I am obviously not very good at blogging. I want to share thoughts and ideas, but get so busy, I don’t find time to post. Since, my last post in August, (good grief!), there has been a lot of water under the bridge. I taught five classes last term, which is a lot of the reason that I did not post to this blog. I moved to a different house after living in the same house for 35 years, joined a new church after the church building I attended for 39 years was sold and the congregation merged with the new church. These and other personal events have taken their toll, but never affected my enthusiasm for teaching and learning.
There are a lot of good things going on with my teaching and mentoring. One of my doctoral students completed her dissertation in August and I proudly hooded her at graduation in December. Four other doctoral students are at very important stages in their programs right now and I spend a lot of time with them. Mentoring doctoral students is an intense pleasure for me. I develop close relationships with the students and guide them through the unique journey of earning doctoral degrees. I learn more about research and life with every one of them.
I also teach technology, literature, and research to undergraduate students. Sometimes, it seems that universities consider actually teaching students, especially undergraduates, to be less important or prestigious than other activities that engage faculty. I find this notion disturbing. In the first place, there would be no universities or colleges without undergraduate students, and secondly, helping students discover new concepts and ideas and make connections among those concepts and ideas is very fulfilling. The intellectual and personal growth achieved by students from year one to year four is amazing. These days, many, many undergraduates work nearly full time while attending college, some have children, and most have more stress in their lives than students did just ten or twenty years ago. It is rewarding to watch them overcome the obstacles to reach their goals of graduation and jobs that help them change the their lives for the better.
Technology is one factor that contributes to the ability of students to juggle so much while they are in college. They are able to communicate with faculty and advisers without always having to come to campus for appointments, they are able to view recordings of lectures outside of class time, they can submit work online and not have to deliver printed copies of work to campus. Information is much more accessible with technology as students conduct searches for research 24 hours a day, through online databases, eliminating trips to the library, during library hours. They can complete collaborative lessons and activities through electronic media and present their learning in myriad electronic formats. In my classes students are encouraged to bring their phones, tablets, and/or laptops and to use them to collaborate and for just-in-time learning.
My next post will describe some of the activities we do with technology in my classes. I will also, eventually, discuss the many technologies that I just do not have time to teach my students. Here’s hoping I become better and more regular in posting.
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