Thursday, September 03, 2009

RBOC: NOT the Thursday I Wanted Edition

  • As I was leaving campus tonight, waiting at the stoplight to exit the campus, some jacktard rear-ended me. I'm fine, the car seems mostly fine (some scratches to the bumper) but this is a hassle that I do not need.
  • My grad students don't seem to get that "grad school" means "Dr. Crazy doesn't make class happen." I gave them some tips, as well as some threats, that may improve this situation next week, but dude, it was a long 2 hours and 45 minutes tonight.
  • I went to my first mtg. of a University-Wide committee mtg today and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not sure what this makes me.
  • Have I mentioned that I'm pissed that my car got rear-ended? LAME.
  • I have so much that I need to accomplish tomorrow and over the weekend. ALSO LAME.
  • Am tired. Shall stop posting to my blog now.

7 comments:

James said...

I'm sorry to hear about the car accident. Campuses are not a safe place to drive and make me think the driving age should be 25 or so, though for those of us at commuter campuses, that would be a slight problem.

negativecapability said...

I had the same experience teaching grad students last semester.

Unknown said...

I'm going to try again...this has to do with the Burde organizer you mentioned (Oct. 2008) I have been using them, too...I used the 8x10 weekly planner which I bought at Barnes and Noble. I cannot find these this year...ANYWHERE. Do you have a source for Burde products?

Thanks, Julia Melgreen/Springfield IL

9:19 AM

P said...

Last spring I had a grad class like that. I called it "Silent Seminar." Not fun. Had a senior colleague sit in on the class and I learned A LOT about what could have been going wrong, and what I could do to fix it. Then again, sometimes it's just the chemistry of the group (nothing you can do, etc.). Sorry! Hope it gets better -- bet it will.

Dr. Crazy said...

Hi, Julia. I haven't responded because I have no idea. I've gone electronic with my calendar this year because my schedule is so complicated and I have so many more meetings.

Belle said...

Oh, the grad student thing. When I was grad student, I longed for a professor to explain to me what was different, and why my excellent work as an undergrad wasn't as a grad. No one ever bothered to, of course.

So a couple of years ago, faced with with a class of half undergrads and half grads, I decided that I needed to be sure they all knew the difference. I sat down and articulated, as clearly as I could, the differing expectations and kinds of work. Put it on the class website and made it clear that I would henceforth grade on the criteria listed. Did it work? Well, all but one of the grad students withdrew from the class. The one that remained didn't do the final project but managed the routine work just fine. My hunch is that they discovered that while they could play in other prof's classes, they couldn't' in mine. So they jumped ship while still in port.

Susan said...

This semester I'm teaching (with a colleague) the first class for grad students. We call it grad student boot camp: you do lots of reading and a fair bit of writing, including critical book reviews. We have them do everything two or three times, so they start getting it, we hope, by the end.