As the semester is slowly winding down and coming to a close in a couple of weeks, I've been spending the past week or two contemplating all the changes that I've made this semester and struggled through. Change is hard. Period. It's so hard to break away from any type of tradition, and I have concluded that I have somewhat accomplished this in 4 classes. Were they all successful? No. Do I still need to make changes? Definitely. It's a process. In my eyes, a good teacher is always trying to better (change) their class so that the students can not only be successful, but learn in the process. During this reflecting process, I began to think, is THIS worth it? Is it worth all of the change and hard work from a traditional lecture to an electronic type classroom? With an electronic class, a whole new slew of problems occur when using a computer, which I wouldn't have to deal with in a traditional class. I didn't have the answers to these questions until I surveyed my classes. Here are some of the responses I received:
“At the time I did not know I was enrolled in an electronic class, but I much prefer the electronic class over the traditional class.”
“I have learned more in this electronic class than the traditional class. There needs to be more electronic math classes.”
“You can work at your own pace, without feeling rushed or that you are just a slow learner.”
“The best part of this course for me is that I learned.”
“For once I feel I can succeed in a subject that I despise. It provides multiple ways to keep your grades up, even if you don’t do well on the test. Overall, this provides me with a glimpse of hope and positive moral to learn and succeed.”
“I really enjoyed the course, and I have nothing bad to say about it. I have struggled in math forever and this class has seemed to help me get through it better.”
WOW. I was speechless reading some the responses from my students. This was only a few from the bunch (and 1 response out of 7 questions). The positivity that I received back had me overwhelmed. I had the answer to my questions. I'm happy to report that I will continue teaching electronic classes this summer and coming fall. In fact, after this semester, I will be in charge of an electronic math course. I will be creating everything for other instructors across the college to use for this course. I'm very excited about this new method of teaching class and am looking forward in tweaking the course each semester.
Thank you God for a little bit of encouragement, because these little bits can go a long way and make a huge impact on me and the future of my students.
-Miche
That's awesome that you received such positive feedback!! It's awesome to hear you are doing well at something, especially from the people you are trying to impact. Way to go!
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