Well now I don't know what to think...

I introduced social psychology today by showing movies, having students act out skits, and demonstrating an experiment with students, in addition to some minimal discussion. But, then I found a white index card propped up on the blackboard by an eraser. Written on it was the sentence, "I never really understood much of anything during the entire class." There was no signature; it was anonymous.

I typical student would ask me for help if they didn't understand the material. Since this was anonymous, I assume that it was meant to intimidate me. It noticed the note after my fourth period class. I don't know whether it came from any other classes before that, but the horrible teaching critique came from my fourth period class as well.

Now, I'm afraid this may be the same student who left the teaching critique and the student may be troubled. The note could be an indicator that this student is about to burst under the pressure, and I'm his or her scapegoat or potential target for harm.

The Weekend

An update on my sister: She really enjoyed meeting with her therapist. They just talked about symptoms and symptom management. And it turns out her therapist had panic attacks before, but she managed the attacks and doesn't get them anymore. I think hearing that made my sister feel much better. I'm really glad for her.

In other news, I was going to travel back to my grad university's town for a bachelorette party. But, the weather predicted snow, so I canceled. My fiance was planning a bachelor party tomorrow, too. Instead of canceling, he drove up before the snow was forecast to start, even though the forecasted snow goes all the way through Sunday night. He figures he'll stay with his friend all weekend, even through Sunday night if need be. Needless to say, I was very upset with him; I tried to get him to stay home but he resisted. Before he left, he asked me to grab dinner and meet at his apartment. I was still very angry and downed my food as I sulked; I could tell his expression was downcast out of the corner of my eye. As I ate silently I started to think about the premarital counseling sessions on the biblical roles and responsibilities of the husband and wife (to love and to obey, respectively). I also thought about the book my aunt and uncle sent us as a wedding present titled, "Love and Respect." Obedience and respect for the man is provided by the woman, and love for the woman is provided by the man. I tried to put myself in my fiance's shoes, and I realized that I would be exerting control over him that would be demoralizing if I demanded he stay home and he had to comply. Even if I think he's making the wrong decision, I might as well honor that decision. So I just hugged him, and told him I was only concerned about his safety. The tension in the air subsided, and within minutes he told me he loved me. As soon as I responded by respecting his decision, he responded with love. There must be something to all this love and respect business after all. I still worry about him traveling in the snow this weekend, and I hope that he'll be more willing to accept my input in future decisions or I might be the one to become demoralized.

Update on Teaching and Other Things

Thanks so much for the comments on my last post about teaching. I didn't want to remind myself what I felt, so I didn't read over it again. The worst of the teaching critiques seemed to come from one student in one of my periods. I think I know who the student is, and I've spoken to him numerous times outside of class. He was really displeased about the changes that have been made to the course, and I think he was feeling helpless to improve his grade. His grade has definitely dipped since midterms, and he has a surly attitude in class, playing on the internet and refraining from participating in group work. Students here are required to come to class, otherwise he wouldn't be attending class anymore. He's the only student who has been behaving this way; the others are still trying to do well in the class.

I had a conversation with another instructor who started out using PowerPoint and found that her students weren't paying attention. When she shifted to a discussion-based format, she said the students had an easier time staying awake, were more engaged, and gave longer answers to her questions. I sat in on her class, and decided I would try some other teaching techniques instead of PowerPoint. It was really hard to move away from PowerPoint because I feel safe when I use it. I can follow a set plan for the class, and be sure to cover what I wanted to cover. But, since I moved away from PowerPoint, the students have been more engaged, and I've been feeling like I don't need to rely on PowerPoint. I've also endorsed the idea that I don't need to cover all the material in class. They can get everything they need from reading since the tests are entirely based on the text. I can do activities in class that focus more deeply on fewer content items. I'm feeling much better about this approach. I've started to feel like I have control over my teaching and that it's not a helpless situation.

In other news, my sister is going to see a mental health professional today to be evaluated for Panic Disorder. When I was talking to her on the phone, she was really freaked out. She was afraid to see the doctor and afraid that her condition might be permanent. She and I both have tendencies towards anxiety and shyness, as have our older siblings. We're thinking there must be a genetic predisposition for anxiety in our family. But, not until a few months before her wedding did she start showing symptoms consistent with panic attacks. Her in-laws made a big deal about the wedding and forced their desires for the wedding upon her. She got ill with persistent cold and/or flu, and that's when the panic attacks started showing up. I am really sad for her, but I'm glad she's seeking help. I really wish I could be there for her. I want to go with her to see her therapist, and I want to observe the therapy to check it's effectiveness. I want to talk to the therapist and give suggestions because I know my sister so much better than the therapist. I just hope everything will be okay.

My struggle with teaching

The first time I taught was actually quite fun. It was an intensive summer class on cognitive psychology. There were only nine students, and they were interested in the class. I only gave essay tests and life was good. I had no idea how to teach, so I just outlined the material from the book, put it on an overhead slide, and read off what was on the overhead slide in class. It was very rudimentary, but seemed to work for that bunch of students. My course critiques were fine.

Then that fall I taught intro to psychology for two classes of 80 students. I shifted to multiple-choice tests. Tests were the only form of assessment I gave. I didn't know what constituted a good multiple-choice test. My students all bombed the test and the course went downhill from there. Dealing with irate students during class was not fun.

After deciding that the graduate program I was in was not right for me, I started a different grad school. I was given a teaching post just a few days before class started. I was to teach social psychology to 60 students. Once again, I was a novice teacher. The only thing I attempted to do was come up with different examples than were in the book, lecturing the whole time. Once again, the students bombed the first assessment and were irate during class. I started to notice a pattern that students would stop coming to class after the first assessment.

I decided I seriously did not want to teach ever again. But, two years later, I ended up teaching again; this time I taught child and adolescent psychology. The experience was even worse than the first few times I taught. Students were malicious, testing was horrendous, and I had to take an incomplete in one of my classes because I was so overwhelmed. I spiraled into depression, withdrew from my colleagues, and seriously contemplated dropping out of my program.

Against all desires, I stayed and taught child and adolescent psychology again the following semester. I finally made some changes to my teaching. I put more thought into the exam questions, wrote detailed study guides, and gave two writing assignments so students could bring up their grades if they bombed the tests. The class was made up of students who were vocal and appeared to enjoy the material. About half-way through the semester, I stopped vomiting right before teaching.

Then I taught child and adolescent psychology again to a group of 20 students during a three hour block of time. I tried coming up with activities for students to do to take up time. I connected really well with one student and okay with the rest. There were no major hiccups and the class went okay overall. But, I didn't particularly enjoy teaching.

After I graduated, I taught four classes of general psychology to 80 students total. I only connected with one of the four classes and felt overwhelmed the whole time. Students critiqued me lower than the other instructors teaching the same class. I was relieved when the semester was over.

Now this semester, I'm teaching the same class again to 80 students, and I had finally started to get comfortable with it until three weeks ago when I read the mid-semester feedback. Students thought I was boring, unorganized, and horrible at expressing the material. I get that students were reacting to the changes that were made since last semester. The department head got a directive from the dean to make our class harder because we were contributing to grade inflation. Now I think it is too hard, and once again students are revolting and I think some are taking it out on me. And once again, I feel too depressed to go to work and teach.

I actually said to my fiance that I would rather be sick and stay home than teach. So this week I got sick and ended up staying home. I was so happy and so relieved. But, even though I'm home again today, I'm feeling depressed because I know I have to get ready to teach again on Monday.

I'm going to finish out my contract to teach for the next two years, but I'm seriously thinking about getting pregnant just so I don't have to renew my contract and I can take a break from teaching. If I go back to teaching at all, I want to try online teaching so I don't have to stand up in front of a bunch of students.

All of this has been really tough on me because I feel like I wasted 7 years of my life pursuing some dream that I no longer want. I've even lost interest in doing research. I haven't done a research project since I left grad school last December, and I'm just not interested in writing up the projects I've already done. I feel like I'm in a really bad place professionally, and I don't know what to do to change it.

Advising is fun and house-hunting is not

I met with my first advisee today to go over his four-year plan of classes. He had well-defined interests, so it was easy. But, then I tried to set up his schedule in the system, and had to juggle classes around until I could get it all figured out. Initially, it was stressful, but then it felt like a puzzle. After I got his whole 4-year schedule set in the system, I had such a huge feeling of satisfaction. It was actually very fun.

In other news, house-hunting has become very frustrating. We have been searching for three months now and we have not found the perfect house. I thought one of the houses we saw last weekend was satisfactory; it fulfilled all our needs. But, for some reason, my fiance is not sold on the house. I think it's because the basement isn't finished and thus, no man room. Also, it's close to a highway. There is a huge field to dampen the sound, but he seems concerned about his allergies, mice, and snakes. I'm beginning to think that it is not actually possible to find a house that we both like in our price range. I've decided to give up on the house-hunting thing for awhile. I'm thinking now that maybe we should just rent.

Teaching...it's so much better this semester

Now that I'm over the hump of teaching the supplemental material, I've settled into teaching the Myers text. I have never appreciated Myers more. I just have to say the supplemental text was horrendous. The students didn't understand it and neither did I. But, I've taught two lessons since the supplemental text, and I've actually enjoyed it. Of course, I love the neurosciences, and it's such a relief to teach it. I'm hoping this enjoyment will last into some of the other topic areas that I know less about. I'm definitely feeling more comfortable teaching in front of the students. Bit by bit, I've moved away from the traditional lecture mode, and it has made a world of difference. There's also a world of difference between teaching in front of the students as a lowly graduate student and teaching as an assistant professor with a Ph.D. My confidence level has enjoyed leaps and bounds since I got that title, and it's associated pay. But, I largely credit some of the changes to the extensive faculty development I received during new faculty orientation last summer. The learner centered approach they taught us makes more sense to me now. The engagement with the students is much higher, and I think students are learning more with this approach. I've also been learning about the students and their lives. They told me about their "hall brawls" and techno raves today before class. I had to laugh. It's good to hear that they still have a little fun.

School has already started

I'm already two and a half weeks into the semester when most colleges and universities aren't starting until next week or the week after. And let me tell you, this has been the most tumultuous start of the semester that I've ever experienced. We have a new course director who's in charge of almost every aspect of the class other than the actual teaching that I do inside the classroom. He had been directed by the department head to make the class more challenging, to incorporate critical thinking into the instruction, and to emphasize anthropology and sociology in addition to psychology. So other members of the department assisted in writing a whole new supplementary text to replace the first chapter and by which to conclude the course. Needless to say, I have felt very challenged to teach in areas outside my expertise. There has been so much upheaval with the class that I have been unclear on how to prepare the students for the quizzes. I suppose this confusion has been affecting other instructors as well because the overall average for the first quiz was 75% and the second quiz was 65%.

Above all this confusion and frustration on my part was that two instructors had to take emergency leave for a funeral and surgery. The rest of us were struggling to cover their classes. I was teaching every day and had caught the cold virus running rampant among the students. It was so stressful. At least I don't have to cover additional classes next week; other instructors who don't teach our course have pitched in to help. But, I was rudely woken up this morning from a terrible teaching anxiety dream. I dreamed I had come back from a conference and was unprepared to teach. The students were disrespectful and complained; the AV equipment was on the fritz, turning off and on at the drop of a hat. Ugh! I hate teaching dreams! And I needed just a couple more hours of sleep to catch up on lost sleep from last week. I was so stressed out last week that I would wake up at 2:30am, 3:30am, or 4am many nights, unable to fall back asleep before I had to get up at 5am (I teach the first class of the day, way to early for me.) I'm really hoping things will settle down soon.