This summer I am teaching an introductory programming course for college students. It is very intensive course since we have to cramp four months of rough materials into two months. Although, the two months were very hectic I liked it. I love teaching since it involves two things that I like, interacting with many people of different backgrounds and not working in a cubical.
Although, I taught in Jordan but I learned a lot about teaching here in the US. I liked very much the teachers-students relationship. Contrary to my former believe before I came to the US, students here respect their instructors very much. I have been in the States for six years and I have never seen any student tries to disturb or make any foolish behavior in class. And this is because they learned, in schools, to respect their teachers.
To help myself improve and learn more about teaching I am going to start writing some posts that are related to teaching college students. I will write some useful tips, philosophies, and strategies of teaching I learned from other instructors, read it, or experienced it probably by chance.
Oh cool!
When I was in college I worked for the tutoring center and one quarter they recruited us to teach this introductory math course for business students with a “math disability” whatever that is. I actually had a hard time with some of these kids and I think they were misdiagnosed-they didn’t have learning disabilities, they had behavior disabilities!
Comment by asoom — August 11, 2008 @ 6:39 am |
asoom,
You are right “behavior disabilities” is more proper description for some type of students.
Comment by jaraad — August 12, 2008 @ 11:03 pm |
This is amazing, please keep up posted or maybe you could come up with series of tips on that topic
Comment by Jad — August 30, 2008 @ 1:27 pm |
Jad, I am a kind of trying to write different posts on this topic about teaching. I am glad you liked it. Thanks.
Comment by jaraad — August 30, 2008 @ 9:29 pm |
Man, While I agree with part of what you said about students in the US, I don’t think that you should over look at the attitude per se. I have been in this country for 8 years now and teaching for 5. I have had some crazy annoying students in some of my classes. I have taught in some remote places and cities. Sometimes students were surprised to have a black person standing in front of them like they had never seen one before. My first experience here was almost hell with one kid i call him like that, trying to persuade me and his classmates that it was not possible that I could be standing there teaching what I was teaching. This a middle class student type of town on the west coast. So what I’m trying to say here s that we can not generalize or stereotype people and experiences. In my country as well, while the rules are more tighter, there is a huge respect towards the teacher or professor, I regret that the respect for students in return is not always the same. Here teachers can be sued, expelled or challenged on their believes, not in many countries…
Nice topic though
Comment by Marius — September 6, 2008 @ 12:34 am |
Marius,
I am sure teaching middle class students is not as easy as teaching college students. I think there is a huge difference between teaching college students and younger students. Thanks for your insight about this subject.
Comment by aljarad — September 7, 2008 @ 2:27 am |