tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post7198450606486957247..comments2024-01-28T03:35:51.182-05:00Comments on Reassigned Time: Opening Day Jitters and the Challenge of Bringing Theory to UndergraduatesDr. Crazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12457967076373916629noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-72347652668291127702009-01-15T12:45:00.000-05:002009-01-15T12:45:00.000-05:00The hostile audience and difficult subject materia...The hostile audience and difficult subject material is problematic, but it can be made to work. I teach a class with similar issues in my field and I must admit that it took a couple of tries before I figured out how to teach it so that the students would appreciate the usefulness of the material and learn how to learn in different ways than they were accustomed to. The largest and most important change I made from how such a course was traditionally taught was to change the class from a lecture class to primarily active learning. I'm not sure how much of that applies to you.Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13311908219056432735noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-29410979633423994722009-01-15T01:09:00.000-05:002009-01-15T01:09:00.000-05:00I took a couple theory courses as an undergrad bec...I took a couple theory courses as an undergrad because my mentor told me that this was what practically all literature graduate schools focused on these days. I was quickly turned off from theory and by extension lit grad school because, at the time, I thought it was some of the worst-written stuff I'd ever encountered: jargon-y, unnecessarily convoluted, pretentious, and so on. I was also taught by a "true believer" who I felt occasionally made the books fit the theory instead of finding a theory that fit the books. Since then I've wondered how much of my reaction was fair -- of course you couldn't know if my professor was actually misusing theory, but does that often happen? And is a lot of theory (like, say, Derrida and Foucault) as badly written as it seemed, or had I just not spent enough time learning the jargon?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03281619834555184726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-31413281699306376522009-01-14T16:33:00.000-05:002009-01-14T16:33:00.000-05:00Along the lines of what Susan said: sometimes the ...Along the lines of what Susan said: sometimes the best teacher is the person who struggled with a concept, because she knows the pitfalls. It's much harder to teach something that's easy for you, because it seems obvious.Dame Eleanor Hullhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06512884104691200975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-3636389506167391862009-01-13T15:45:00.000-05:002009-01-13T15:45:00.000-05:00We have a gateway to the major course that tries t...We have a gateway to the major course that tries to introduce majors to basic semiotics, basic metaphor analysis, some rhetorical analysis, and so forth. Then they also all take an intro to linguistics and a theory course during the next couple semesters, all of which are required for the senior level courses.<BR/><BR/>It's working pretty well; let me know if you want and I'll email you some info.Bardiachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11846065504793800266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-18266832298352081582009-01-13T14:05:00.000-05:002009-01-13T14:05:00.000-05:00We have a similar course in my department; same ty...We have a similar course in my department; same type of content, same timing within the major, same kind of audience. I taught it for four or five straight years before getting a break thanks to a course release. Honestly, I never quite figured out how to make the class work well for me and for the students. One problem I have that is different from yours is that the profile of our majors is not very diverse; most are interested in physical geography and technical aspects of the field, not human geography. Alas, most of the deep theoretical debates, about the nature of reality, about the role of the scientist/geographer in accounting for or making those realities, etc. have taken place, and continue to take place, among human geographers, which is also, broadly, where I fit (so maybe I'm just showing my own biases in this assessment).<BR/><BR/>What I have done recently is to split the difference. I let students, with my guidance, pick some topics that interest them within the field that has some relevance to the history of geographic thought and those presentations and discussions use essentially half of the term and a book or two of my choosing uses the other half. It sounds like my classes are generally smaller (anywhere from 5 to 20) than yours, so maybe this kind of thing is easier for me to pull off. <BR/><BR/>We recently revised our major to incorporate a capstone and this course is being partly redirected as prep for that experience. I hope that this new grounding will help in reaching my audience, but it will be a couple of years yet before I'll see if that is so. One other benefit is that I will now switch teaching the class with a colleague instead of being the sole instructor.Shaun Hustonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05374693213232236154noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-7560243001253015972009-01-13T09:55:00.000-05:002009-01-13T09:55:00.000-05:00You know, we're in the process of revising the maj...You know, we're in the process of revising the major now, and the first thing we're changing is to have an intro to the major course. However, I'm actually not a fan of *this* course being that, mainly because our major is pretty divided between lit majors, cw people, and professional writing. Because of the different emphases, I don't think this course really serves all equally. What I'm hoping we get is a gateway course for the core that students regardless of emphasis take that introduces them to the main theoretical approaches but that isn't about reading theory for a full semester or really delving into theory deeply. Then, I'd say that lit majors should take this advanced class as part of the emphasis requirement - people in the other emphases can decide whether their students should have a theory course, and if they should, whether it should be this theory course. We'll see.Dr. Crazyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12457967076373916629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-39279370577244625692009-01-13T09:54:00.000-05:002009-01-13T09:54:00.000-05:00From what you say, I think in some ways you are a ...From what you say, I think in some ways you are a good person to teach the course. You are theoretically informed without being a true believer. Therefore you can present ideas to students and get them to see how and when this tool can be helpful, rather than saying "Behold, I give you the keys to the universe".<BR/>I think the biggest thing is to unpack "theory" as a concept, to demystify it...<BR/>Happy teaching!Susanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09716705206734059708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-30306244265211390292009-01-13T09:37:00.000-05:002009-01-13T09:37:00.000-05:00When we revised our curriculum a few years ago, we...When we revised our curriculum a few years ago, we moved the theory course to the sophomore level, and made it required for senior courses; it took a few years for students work through the new system, but it's been a really great change. It's now a gateway; you can count on your upper level students having taking or being in the course; they can't put it off.<BR/><BR/>And some of them really learn a lot from it, so that's great.<BR/><BR/>Good luck with your course!Bardiachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11846065504793800266noreply@blogger.com