Jack McCarty

Stress, especially in post-secondary education, is something that many students as well as instructors have a hard time with. I mostly engage in my stressors with temporary relief, whether it is junk food or procrastination at home. By adhering to a strict schedule and developing a checklist for reducing stressors, I plan to see better results in the near future. The one major stress reducer in my life is conversing with my folks. It never ceases to surprise me how much talking to family members can help reduce the pains of stress!

In my opinion, a lot of stress comes down to time management and also expectations. There is the expectation that the teacher can carry the student to success and while that may be true for many students, it is impossible for you to provide what every student needs. Better time management has certainly helped reduce my stress levels already, and better preparation in regards to lecture will help ease a lot of the strain, but identifying and accepting the fact that you are human has done wonders for my mental health.

The recommendation for Google Groups is fantastic! I can't believe I never thought of that. Having a recorded space to go ahead and answer any questions and then using those as reference, even in lecture with old student posts, is a great way not only to direct discussion but log your progress as an instructor! I'd also like to mention here the importance of setting aside clerical time. So often we get lost in the day's currents and lose the critical role of administration. Giving myself an hour or two every day will definitely unburden the task.

Creating a to-do list with a numeric representation of priorities is a great way to manage time better. Normally, I fall into the category of immediacy or, if it could be procrastination, dilute a burdensome workload with other project's on behalf of others. While this does suffice, and I do manage to get things done on time, I am often constricted in the nth hour with little to no time for myself. There is this feeling of suffocation that I have a really hard time shaking and it puts a total on my mental health. However, reorganizing my tasks on… >>>

This module helped in serving as a reminder that no mater what pedagogy we prescribe to ourselves or to other teachers, what must remain is the human element. Getting frustrated will, of course, happen but we can not allow our frustrations to exert themselves against the students and must understand where it is that they are coming from. Losing our ability to recognize student's as individuals and instead ascribing them to the role of student, will not only prevent their own internal motivations, but will impede your ability to succeed.

I've learned a lot through this section however, REFOCUS, has been the method that I am most grateful for. I, like many other instructors, find that it is easy to become overburdened by the stressors inside and outside the classroom. Having a game plan like the one listed in the brief section, is exactly the remedy we need to stay ahead of the game. Crisis situations would be a fun exercise to have in the classroom and would certainly lift the mundanity of digging through the code. Furthermore, the triage tip is something I'll take with me to my grave.… >>>

A small part of this course, but one that made a lasting impact, was the inclusion of the one Harvard Business Review Video regarding lesson plans and their role in the lecture. I usually spend two hours prepping for class the day before and sometimes I obsess over hitting every single bullet point that I had wrote down. However, encouraging open discussion about the topic at hand, letting go of the reigns, is a great way to promote student engagement in the classroom.

This course has shown me a lot in only the first few of its many classes. Age has been something that, while I would like to neglect, has proven to be a force that requires acknowledgement in the classroom. The discrepancies between older and younger students are often too large to ignore and most importantly involve the student's own motivations for attending the course. The trick is to acknowledging and applying the needs to both in the classroom, which can include personal asides outside the class or even positive affirmation for those older students.

Although perfection is never attainable, it is a good idea to prep for that ideal. My best lecture's are ones that I have extensively prepped for, doing the research inside and outside the textbook, and it shows! By taking the time to prepare, you are assuring as smooth as a delivery as possible. In terms of learned materials, a lecture self critique is a brilliant idea in terms of learning what you need to work on. 

What I've found most helpful in terms of student development, and what this course mentions, is the elimination of a final exam at the end of the module. I've found that most students would call themselves "bad test takers," although their problem really lies in the fact that they are anxious of subjects only covered for a few hours a week. It is easy to have lost information through the cracks of a rapid placement program, and so having to recap the current problems on hand, instead of mountains of information, helps resolve a lot of the anxiety in testing,… >>>