Sad is not good enough to explain how I feel on this last day of class. After class, today, I stayed in the classroom as everyone was leaving, and found myself alone and so ready to cry. What was so special this semester for me? I was so happy at the end of last semester, when I was finally able to get rid of those many troublemakers! I did have some good students but I think that the problems I encountered during that semester just prevented me to do my best as a human person. I know that my students have learned a lot, and so it was not a "bad" semester per say, but I didn't get attached to these 48 or so students the way I got attached to my students this semester! They were so strong, so intelligent, and so studious! I know, I'm saying this at the end of the semester and the beginning was rough for all of us. One student today told me that he had felt so lost at the beginning, because it was his first semester in the US and so many things were different, his classes were so hard, and he was so unsure of how things had to be done... I explained that I knew that, that I could feel for them, that I knew how they felt because I had felt the same, but at the same time I couldn't just make our class a "time to relax and not worry" because they still had to learn something! I would not have helped them if I had accepted things the way they were during the first weeks: being late, not doing homework, missing class... So we did fight a lot at first, and I know that I haven't always been very kind, but I had no choice. I think they understand this now, fortunately. Once they knew what I expected them to do and how I wanted things to go, we had a much better time together. Some good friendships have obviously been created between the students too, and I am glad about that. One reason why I think that my students didn't hate me in the end is because they gave me some interesting feedback, either online or when we were discussing in class or individually. They were not scared to tell me what they thought and went through, and I'm grateful for that because it will help me make next semester a good semester too.
On Monday, after I returned their third draft and made some comments about them (work on dividing your information into section, combine information from all your papers, etc.), we went over APA rules. I had written an exercise with different sources (book title, author, article title, page numbers, etc.), and they had to write the reference using the APA manual. It was not easy and it was interesting to see that many of the students were able to do quite well on the exercise, with some guidance, but when they had to do it in the actual paper, they did it all wrong again. Last semester, I spent about two weeks with my students working on APA exclusively, and even then, many had not mastered it by the end of the semester. In fact, at the end of last semester, many students felt like all they had done during the whole semester was to learn about APA. So this semester, I didn't really insist and we only spent a few days with it. When they'll need it, they'll know where to look (and they'll know whom to ask too--I still have students from last semester asking me questions about it!).
The final draft of their final project was due on Wednesday. I thought about simply grading the paper without giving any feedback, since I knew some students wouldn't read the feedback I would spend much time to write, so I decided to let my students choose between two options: to make an appointment with me and read/grade their paper together, or to simply get a grade. EIGHT out of 12 students chose to meet with me! Wow, that was very unexpected! I was very happy about that, of course, because it means that they really cared about their writing skills, and I was happy too because it gave me some time to spend with those students individually and discuss together one last time. I enjoyed those times so much! I really need to have those long conferences earlier during the semester next year. It takes a lot of time to meet with everyone but it is the best time to know one another, ask about what is going on in the lives of my students that could influence their class performance, to be a little less "uptight" for a while. During those conferences yesterday and today, I kept repeating "thank you for your good work, thank you for being such a great student!" and that's really how I felt. I had such amazing students, I had so many questions I wanted to ask them, so many things I wanted to discuss still... Many have gone from writing a vague opinion paper earlier this semester to doing some real research and thinking, and coming up with amazing papers. At first, I asked the students to write an 8-10 page paper, but then I felt bad and required only 5-7 pages on the final paper, but about half of the students wrote between 8 and 15 pages! This is mostly engineers we're talking about! Who knew that future engineers, psychologists, managers, and pharmacists could be such good writers?
Today, I told my students about the fact that they would have to work twice as much to be accepted and get good "positions" as students and in the workplace. I also encouraged them to keep writing because several of them are excellent writers! I would say that the top five people in my class this semester were better writers than the top 10 English-speaking students in my sections last semester! Maybe it is because my students last semester quickly got into the "dryness" of the academic writing style while my international students were still using some of that creativity and "personal touch" that makes papers much more interesting to read. I don't know, but it really was a pleasure to read some of these papers.
A last fun thing from this week is the fact that I asked my students to write in my journal in their languages. I got some cool stuff, which of course, I will never be able to understand, but which will be very precious to me. It makes me want to learn all those languages to be able to understand what my students wrote. It was also a great opportunity to discuss about their languages and countries, and for my students to actually be the "teacher" for once. I learned so much this semester!
Well, I guess that's it for this semester. I still don't know how I will teach and what I will teach next semester, but I am already excited! Take care my dearest students, Rohit, Arjun, Loc, Danish, Alan, Hans, Kester, Daniel, Esteban, Nishit, David, Dong Ah, Abdulaziz... I hope we can still be friends in the future!
Only one week left, I cannot believe this, and I am growing increasingly sad to know that these students will not come back next semester. Why does it take so long to get comfortable with them? I will try to work on that exclusively during the first week of next semester.
Several things have happened this week. First, the student who at firs I thought was not coming back to my class and who had come back (and yes, I had given him a ... fourth chance I think it was) showed up on Monday but not since then and I haven't heard anything from him. I guess the final paper was too much for him. I do not know what to think, but what is sure is that I will not give him a fifth chance! Last time, I had sent him to have a talk with Tony but I do not think it had done any good because I thought he had understood that he really had gone too far this time but he came back! Told me that he was sorry, that he was going to change, that it was just hard for him, etc. And I was so upset with the situation that I told him once and for all about the way I felt: that he didn't respect me, that he thought everything I told him to do was useless, that he didn't treat me as a teacher, that he always made promises but never kept them... He answered that he had had no idea I had been feeling this way and that he was sorry, that things would be different from then on. And so, I allowed him back. And things did change, a little: he started to participate in class, to ask and answer questions, to make comments, to smile sometimes too. But his work did not show any improvement. I really did not think, "He's never going to make it." I did not have a negative attitude towards him or negative expectations. I truly gave him another chance, because sometimes people DO change and in fact someone in our class HAS changed a lot and I am very happy about that, someone I was ready to throw out of our class but made (but kept!) several promises too! I guess it is a question of luck on my part. Another student is gone too! Medical reasons! This is sad, and he will get an Incomplete grade, which means that we will have to meet next semester several times so that he can finish the required assignments and get a grade.
So, with my 12 remaining students, we worked on web pages on Monday again. Many students had requested more time to work on them and I think that this time, most of them were able to get a few pages working. I took their URL's (the ones that they sent me) and put them on our class list page so that the other students could also see them. I still do not know what I will do about this next semester. One student in particular became very enthusiastic about his pages and has been spending a lot of time outside of class to make them more exiting. He has done half of his pages in Chinese and the other half in English. He asked me some questions several times and I sent him an e-mail with some ideas of things he could do to improve his web site. I knew I would make one or two students realize how much fun it is and become real addicts like me!
On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I met with everyone individually once to discuss their final papers. I saw some good papers already, and two students are very enthusiastic about their research and writing way more than they are required too. I am very excited to read their papers! We talked about outlines, sources, formatting, how to divide the paper into different sections, how to integrate the research they have done for previous projects, how to present their arguments and their counter arguments, and many more. I know a few of my students are becoming tired of the topic but no one has complained and they are all making a good effort! I love them for that! They are not complaining or discussing, and they seem to be working really hard, for me and also because they understand the usefulness of writing such a paper. I have not completely wasted this semester! I have decided to give them a choice about the way I would grade this final project. I don't want to spend hours reading their paper and giving them feedback if they won't care about it, so I told them that they could either make an appointment with me and we would go over their paper and grade it together, or simply give me the paper and I would write a grade but not any feedback on it. We will see how that works. If it works well, I might do that for every paper next semester, although it requires a lot of time on my part and asking my students to spend an extra 30 minutes conferencing with me at the end of the semester might not be the best way to do it. If I have four students or more this time who come to read/grade their paper together with me, I will try it next semester too. I am hoping that they will come because it would show that they really care about their paper and want to learn not just for this class but also for themselves, and at the same time, the lazy me hopes that no one will come because I am a bit overwhelmed these days. However, I am not too excited to have to grade all these papers either, and doing it together with the students would be more fun! So I am hoping they will come!
Today, I had everyone read and review other people's papers (third drafts already!) with a form that I had written and which asked specific questions about the organization, the ideas, the format, and everything else that will count in their final grade. I can never make peer reviewing sound exciting and useful so I don't know if it will be useful or not, but reading other people's paper can never be entirely useless! I had them read and review two more papers during the weekend and said that these two reviews would count in the final grade for their project. I did that last semester with my 102 students and the results were great. Because they knew they would be graded, some of the feedback was excellent and I bet it really helped the students who received it. We will see how this one goes.
Next week is the last week!! Will I keep writing a "teaching journal" like this next semester? Will I keep a "feedback blog" where my students can complain and comment about the class anonymously? I do not know, we will see. Right now, I cannot really think about much because there is way too many things I need to do before I leave for Europe!
