Facepalm III: Now with less fail
Oct. 1st, 2009 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyrasantae
Week 5
Day 8
That stupid TV by the door...
Student presenter was here way before class. By the time our instructor walked in the door, she had her Powerpoint slides open and ready to go. Today's class is on Aboriginal segregation as implemented in the residential school system.
Instructor wants to show two videos and have a discussion. At least she's got the idea to have discussion at the end.
The presentation was nice because the student didn't read from the Powerpoint but off a separate and longer set of notes, which is what was later posted on Blackboard.
After the presentation, the instructor said that she was going to skip the first video she wanted to show because it would have been the same thing as some of the stuff in the presentation. I secretly wonder if it's because she realizes that we don't have enough time for it. She pops the tape for the second video into the VCR, turns on the TV, and then realizes that she needs to rewind it and cue it up.
She orally dictates two of the planned discussion questions, which were really straightforward and factual and were entirely answered in the student presentation. When she finally has the movie cued up for the clips she wants to show, we sit there and watch bits of it. (Typical Canadian production - the artistic direction is ... blah and the dialogue is really really transparent.) After that she runs through some slides on some other kinds of racial segregation in the school systems of early Canada and then has a couple more discussion questions with the aim of having us "make connections" between these and the Aboriginal schools.
But this second set of questions came at 9:20. "We're out of time so we'll discuss these questions next class."
Is anyone reading this surprised at all? I'm not.
Awkward pronunciations of the day:
* "a-simm'-LAY-shun"
* "preh-d'KAY.TUD."
Day 9
I came in just as the instructional resource people wheeled in the projector and the TV.
One classmate gets followed to the classroom by the cashier from the cafeteria, hounding him for paying short five cents. He gives the cashier a dime, but she threatens to call Campus Security on him anyway. Apparently this cashier had given my classmate a mean look when he used a bagel from home in the cafeteria toaster last week. Or maybe it was hot water for his own tea bag or something.
We started off with a little bit of wrap-up discussion on the movie clips from last class. It was pointed out that the discussion questions were posted on Blackboard (and that, as I've already noted, a bunch of the lecture outlines were also there), but no one admitted that they'd checked for them.
Today's presenters were really great. They brought in a box of Girl Guide cookies. The presentation was on the structure of Canadian schooling but they chose to focus on and illustrate different types of alternative public school programs in Edmonton. We then had a really great debate and discussion about the idea of ethnocentric alternative programs.
The instructor did a quick survey of our experiences with alternative programs, and then read a timeline of the history of these programs in Edmonton off of her computer, since she had some trouble connecting her computer up to the projector. She finishes this little lecture at 9:15 and she wants to show a video on charter schools in Calgary. She wants to take a vote on whether to start the video today or wait until next week. "Let's just put it on," we agree.
Naturally, we only get about three minutes in, but she's determined to show the rest of it next class. Heck, I'm determined that we see the rest of the video. It's about Calgary schools and I'm getting just a bit homesick here.
Instead of pitching myself out the door to get to my next class (as I normally do), I spotted the remainder of the box of cookies lying on a desk and tried to find someone to take it home. Nobody wanted it, but in that little moment of pause, my instructor caught up to me and asked me if I had a moment. I could spare a couple of minutes, I said.
She asked me what I thought of the class. I said that I really enjoyed today's class because there was a lot of productive discussion and not just questions like "What are the three types of _______?" She says that she does those (and the outlines on Blackboard) because some people like to have pointed out for them the important points to study for an exam. (I disagree with this, but I may address it in an email to her at another time.) I said that if, as she says, coming to class is about participating in the discussions, then there needs to be more discussions like today's student presentation discussion.
She said she was willing to have a second presentation on the reading that I originally wanted (see Day 3), and I said thanks but no thanks, because I ended up with the reading that I actually wanted (my 'second choice' was actually my first choice, but it didn't say "assigned reading" next to it on the syllabus so I had assumed that she didn't want a presentation on it).
Mispronunciations of the day:
* "PARE-ental"
* "pro-GRAMS"
Next week:
* Can she pull off my suggestion for more substantive class discussions?
* Will she say anything more about the reflection paper due in two weeks? It's kind of about time she said something about it.
Day 8
That stupid TV by the door...
Student presenter was here way before class. By the time our instructor walked in the door, she had her Powerpoint slides open and ready to go. Today's class is on Aboriginal segregation as implemented in the residential school system.
Instructor wants to show two videos and have a discussion. At least she's got the idea to have discussion at the end.
The presentation was nice because the student didn't read from the Powerpoint but off a separate and longer set of notes, which is what was later posted on Blackboard.
After the presentation, the instructor said that she was going to skip the first video she wanted to show because it would have been the same thing as some of the stuff in the presentation. I secretly wonder if it's because she realizes that we don't have enough time for it. She pops the tape for the second video into the VCR, turns on the TV, and then realizes that she needs to rewind it and cue it up.
She orally dictates two of the planned discussion questions, which were really straightforward and factual and were entirely answered in the student presentation. When she finally has the movie cued up for the clips she wants to show, we sit there and watch bits of it. (Typical Canadian production - the artistic direction is ... blah and the dialogue is really really transparent.) After that she runs through some slides on some other kinds of racial segregation in the school systems of early Canada and then has a couple more discussion questions with the aim of having us "make connections" between these and the Aboriginal schools.
But this second set of questions came at 9:20. "We're out of time so we'll discuss these questions next class."
Is anyone reading this surprised at all? I'm not.
Awkward pronunciations of the day:
* "a-simm'-LAY-shun"
* "preh-d'KAY.TUD."
Day 9
I came in just as the instructional resource people wheeled in the projector and the TV.
One classmate gets followed to the classroom by the cashier from the cafeteria, hounding him for paying short five cents. He gives the cashier a dime, but she threatens to call Campus Security on him anyway. Apparently this cashier had given my classmate a mean look when he used a bagel from home in the cafeteria toaster last week. Or maybe it was hot water for his own tea bag or something.
We started off with a little bit of wrap-up discussion on the movie clips from last class. It was pointed out that the discussion questions were posted on Blackboard (and that, as I've already noted, a bunch of the lecture outlines were also there), but no one admitted that they'd checked for them.
Today's presenters were really great. They brought in a box of Girl Guide cookies. The presentation was on the structure of Canadian schooling but they chose to focus on and illustrate different types of alternative public school programs in Edmonton. We then had a really great debate and discussion about the idea of ethnocentric alternative programs.
The instructor did a quick survey of our experiences with alternative programs, and then read a timeline of the history of these programs in Edmonton off of her computer, since she had some trouble connecting her computer up to the projector. She finishes this little lecture at 9:15 and she wants to show a video on charter schools in Calgary. She wants to take a vote on whether to start the video today or wait until next week. "Let's just put it on," we agree.
Naturally, we only get about three minutes in, but she's determined to show the rest of it next class. Heck, I'm determined that we see the rest of the video. It's about Calgary schools and I'm getting just a bit homesick here.
Instead of pitching myself out the door to get to my next class (as I normally do), I spotted the remainder of the box of cookies lying on a desk and tried to find someone to take it home. Nobody wanted it, but in that little moment of pause, my instructor caught up to me and asked me if I had a moment. I could spare a couple of minutes, I said.
She asked me what I thought of the class. I said that I really enjoyed today's class because there was a lot of productive discussion and not just questions like "What are the three types of _______?" She says that she does those (and the outlines on Blackboard) because some people like to have pointed out for them the important points to study for an exam. (I disagree with this, but I may address it in an email to her at another time.) I said that if, as she says, coming to class is about participating in the discussions, then there needs to be more discussions like today's student presentation discussion.
She said she was willing to have a second presentation on the reading that I originally wanted (see Day 3), and I said thanks but no thanks, because I ended up with the reading that I actually wanted (my 'second choice' was actually my first choice, but it didn't say "assigned reading" next to it on the syllabus so I had assumed that she didn't want a presentation on it).
Mispronunciations of the day:
* "PARE-ental"
* "pro-GRAMS"
Next week:
* Can she pull off my suggestion for more substantive class discussions?
* Will she say anything more about the reflection paper due in two weeks? It's kind of about time she said something about it.
