William Harris

Sometimes I will set aside an hour or so to play a video game. I understand not everyone is a gamer, but to me it's a great way to relieve stress after a day. Facebook has many games on it - often ones you can do in simple sessions sometimes even with friends. Nice way to unwind - doing something that exercises your mind - but doesn't TASK it as much as teaching. Listening to music or soundscapes helps too. Youtube is full of long compilations of "Waves on the Beach" or "Rainforest Thunderstorm" type of videos that are great… >>>

I was brought on about a year ago to work in a new department at our career school. Because it was new at this location, there weren't many instructors and virtually no precedent when it came to creating a course beyond the learning objectives. This means not only teaching twice a week, but also developing a completely new course every five weeks. This, combined with a long commute and lackadaisical and uncooperative students has caused significant stress. Though I'm sure that this has been discussed over and over - I did find the pacing to be much better for both… >>>

As primarily a computer art instructor I find grading can sometimes be much more difficult when I'm grading things that aren't quite as cut-and-dry as right or wrong. Art being as subjective as it is, is harder to grade than an exam on terms or topics. The working method I've come up with to make sure there are no questions asked when it comes to WHY a student received a grade is to make and include a detailed grading rubric and include it with each assignment. I can't necessarily grade your art style - but I can grade whether or… >>>

After reading through the module I came to a realisation - that this Obstacle really affects how I tend to view certain students and colleagues. I tend to be a person who wants the reply right now, and always works on completing a task as soon as possible. The opposite of procrastination. However this can and has jaded my opinion on some others who tend to take time in the responses, having mistakenly believed they were procrastinating, but in truth were only pacing themselves. Perhaps a hold-over from OCD? Is there any others who feel the same and how did… >>>

My class has a variety of students that earn a variety of grades - from A all the way down. At the same time, due to the course, the scheduling, and other factors, most of the students in my smaller class all tend to know each other outside of class, and are a fairly tight-knit group. Tight knit in that although they don't necessarily help each other - they do tend to know what each other is making in the class. Because of the technical nature of this course (relating to computer graphics) some students naturally perform well and others… >>>

I made that mistake on my first class - letting the students know it was my first class. It just seemed natural during the introduction - as everyone was telling about their history and goals etc., to say I've done this for so many years - and now I am an instructor. This was with a group of first-time college students as well - and thought that the line, "It's all of our first class, we'll be learning together." might work... it did not. I've since learned to leave that part out of the introductions (though I suppose after that… >>>

Some classes you will always have a couple students who do not want to participate - this is a given. I teach in generally small groups due to the nature of the courses and recent addition of the major. It's not unusual for me to have only five, seven, or ten students. While you would think this would be ideal for small group discussion - getting these students to talk is very difficult. So (this is a lecture and theory class which has a new essay due each week) I started including a presentation portion to the essays. Instead of… >>>

I have an interesting problem where about four students are consistently both center-stage students and exceedingly disruptive. The size of my class (only about seven students) means that even separated - they are never too far apart. It seems to be a problem of them not understanding the work - getting frustrated - giving up - and commencing the off-topic conversations, cell-games, heckling, what have you. Now, the other three students in the class are very well behaved - hard workers - and generally good students. Who have expressed their discontent with having to always slow the class down to… >>>

I recently taught - and indeed am still teaching as they advance through the course - a group of students who almost uniformly turn in work late. Mind you - it's not OVERLY late - they just might not have it turned in on time. Since it's a small class I find it difficult to continue (or even begin) a lecture or demonstration when about 4 of the 7 students are still rushing to finish their last little bit of the last assignment. I already generally drop their grades from the late work - as I understand that it mirrors… >>>