afternoon. The only hiccup for lecture happened when I went through one concept and they said, "Wait, that's not how we did it in lab this week!" I calmly suggested that we set it aside until I have a chance to check the book (which is what the lecture is based on), and moved on.
Lab was a lot of fun--it's more laid-back than the lecture, and I have more chances to interact with the students. The best part was watching the safety video...the one I first watched when I took Dad's lab as a 13-year-old. An oldie but goodie, especially when they jab the broken glass rod into a glove full of red liquid. :) Although I tried my best to encourage the students to stay and work on their assignment for next week, they all cleared out after filling in the safety map. YAY! Ahem, I mean, I guess I'll be helping them next week.

1 comment:

  1. How about taking your camera and having a student take your picture in lecture and then in lab? It would be fun to see you in that context.

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