Ask-Dr-Kirk

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Online Evaluation Of Teaching

Today's post: Does moving to an online evaluation system affect how your students evaluate your teaching?

 

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Cell phones

Today's post: Students checking cell phone messages during class.

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: What If I Don't Know The Answer To A Student's Question?

Today's post: How To Handle Questions From Students.

 

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Sensitive Issue of Student Body Odor

Today's post: Dealing with issue of student body odor.

 

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Grading

Today's post: Making grading more manageable.

 

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Small Classes

Today's post:  Teaching a really small class.

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: What If You Are (Or Look) Too Young To Be A Teacher?

Today's post: Getting respect from your students.

And me in my first teaching job. I look about 12.

 

 

Happy New Fall Semester!

Tomorrow I start a new semester and my 29th year of teaching at the college level. To celebrate, I'm reading over this poem by Billy Collins (U.S. Poet Laureate 2001-2003). 

 

 

                Schoolsville

Glancing over my shoulder at the past,
I realize the number of students I have taught
is enough to populate a small town.

I can see it nestled in a paper landscape,
chalk dust flurrying down in winter,
nights dark as a blackboard.

The population ages but never graduates.
On hot afternoons they sweat the final in the park
and when it's cold they shiver around stoves
reading disorganized essays out loud.
A bell rings on the hour and everybody zigzags
into the streets with their books.

I forgot all their last names first and their
first names last in alphabetical order.
But the boy who always had his hand up
is an alderman and owns the haberdashery.
The girl who signed her papers in lipstick
leans against the drugstore, smoking,
brushing her hair like a machine.

Their grades are sewn into their clothes
like references to Hawthorne.
The A's stroll along with other A's.
The D's honk whenever they pass another D.

All the creative-writing students recline
on the courthouse lawn and play the lute.
Wherever they go, they form a big circle.

Needless to say, I am the mayor.
I live in the white colonial at Maple and Main.
I rarely leave the house. The car deflates
in the driveway. Vines twirl around the porch swing.

Once in a while a student knocks on the door
with a term paper fifteen years late
or a question about Yeats or double-spacing.
And sometimes one will appear in a windowpane
to watch me lecturing the wallpaper,
quizzing the chandelier, reprimanding the air.

Source: Sailing Around the Room: New and Selected Poems.

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: What Not To Do

Today's post: Things we do as faculty that irritate our students.

 

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Reasons Why Instructors Do Not Enforce Policies

Today's post: Why don't my colleagues enforce their own classroom policies?

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: What Do Students Want To Know About Your Class?

Today's post: Put together a list of FAQs that your students will have.

 

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Class Participation

Today's post: Getting student participation

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Feedback

Today's post: Giving feedback to students.

 

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Student Complaints

Today's post: How to handle unhapppy students.

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Dealing With Teacher Anxiety

Today's post: Tips for dealing with nervousness the first day of class.

 

Best of Dr. Kirk Series: On-time Attendance

 

Today's post: How to get your students to come to class on time.

 

Best of Dr. Kirk Series: Learning Names

 

Today's post: Tips for learning your students' names. More tips here.

 

 

Best of Dr. Kirk Series: Dress For Success

Today's post: Dress for classroom success. Here's more on this.

And just for fun: Dr. Kirkcat illustrates professional dress for faculty.

 

 

Best of Dr. Kirk Series: Teaching That Sticks

 

Today's post: Learn how to make what you are teaching stick with your students.

Go here to sign up for free teaching resources from Chip Heath and Dan Heath including a copy of their article, Teaching That Sticks.

 

 

 

Road Trip (Again) To Nebraska

I'm big in Lincoln, Nebraska. Just saying :)  And I always enjoy going back to the midwest. I spent 18 years at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, so it seems like going home.

I'm leaving today to teach my third faculty development workshop in Lincoln, this time at Union College. In addition to topics of teaching effectiveness and classroom management, I'll discuss a number of creative educational technology tools that can be used in the classroom.

I'm looking forward to it.

Another Great First Day Of Class Activity

 

Professor Barbara Nixon (Georgia Southern University and Southeastern University) shares this Syllabus Scavenger Hunt as an activity the first day of class.

 

Download Syllabus-scavenger-hunt[1]

 

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Getting Hired Part-time As College Instructor

Today's post: Getting an an adjunct teaching job

 

Best of Dr. Kirk Series: Icebreakers

Today's post: Icebreakers for the first day of class here. More here.

 

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Students Texting In Class

Today's post: How To Handle Students Texting In Class

 

Best of Dr. Kirk Series: Quiz Your Students On Syllabus

Today's post: Give a quiz to see if your students have read and understand your syllabus

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Syllabi

Today's post: Tips and resources for putting together your syllabi

 

Best Of Dr. Kirk Series: Tips To Setting Expectations

Today's post: Ten Tips to Setting Expectations The First Day of Class

TAKING BACK THE CLASSROOM

For even more tips on teaching and classroom management, check out my book, Taking Back the Classroom: Tips for the College Professor on how to be a More Effective Teacher.  You can order now through Amazon, or Barnes & Noble College Bookstores.