Pleasant Surprises

“Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.”

-Helen Caldicott, author and peace activist

During the Spring of 2009 I had the opportunity to co-teach an undergraduate course with a fellow PhD student. We were assigned Epidemiology, a field I was slightly unfamiliar with, handed a textbook, given some outlines from previous semester lectures, and told to get to it. Having taught previously at Arizona State, I was pretty confident that I could handle teaching at SDSU. Well, that confidence morphed from a solid formation to a jello like substance the first night when I walked in and found 95 student staring back at me. During my two years as an instructor at Arizona State I had never more than 35 students at a time. On top of that we were expected to keep them engaged and intrigued for 2.5 hours during a class that began at 7 PM on a Thursday night. Lets just say I had my work cut out for me.

As the semester progressed and I became more comfortable with the material, the students, and the delicate nature of co-teaching I was able to feel more and more at home in the classroom. My teaching style tends to be wordy, talkative, sarcastic, sometimes brass, humorous, and full of analogies, metaphors, and other methods to get students to understand information, ideas, and concepts in a way that makes sense to them. One of the key aspects of this class that I really enjoyed was being able to explain how semi-complex mathematical equations and statistical calculations can be quite easy to do once you understand the reasons “why” you need an answer.

As you know from your own experience as a college student, at the end of the semester you are required to fill out instructor evaluation forms. SDSU is a bit different than most universities as they require all evaluations to be done online and will not release a student’s grades until they are completed. This also means that instructors quickly receive their feedback. Well, it would if our web-interface weren’t built like IKEA instructions written in Japanese. Good thing I have friends who know there way around the system and were able to show me how to access our data. All in all, we were evaluated very well with an average score across different categories of ~4.4 on a scale of 1=bad 5=good. I was also able to access and read the qualitative responses, or write-ins as they are commonly referred to. Instead of going on and on about them I offer you a few of my favorites and a neat little image called a wordle (make your own at www.wordle.net) based on all my write-ins.

“The instructors were a key component in the success of the class. They were hyperactive and happy to be there.”

“Expecting student participation in a 7PM class is unreasonable.”

“The two professor taught class was something I have never seen in a college level, but Professor Ramirez made it an extraordinary experience. For my first two semesters at SDSU, I have only had one professor other than him who made you BELIEVE. Even though the topic was dull and uninteresting, he engaged your interest simply by presenting the information, not reading off the information. He made the difference in a class that is really not that exciting.”

“He talked way too much.”

Click for larger image.

Well that’s enough of a “pat on the back” for me. Hopefully the state of California can figure out their horrendous budget issues so I can get back in the classroom.

Till then…..