Pre-Fall Break Course Evaluation

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback you provided yesterday about the course. I wanted to summarize it for you, and then make a few proposals:

1. Basically, there was a shared agreement that people learned during lectures and class discussion (large and small group), but some folks liked one more than the other. People seemed to like when personal examples were used to illustrate the concepts.

2. The main problems/concerns with the class were:

• How the blog is being used--what's it for?
• Too complex readings and not enough time to understand them
• Too much jumping between classes (not enough time to understand the concepts)
• The green packet is hard to navigate
• Don't want more readings on Black English.

3. Suggestions for changes included more lecture, less lecture, more discussion, less reading, more personal examples, more preparation for the readings and more discussion of difficult concepts. Others said that people needed to show up and be prepared.

4. Suggestions for what to keep the same were pretty much centered on discussions, lecture, the positive learning environment, the blog.

If I try to create a 'picture' of the class in order to figure out what to revise after Fall Break, I think that the main problems are not enough time spent on certain difficult readings, a concern about the blog, and a concern that the topics/discussions are not connected enough with our personal lives.

To address these concerns, I propose the following:

1. That, as much as possible, I 'preview' the readings for the next class if they are going to be difficult ones.

2. That we re-structure the process of the blog.

These seem easy-ish. But, the third concern is harder because our course is a diversity course, so, by nature, many of the issues explored are going to be different from our own experiences. But, perhaps we can attempt to contrast the diverse experiences with those that we individually have had, in hopes of getting that personal connection going.

I think that the blog up until this point has been ineffective. The general purpose of it is to get you all to interact with each other on the issues through a different discourse. But, no one is really interacting with each other. It seems like most people just get on, post and then leave--like turning in a paper to me.

So, to shift that process, I want to try to use the blog to discuss issues that arise in class. I have an issue to have us all discuss, and it will be in the next post for you to respond to. It will be the "blog assignment" of this week.

Thanks,
Tiffany

P.S. The packet should get easier to negotiate from now on. I'll be sure to clarify as the assigned readings come up.