• Of course, the notorious fainting story --one experience that I look back on and wish I would have handled differently. Each and every semester, the instructor should familiarize him/herself with where the closest telephone is to the classroom, and should also make all of the students aware of the location of that phone. It may seem silly, but if a student passes out (which did happen to me!), it would be a wise idea to know this. If any catastrophe like this should happen, remain calm. Stay with the student who has had the accident, and send another student to go call for help. The fact that the students are looking toward you for direction does not change when something like this happens. I made the mistake of screaming "Oh my God!" and sounding like my mother, sprinting out of the room before I had even checked to see whether the student was breathing or not. I was flailing down the hall, screaming, "Somebody's fainting, I need to call 911!" until I finally got to a phone. When the paramedic asked me whether or not the student was breathing, I did not know! Some help I was. And I have CPR every two years as part of my aerobic certification, so I should know better. What should have happened is I should have checked the student to see whether or not he was breathing or had a pulse, then relayed that information to a student who would then be sent to call 911. Lucky for me, several student athletes who were more level headed than I remained with the student while I was making the call. But I wished I had established more control and sanity over the situation. When everyone in the class is looking to you for what to do next, it is not a good idea to just disappear out of the room like a maniac. Future teachers should keep this little anecdote in mind. (Eileen O’Brien)
• Leave time to go to the bathroom before each class session. (Sara Crawley)

How do I get to know my students?

• The easiest way for me to learn students’ names is to take their pictures. I have them get in groups and while I am going around taking pictures, they can exchange phone numbers and get to know someone else in the class. I then take a picture of each group and have them write down the names of everyone in the group and a short description (blue shirt, hat, brown hair, etc.) so that I can identify them when I get the pictures back. Using this method, I am able to learn all 50-80 names by the second week of class. Other people have videotaped students. I think the pictures are easier to carry around and look at when you have a few spare minutes. There is a slight cost involved here—I usually pay a little extra to have the pictures developed in an hour. But I think the cost is very worth it! Every semester I get numerous comments on evaluations and in person about how much the students appreciate the fact that I know their names. Another thing I do so that I can get to know them a little bit is get to class a little early each day and go around to different sections of the room and chat with a few students each day. I had a professor who did this in a class of 600 when I was in college. It was a child development class and this guy was the creator of COOKIE MONSTER! His efforts to try to make some personal contact in such a large class made a lasting impression on me. (Lara Foley)
• I go to the classroom I will be teaching in a few days before class starts to draw a diagram of the room. I then make a spiffy reconstruction on my computer that I print out (or photocopy) for everyday of class. Students just fill their name in where they are sitting (I let them know that they can always move). I can then look at this informal seating chart every day after class to connect faces to names. Of course, the first names memorized end up being the ones who participate more regularly. I can also use the sheet to make notes of who was participating. I’ve found that I can usually remember most of their names rather quickly and they aren’t as embarrassed by taking their pictures. (Laurel Tripp)

How do I relate to my students?

• My pet peeve about instructors in general—which bugged me when I was an undergraduate, and still bugs me when my students come to me and tell me that it still goes on with certain sociology professors even—is making sweeping assumptions about the social location of your students. Don't make statements like, "Since most of your parents are probably paying your bills, you probably don't realize that a family of four really cannot live on $15,000." I had a professor do this when I was scraping to get by, was on food stamps, taking care of my younger sister and had no health insurance. It made me feel completely alienated from the class. We always have non-traditional students who are supporting a family of their own and/or have experienced poverty and know it well. While the bulk of your class may be one thing (upper middle class, white, heterosexual, whatever), do not assume that they all are. While other groups may be in the minority, don't you think they feel alienated enough on campus and in classes without us supposed sociology professors adding fuel to the fire? Acknowledge the diversity in your class and make note of it, even emphasize it to the students. For example, I do a survey on attitudes/experiences on interracial dating/marriage in my Marriage and Family course, with questions like "Have you ever dated interracially? Would you ever date interracially if you were attracted to someone of another race?" When I get to the question on marriage, I say, "If it were a legally available option for you, would you marry that person?" Lower level undergrads are generally confused by this phrasing, so I go on to let them know that probably not everyone in this room is heterosexual and able to marry the partner of their choice legally. This does several things. First and most importantly, it allows everyone to feel included in the question and not feel marginalized in the class. But it also serves as a learning experience for the usually heterosexual majority of the class who might not realize "they" are right in that very room and who might not even realize that same-sex marriage is illegal, as many of my students did not. (They see it on Friends, Ellen, etc. that two people of the same gender "marry" each other, but do not realize this is not legally recognized.) I will not go into the stories about professors in our very department, but several students in my Minorities course last semester blew the whistle to me on professors who were very heterosexist, racist and classist in their assumptions about their students. There are some things you might never know about your students, so never appear to be assuming anything. Create a welcoming environment for all students in your course, not just the majority. (Eileen O’Brien)
• I have found that being open about your own life makes you a real person to students, which often creates a better classroom atmosphere. They often develop a trust with you. If the instructor is willing to put her life up for public display, then students are safe to give their thoughts and opinions. I think it creates a more comfortable atmosphere for them to gain their own voices and feel free to potentially make a mistake without being jousted publicly. You have to keep this in a delicate balance though so that you don’t become their "friend" and loose control of the room. Some students may think they can get breaks with grading if you are too cool. (Sara Crawley) 

I just got my student evaluations back. They’re horrible! Now what?

• Just a short word to the wise on evaluations—you are never going to please everyone. A variety of activities and assignments will make it so that at least everyone is happy some of the time, but don't take the evaluations too seriously unless there is a frequently recurring comment across a diversity of students (i.e., not just the non-major freshmen.) This is coming from someone who is still trying to heed my own advice here—some of my feminine socialization of trying to make everyone happy still has not left me! So remember to take evaluations with a grain of salt. Talk them over with someone who is a more experienced instructor and they can help you sort out which to take seriously and which to leave alone. Don't ever take it too personally. Know when to learn from it and when to let it go. (Eileen O’Brien)
• Have midterm course evaluations for the instructor's use only. This allows the lecturer to catch early on any problems with the course and turn things around. Also communicates respect and concern for the students. Remember when looking over those evaluations: focus on patterns, don't let one negative or nasty comment determine your reaction. I like to wait a few days before I respond in lecture so as to cool down from any nasty comments. One comment I get often is I need to write more on the board—these evaluations help me identify problems so I can correct them to benefit the current students. (Karen Pyke)
• My first semester teaching I felt that I had really bad evaluations (part of this is that we invest so much time into the class that we expect that the evaluations will reflect our hard work). The first thing that I did was to separate them into bad, good, and neutral piles. I then read the good pile several times and ignored the bad pile for at least a few more days to build up my self-esteem. Then I went back through the bad pile and separated it into useful and useless comments. I suggest that you burn the useless comments pile or save it for a good laugh in the future (some students write the most ridiculous things). By that time, I was ready to go through the bad pile critically and noticed that it’s not as big as I thought it was. I think that is the key—we tend to take a few really bad comments as if they’re representative of the whole class, but separating into piles shows that it really wasn’t as bad as you thought. (Laurel Tripp)

What do I do if the students look at me like they’re bored all the time?

• When I first started teaching I was super self-conscious and I was afraid that I looked stupid. I was also afraid that I would get into a discussion and would wander into territory where I didn't really know what I was talking about. All in all, I learned two major things regarding my initial worries: 1) undergrads can smell fear, and 2) energy level is important. I gave several well-prepared lectures when I was dragging and tired, and the students blew me off and asked questions like they weren't sure that I wasn't kidding them about the material. If I psyched myself up and stayed reasonably energetic during the lecture, they seemed engrossed and responded in a more supportive manner. (Erica Owens) 
• I was shocked at how needy I am "on stage." I felt really crushed when students’ got bored or stopped finding me interesting. I feel like a failure if students sleep and I get a charge out of teaching when things go well and we get a good discussion/debate going. I know when I’m not happy so I know when to alter the flow of the class during a lecture. So I have developed a style in which I try to keep them interested because it keeps me interested. I use radical examples ("Why do men and women use different restrooms?") and often put myself out there with them and answer honestly about my experiences. I find that students wake right up when you deal with a serious issue and get into students’ and the instructor’s real ideas/opinions. Of course, you need to know when to step back and make the class about general social issues and not just Sara’s experiences. Know the theoretical argument and be prepared to make it "real" with students’ experiences. (Sara Crawley)

What do I do if I have a problem with my photocopies?

• One last tip: if you take anything to a copy place last minute, look over the copies that you are given back. I had a page left off of the second exam that I gave. (Erica Owens)
• Always check to see that your coursepack is complete. One semester I had a couple pages missing from my coursepack. I simply called Custom Copies, told them of the error, and I had 60 copies of those pages on my desk the next day. (Laurel Tripp)

How do I avoid arguments with my students over grades?

• Don't discuss exam grades in class if you can help it. The students will nickle and dime you for every point they can, and that entire period is pretty much shot. (Erica Owens)
• Like Erica mentioned earlier, students will try to squeeze every last point they can out of exams. I give multiple choice exams and in the past when they tried to argue for their answers, I often crumbled. Now, I tell them when I hand back the exams that they can defend an answer in writing, supporting their argument with quotes and page numbers from the text or articles or dates of their notes. I usually have about ten people do this; I usually give credit to one or two people who have outstanding arguments. This method does 2 things; 1) I am able to be more distanced from the situation than I used to be when they were arguing for answers in person. I always respond to their arguments and even suggest ways they could have strengthened it. But, I do not give credit to everyone who writes a defense. 2) It lets students develop their skill in constructing a good argument. Sometimes five people will argue the same answer, but only one will do it well enough to receive points. This method has some problems, like having people write ridiculous arguments that you then have to spend time reading and responding to, but for me it has been very useful. (Lara Foley)
• I'm not as generous as some instructors. I'll look over the test a few times to see if there is a question everyone missed and then I may throw it out. However, I've started announcing before and during each exam that their grades are final. If they have a problem with the wording of a question, it is their responsibility to say something DURING the test. At that point, I can reword the question so that the entire class will have a better shot at answering it correctly. (Laurel Tripp)

Lara Foley

This is a short essay that I wrote for Dr. Vera’s theory class. I include it because I’m pretty certain that I am not the only one who experiences this.
 

I’m up late again tonight, my multiple personalities are engaged in a civil war. It’s that time of year: assigning arbitrary letter grades to undergraduates. I’m sitting in front of a computer screen, a blur of numbers and letters and names and lives. Of course, the lives are not printed on the screen in front of me, they are in my head, and they are not supposed to show up on my screen, or so I’m told. Well, I’ve never actually been told that lives are not supposed to show up on my screen because I’ve never actually admitted to anyone that I see lives on the screen. If I did, my friends might suggest I lay off the drugs for a while, my mom would tell me I need to get plenty of rest, exercise, and take my vitamins, and I don’t even want to imagine what the officials of the University would say. To clarify, these lives are the lives of my students, and they play like a movie on my computer screen, their voices echoing out of the speakers. Reggie’s wife just had a baby last week, their first. Colleen has been dealing with an abusive boyfriend all semester. Alice is trying to get into medical school. Noemi’s mother is in the hospital. Steve has cancer and has to travel home each week for radiation treatment. LaTasha’s car died at the beginning of the semester, and she has been having transportation trouble ever since. Harold is the first person in his family to go to college and is working two jobs to put himself through school. Rachel’s brother is about to be paroled from prison. I see these lives intertwined with the exam grades, participation points, averages, social security numbers . . . no extra credit points, I should add, I’ve been instructed to cease extra credit opportunities for fear of "inflating" grades. There are other names on the screen, names not connected with lives. It is easy to assign "objective" grades to these names, these numbers, they are faces I do not see, stories I do not hear.

I try not to see these lives and hear these voices. I recite the little speech to myself, the one my boss gave me last semester:

You must be able to distinguish the excellent students from the above average students from the good students from the below average students. Otherwise, you are doing the students a disservice by not giving them the appropriate feedback. I repeat this over and over, "you are doing the students a disservice, you are doing the students a disservice, you are . . . I am doing the students a disservice, I am . . ." My pep talk is not working this time. It did earlier in the semester, it is a little easier to think abstractly about these things when the grades aren’t final. It’s easy for me to say I don’t believe in grades, but I am not the one who distributes their financial aid, interviews them for a job, or decides whether or not to admit them to grad school, medical school, or law school. Some people have advised that I separate myself from all of this, close my eyes to the faces and my ears to the stories. I don’t know if I want to, I don’t know if I can.

As I stare at the screen of numbers and lives, I get a "you have mail" message. I read the tearful words (of course the tears do not appear on the screen, just in my head) of one of my students who has done well all semester, but feels that she probably failed the final exam. She asks if there is anything extra she can do to increase her grade. I read this and want her to the get the A I feel she deserves and had up until the final. I look over all her old papers, I picture her in the front of the class adding to every discussion, I try to stretch the 84.8 final grade that she had after doing poorly on the final exam into an A, or at least a B+. I get mad that the guy who hadn’t turned in any assignments and had rarely shown up for class was going to make the same grade as this tearful e-mailer. I remember being told that I should not give anymore extra credit until I had gotten my grade "inflation" problem under control. That made me mad. I spend more energy and emotional effort trying to lower grade distribution than I do teaching. I didn’t want to return this e-mail, I was almost apologetic as I explained to her that there was nothing I could do.

I must sound like a push-over, a big ball of mush. Some might ask how I can "fall" for all these excuses and sob stories. Actually I’ve come a long way since I started teaching five semesters ago. At first I believed any excuse, I was a "push-over." I’ve become a little more discerning, and even "hardened" in some ways. Let me tell yesterday’s story: It’s the middle of the afternoon, my multiple personalities are engaged in a civil war. It’s that time of year: final exam week. I’m sitting in front of a computer screen, reading an e-mail. I am mad. I have a student who has attended only 2 classes all semester. She showed up once, three weeks into the semester, to pick up the syllabus. And the second time I saw her in class was for the second exam, the first exam she insisted on a make-up because she had added the class late and had a doctor’s note. She also, throughout the semester, demanded the weekly assignments over e-mail, and then consistently turned them in a day late. Now, she wants to "make-up" the last exam. I just received her e-mail with this "request," actually it was phrased more like a command. It is 6:00 on Monday, the scheduled exam is tomorrow at 11:45. A lot of notice she gives. Not only did she command me to schedule a make-up exam, she set a date and time: Wednesday, April 29 at 3:00. What is her "excuse" this time? She does not have transportation. Hello! I wonder if she would expect to keep her job if she did not show up for 3 months and told her boss that she was having ‘transportation problems.’ I wanted to write back and ask if she’s ever heard of "THE BUS!" What did I actually write back to her? I wrote "I am giving another make-up exam on Wednesday, April 29 at 10:00 am, can you make it then?" Am I that much of a push-over? Am I afraid of this woman or something? Why is my response to this woman so different than to the tearful e-mailer? Probably because little Ms. transportation problem’s life does not appear on my computer screen. Perhaps she has not engaged in the proper gift exchange - my compassion for her deference and respect. 

Of course, my actions to each of these e-mailers are not very different, even the emotional turmoil is not that different, just opposite. In the case of the tearful e-mailer I want to do more, I feel compassion, but I have to express a certain sense of authority that doesn’t leave enough room for compassion. In the case of the demanding e-mailer I want to yell at her and ask her who she thinks she is, but the rules of professionalism do not allow this. 

There is pressure to be more of a "hard-ass" when it comes to teaching. The pressure comes from different places and for different reasons. For the chair of my department, it is for the good reputation of the department, with an aside that it is in the students’ ‘best interest.’ For university officials, it is for the good reputation of the university as a strict and distinguished university where the cream of the crop can rise to take their ‘proper’ positions in the world. On the other hand, from the university’s perspective, students are customers who should be kept happy. My friends tell me to be more of a ‘hard-ass,’ for my own good, so I can keep my sanity. These are conflicting demands for me. Will I be a hard-ass or a push-over? Is there anything in between? Which is closer to the mythical "real"me? Will I be one or the other because I choose to be or because of pressure from some other interested party? My head is spinning, I am hearing voices - Reggie, Colleen, Alice, Noemi, Steve, LaTasha, Harold, Rachel . . . .