Sorry for negligence...

So with job applications, research and teaching, the blog has been neglected. So here is my attempt to catch up with 1.5 months of blogging.

1) Classroom Management
So I've had some success with just being a bit bolder in calling out students who are being disruptive. I've also come up with some ways of managing the class better for next semester. First, I am going to assign groups for group work instead of letting them pick their own. This will allow me to control some of the off topic chatter because students will not be with their buddies. It will also provide the opportunity to pair students doing well with students not doing as well. It will provide teaching opportunities for the students as well as provide explanations from their peers that do not come with the same background knowledge that go into my own answers (less theoretical and more practical). I am also going to do name tags. This will allow me to take attendance as well as learn the students names more quickly. Knowing who has been missing class frequently will also allow me to send out reminder emails to students who I haven't seen in a while to nudge them into attending class. I may also assign seats, though I am not set on that yet, but I would like to be able to move the students around the classroom more to improve and encourage participation (front rowers tend to be more engaged).

2) The second test is over and done with. I was rather shocked at how poorly the majority of the class did, though the material for the second class is much more difficult than the for the first. I still feel the test was fair and there were several students who did quite well. I think, in some ways, it was good that certain students did poorly because they were simply coasting before and now they are more active, are asking questions and showing up to class. I'm trying to prepare them for the final with some little quizzes on both new and old material (focused on questions the students often got wrong on the tests) so that they know what to study and to encourage them to start studying now.

3) I've been observed teaching twice now and I have critiqued a video of me teaching. I've gotten mostly positive reviews, with some critiques of management of the back of the classroom (which I mentioned on the blog before I believe). I'm still having problems with students texting and I am not sure how to control this without getting really mean, or having the students turn in their cell phone at the begging of class. My classroom setup is especially hard to manage because I can not easily maneuver between the desks and the classroom is so long, it takes me a while to get to the back of the class. If I have the same classroom next year, I might try to do more powerpoint and less writing so that I can more freely move about the room while I teach. That seems to get the back row to pay more attention when I'm near them (proximity is very useful in management, but most classrooms are not designed to make it easy to move around). Anyway, lots of lessons for the next semester. We still have a capstone project to work on, which is what my next update will be on. This is a three day in-class project that will allow the students to synthesize everything they've learned this year and apply it to a real problem.

4) Video will be posted of me teaching when I can get it to work.