2011 A Brand New Year

This semester I am teaching Ceramics, again, finally, as well as Art History and Developmental Psychology. I feel really really busy!

Social Psych Class wrapping up...

The Social Psychology students finished presenting their research findings today. Several of them got interesting data. Most of them learned that getting data that is analyzable requires more thought that just writing down the first 8 questions that come to mind and asking some people in the lobby those questions. Some of them had the opportunity to discover that other people really hold different opinions than they themselves do. But, they worked very hard, and most seemed pleased to have actually accomplished such a complex task. One young woman handed in the best paper I have been given in the 5 years I have been working at this college. I will use it as the example for future classes. I feel very proud of them.

End of the Semester Some More

I have spent the morning entering grades for my two big Psychology classes. The students have done well, worked hard and most of them have learned something. Hopefully they will feel satisfied with the grades they have earned. This is part of why I like teaching the ceramics classes so much more than the psychology. In the pottery classes, the students get immediate feedback from the clay about how they are doing - how closely their skills and their ability to conceptualize coordinate with one another. In psychology it is much less clear to the students that having a firm opinion about an idea or a theory is not the same thing as understanding the theory clearly. Plus, in the psychology classes this semester I had much more of a problem with cheating than I usually do, so I am just not giving grades on some of the materials that they handed in. So, we will have to see how that goes....

The End of the Semester

The best laid plans, etc etc! The semester is almost over - my ceramics students learned a lot and made some wonderful objects. I interacted with a lot of psychology students and definitely over-committed myself with those doubled up classes. The students learned a lot and so did I, so will do better organizing my time next semester. :-) Now, trying to wrap up this semester, and think about the break - focus on the farm, family and dharma for a while....(not necessarily in that order!) I have also discovered Twitter! I'm there as meredifay...

Teaching Bliss

The fall semester at the community college starts on August 18. I just checked my rosters. I am teaching 2 sections of the 4 credit Introductory Psychology, both of which are overloaded with 43 students each at this point. My supervisor asked me yesterday if he could double me up and give me 90 students in each of those classes. The more the merrier, I guess. We'll see how many more actually sign up! One section is Mon/Wed morning for two hours, the other section is Tues/Thurs morning for two hours. He says he'll try to get me some more money for doing this, which would be nice. For the Tuesday evening Ceramics class I will be teaching, there are three people signed up so far. I should look up the difference between "Ceramics" and "Pottery", since I think of what we will be doing as pottery rather than ceramics. Ceramics to me has the association of slip cast Halloween ghosts with faces from "The Scream" and Easter bunnies glazed with Cone 04 'magic crystal' glazes that make little runs of green and yellow through the pink base color. Not that I am totally offended by kitsch, but that is not what I am going to teach my students! Guess it's time to start thinking about syllabi - syllabuses?- and course assignment lists. The beginning of a new semester is always fun - so many possibilities! Next Thursday, I am going to do a little barrel smoke firing with my friend, Julia. So, before then I need to make a few coil pots and pinch pots to put in the barrel. Busy, busy, busy....