I got the teaching award!
Wonderful news on a Tuesday Morning!
Amy, I wanted to let you know that the committee to determine the graduate teaching award for this year unanimously gave the award to you. You will receive the award at the department reception during commencement week. Congratulations. Mike Ruddy
I am so excited!!! I never thought I'd win the award given my competition and the fact that it's just my first year teaching. Luke and I thought for sure it'd go to Erin or Frank. I'm just sad that during commencement week I'll be at Kalamazoo and won't be there to accept it in person.
Anyway on Friday Dr. Smith and Dr. Ndege came to visit my discussion section, and I sort of spent all week going over the lesson in my brain. I went over the French Revolution with my class and reviewed the political history of the period by formulating answers to three essay questions. How did France transform from a Monarchy to a Republic during the revolution? How did France transform from a Republic to an Empire during the revolution? What was the relationship of the French Revolution to the Catholic Church? I asked lots of questions to get them to outline the answers to these questions and get the key terms on the board, and the class was very chatty in giving me the answers, which was great. I'd asked them to be extra participative last week, and they really were, which was great. It wasn't just the same three students answering the questions all the time, actually Dr. Ndege said 12 out of the 16 students volunteered answers in this discussion, which is fantastic! At the end of class I did a PPT of the pendulum of the French Revolution. It would have been a lot easier to just draw the diagram on the board, but students engage more with PPTs and I think it showed the committee evaluating me that I can incorporate technology into my lesson. They said they liked that I incorporated technology, but that it wasn't my whole lesson, just a bit to help at the end.
Afterwards Dr. Ndege said that he thought my specialty was the French Revolution, and Dr. Smith was like, no! she's my student and does 13th century intellectual history in medieval Spain! But that if he didn't know better that he would have thought the French Rev was my area of study as well. It was so wonderful to hear that I had such a good handle on the material and presented it so clearly. I guess I can thank Dr. Givens and the Enlightenment/French Rev class I took in undergrad for that one, and Mrs. Tenney's T2C lessons in highschool that gave me the good stories about the French Rev to share. I'm just thrilled it went so well.
I will have to bring my friday class some candy for being SO chatty and helping me out :-)
Amy, I wanted to let you know that the committee to determine the graduate teaching award for this year unanimously gave the award to you. You will receive the award at the department reception during commencement week. Congratulations. Mike Ruddy
I am so excited!!! I never thought I'd win the award given my competition and the fact that it's just my first year teaching. Luke and I thought for sure it'd go to Erin or Frank. I'm just sad that during commencement week I'll be at Kalamazoo and won't be there to accept it in person.
Anyway on Friday Dr. Smith and Dr. Ndege came to visit my discussion section, and I sort of spent all week going over the lesson in my brain. I went over the French Revolution with my class and reviewed the political history of the period by formulating answers to three essay questions. How did France transform from a Monarchy to a Republic during the revolution? How did France transform from a Republic to an Empire during the revolution? What was the relationship of the French Revolution to the Catholic Church? I asked lots of questions to get them to outline the answers to these questions and get the key terms on the board, and the class was very chatty in giving me the answers, which was great. I'd asked them to be extra participative last week, and they really were, which was great. It wasn't just the same three students answering the questions all the time, actually Dr. Ndege said 12 out of the 16 students volunteered answers in this discussion, which is fantastic! At the end of class I did a PPT of the pendulum of the French Revolution. It would have been a lot easier to just draw the diagram on the board, but students engage more with PPTs and I think it showed the committee evaluating me that I can incorporate technology into my lesson. They said they liked that I incorporated technology, but that it wasn't my whole lesson, just a bit to help at the end.
Afterwards Dr. Ndege said that he thought my specialty was the French Revolution, and Dr. Smith was like, no! she's my student and does 13th century intellectual history in medieval Spain! But that if he didn't know better that he would have thought the French Rev was my area of study as well. It was so wonderful to hear that I had such a good handle on the material and presented it so clearly. I guess I can thank Dr. Givens and the Enlightenment/French Rev class I took in undergrad for that one, and Mrs. Tenney's T2C lessons in highschool that gave me the good stories about the French Rev to share. I'm just thrilled it went so well.
I will have to bring my friday class some candy for being SO chatty and helping me out :-)