The NMDS Archive: Hindsight: What You Can Learn From My First Year

Editor’s Note:  The following was presented at the very first FA New Member Discussion Series event, hosted in cooperation with the Office of Faculty and Professional Advancement, titled "Hindsight: What You Can Learn From My First Year," on September 12, 2014. Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting the text and talking points from the other presenters, too, so that even if you weren't able to attend the session, you'll still have access to some of the insight and advice offered at this professional development workshop. -- SKG

HINDSIGHT: WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM MY FIRST YEAR

by Dr. Misty Curreli, Instructor of Sociology, Eastern Campus

Welcome colleagues. When I reflect on my first year of teaching, there are many challenges that full-time teaching bestowed upon me.  Today I’m going to speak about three of them. Each one was a challenge of some sort, all of which are works-in-progress. But I do want to acknowledge that much of what I’ve prepared for today is grounded in advice that I received from my colleagues, which emphasizes the importance of reaching out to other people in your field.  I hope these suggestions have practical applications for others who are new to the profession. 

PROTECT YOUR TIME 

My first point has to do with time management.  Maybe it’s because I was a graduate student for a large proportion of my life, but I had really bad work vs. personal time boundaries. As a graduate student I was accustomed to working morning, noon, and especially night and I truly believe that the institutional expectation of grad. school is to do more work than is humanly possible, always with an ample dose of guilt for what is yet to be completed.  So, of course this lifestyle seeped into the way I taught and I developed bad habits.

Things that New Teacher Misty would say/do:

• Let me check my email one more time before bed.
• Sure, I’ll respond to emails I receive at 2 a.m.
• Why shouldn’t I eat my dinner at my desk while I finish up my lecture notes for next week?
• Why yes, I’ll meet with you at noon and likely skip eating lunch.
• Why yes, I’ll meet with you at 4 p.m. which is my most productive writing time of the day.

So, we’re all going to have different preferences on how to organize the day, but regardless I would highly suggest creating some rules for yourself by establishing (with some flexibility given the workload) when your workday starts and ends. You can even go as far as to designate certain hours of the day for particular tasks.   

Dr. Misty Curreli speaks about her first year experience at SCCC

For example, a former professor of mine instructed me to “Protect your mornings” in order to thrive at the teaching-research balance. He reasoned that students were less likely to come looking for you and that you’d be most fresh at that time of the day to do the hard work of analyzing data or writing up findings. 

But regardless of how you organize it, whether it’s a 6 hour or 8 hour or 10 hour day, what I’m suggesting is that you deserve some personal, non-working time to give your mind a break.  Not only do I think you deserve it, I actually think this is necessary for the long-term if you don’t want to get burnt out. But doing this, if you’re not accustomed to it, takes discipline and it also requires that you be alright with keeping some uncompleted things on the to-do list until the next workday. (Can you tell that I’m really motivated by crossing things off of my to-do list?) 

Another important and related aspect that can’t be overlooked is regulating the workload.  By this, I mean being cautious to not take on too much in your first year.   You’re going to be approached by many, many people who are looking for your participation and expertise. Don’t get me wrong – there are many, fabulous opportunities to serve the campus community, but I’m told and I’m actually starting to believe that it’s okay to say no on occasion.  This gives you the chance to invest your time wisely in the endeavors that you care most about and it keeps us from feeling like we’re spread too thin.

MEET THE STUDENTS HALFWAY

For the second point, I need to admit that I think I spent a little too much time in my first year feeling…indignant.  There were times when I would leave class and feel little bit astounded and sometimes kind of offended by the “incivilities” that I saw.  By “incivility”, I mean small acts of what I thought of as academic impoliteness. 

There are plenty of examples, but to name a few:  students blatantly using their cell phones during lectures, a quite apparent lack of textbook reading, and the famous question after a student had been absent to class, “Did I miss anything?” These “incivilities” seemed to disregard the standards and expectations that I hold about the college environment based on my too-many-to-mention years of schooling.   

After two semesters under my belt and with some time to relax and be introspective about the year, I realized that I have no business being jaded in my first year of teaching. Also feeling indignant doesn’t do anyone any good – not the students and certainly not me. I realized that students don’t (for the most part) intend to be ill-mannered and I shouldn’t take these things personally. Our students are early in their college careers and very likely not socialized into the norms and values of academic life.  

 Instead of making assumptions that college students should really know x, y, or z, I decided it would be my new goal to dissolve this apparent mismatch of expectations. To start, I committed to the idea of being transparent about the policies and procedures and why they are the way they are. This year, when it came time to talk about the classroom etiquette, I explained to my students that my no phone policy is based on several compelling pieces of evidence – some anecdotal (students have told me that they feel distracted by others’ phones) and based in research (multitasking isn’t as effective as we thought!).   

And because my subject matter (Sociology) allows me to talk about social norms, I actually asked the students to tell me what the social norms are for the classroom. I think this reinforces the classroom standards in a way that allows the more experienced students to teach the less experienced students. 

I also explain to the students how to use the textbook, what purposes the assignments serve (what it evaluates and how it adds to their skillsets), and after learning that some students were challenged by simultaneously listening to me lecture and copying information from Power Point, how to take notes effectively.  

I guess some people might consider this “hand-holding”.  After contemplating this point, I don’t necessarily think that hand-holding is a bad thing if it helps the students develop the tools to become successful students in my classroom and beyond.  In the end, academic success is more than just teaching them the substantive aspects of our professional fields.  It’s also about promoting their achievement as learners.   

So I think it’s important to recognize that not all students are going to automatically know how to be successful learners and we have the ability to intervene with the scaffolding that may get them there. My advice is to watch for and reflect on your assumptions of student behavior and then ground yourself not in ego but in what’s pedagogically best for the students.  Does my approach help them to get from A to B? I like to believe that it has the potential to make a long-lasting impact.

DON'T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF

As the last piece of advice, I will add a simple but essential phrase for surviving in this profession, “Have compassion for yourself.” There is so much going on in your first year.  It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, unsure, and/or exhausted.  You will work really hard and you should acknowledge ON A DAILY BASIS what you’ve accomplished despite any feelings to the contrary.  What I found really helpful was connecting with other new people to occasionally decompress and remind each other about of the importance of self-compassion. 

A non-teaching friend of mine recently expressed some jealousy towards professors because we get to start over every 16 weeks.  I realized how right she is and how this provides ample opportunity for change and growth.  So relax. You’re probably not going to get it right on the first try, but you’ll have plenty of time to figure it out next semester…or the next semester…or the one after that.

Thank you.