Teaching plans

So you would think that by now I would be at least slightly smart...well you’re wrong. As I was sitting on the train the other morning, going over the presentation for the class I had to teach, I was hit by a sudden realization: I shouldn’t worry about filling the time in my class, but making sure I use the time to teach them what they need to know.

Stunning isn’t it? You would think that someone who’s job is to teach, and who likes teaching, would have realized that sometime before the sixth week of class, but I’m not smart that way. Since the first class I have been worried about making sure that the whole class period is used to present material to the students. For some reason I was deathly afraid of running out of material before the end of class. I guess it’s not too surprising that that was the case. There really isn’t any other measure of how well the class is going when you first start teaching, other than knowing that you are “teaching” the whole time.

But now that I have given them a midterm and seen the results (note to self, make the exam shorter next time). And looking at the results there might only be so much that I can blame on the exam being too long; being truly honest I may have gone over some material too quickly for the students to really get what was going on.

So I’m going to see if I can’t bring myself to slow down somewhat to help ensure that the students really are understanding what is being presented. I know that looking at the class as a period to present them with what they need to know is going to make my teaching far better than by looking at the class period as just a space of time I need to fill.