Camera-Ready

To those of you who record lectures and YouTube videos for your classes, a tip of the hat to you. If you do it often (and your students actually watch them), <applause>. If they reference anecdotes that you’ve shared in your videos (i.e., “that’s just like your Dream of the Giant Contact Lens”), I salute you! Because, truly, that’s what it’s all about…

While the effort to capture course material on video is admirable, certainly, it needs to be a worthwhile endeavor, adding something meaningful to your class (well worth the pain, suffering, and learning curve required ;-)

If you’ve ever embarked on recording for your classes, you know, the first playback is the hardest. It’s one thing to do your thang and bask in the aftermath of a “great class.” It’s quite another to watch what you just did, to see yourself as your students see you, to notice aspects of your delivery, appearance (and that weird way you hold your pen) that are just well, distracting.

Truly, those are the first hurdles to get through -- to not allow our presentation-of-self to interfere with the message. If we want our message to be heard, we have to eliminate the noise, the distractions.

What you might think as a “stellar moment” in your lecture may not come off that way in the playback. You might consider yourself “hilarious,” only to notice that on second view, your punch line was too quiet, that your timing was off, and that it was not quite so hilar. 

It’s not easy to see you yourself as others might, to look at your lecture from the perspective of a student or a stranger -- as in, what would I think if that were my professor? What impressions would I form of him/her? Is he/she likable? Authentic? Worth listening to?

Once we get past the “medium,” of course, it’s all about the message. The real content. Yet this can be a virtual minefield as well. For despite our personal values and points-of-view, we need to be ever-mindful that not everyone who steps into our classroom shares a similar perspective. Some were likely raised in very different households, with opposing political views, religious beliefs, and ideas about what is “right” (not to mention, schemas and stereotypes on the basis of gender, ethnicity, culture, social class, their life experiences, etc.)

When students complain of “biases” (in another class, not yours ;-) it might be puzzling at first. But ah, if you had the opportunity to watch a class lecture, you would likely see their perspective on the playback. And perhaps experience a light bulb “teaching moment: to be a bit more inclusive in the future, honoring multiple point-of-views and leaving the door open (in the hopes that one day they’ll grow in awareness and realize that you were right all along ;-)

Truly, it is all about the message…and yet, we can’t ignore the medium. Video recording is like shining a bright light on your class…only you can’t be afraid to look. Be open to the feedback it offers you. No flinching!

A Student, Mid-Text

As I reflect on my teaching career here at Yavapai over the past ten (eesh, really?!) years, there are a number of factors that stand out. First, how much our students have changed, not only in the skill sets that they bring to the table, but also in their ways-of-being (i.e., their expectations, attitudes and behaviors).

Now that last one is a tricky area for many college educators, but here at the community college, we were established, uh,  to serve the community… Thus, it would seem there is an implied mandate that we actually do that ;-)

To me, that means tuning in to our students, to not get so locked into “this is the way I/we do things” that we cannot adapt and change to  the new realities that face us in the classroom each semester, every year.

Throughout this 9x9x25 blog challenge, I’ll be focusing on my process of turning in to these shifts and changes over the last ten years.|

And I’d like to start by focusing on one particular new “way-of-being” among students…

Texting in the classroom.

C’mon my faculty comrades, you’ve been there -- smack dab in the middle of a witty, spirited and entertaining lecture, only to witness one of your students suddenly be moved to pull out her cell phone and start texting? Happened to me last week, as a matter of fact. (It was an Honors Student texting no less.)

I have learned from experience not to call her out by name in the middle of the class and say “Honors Student, put your cell phone away." (That's a story...)

Nor is it my style to march up and snatch it away -- let alone, destroy it, like this guy.

Instead, I wrote a Note to Self on the roster: “Cell Phone Policy,” reminding me to make a general announcement about our cell phone policy.. Which I did, yesterday… I even wrote it with a black Sharpie at the bottom of the sign-up roster, for my students to see as well.

It's interesting... cell phones are almost an appendage for our students these days. Ten years ago, students would silence their phones and manage to put them away for the hour and 15 minutes we were in class.

But now  the urge to check one's phone seems an irresistible temptation. Frankly, that is one of the reasons  I began recording my lectures. I'd tell"offending" students, “If you’ve got a lot going on and it’s difficult to focus, take the class online and watch the lecture at home.” That way I could ensure that I had everyone else's rapt and undivided attention once they were in class… (Uh…yeah, right ;-) 

When I prepared my Syllabi this semester and read what I had composed for a cell phone policy, a few of my friends chuckled. Distracting other students by playing with your “stuff” (phone, laptop, etc.) during class officially meets the criteria for disruptive behavior. Some suggested I change “stuff” to “junk.” I could not bring myself to do that, “stuff” was teetering on the edge to me. But the policy doesn’t seem to be enough…

For the moment, I’m at an impasse, not quite sure what more to add to my policy. Yet I trust that it will work itself out, I'll think of something… And that maybe in time, if enough students take my interpersonal communication class, they’ll realize that texting when another person is talking is not only rude, but uh,"clueless.". And if they refrain from "cognitively wandering" in PSY 101, they’ll learn that no one can really multi-task and give each task one's highest and best effort...

So you! Stop playing with your... Put your phone away. Yes you!