Spring term reflection 2

This term I had a much better faculty partner than in the previous term. I also really enjoyed the subject; Archeology. It was very different teaching a class oriented towards quantitative data analysis, rather than just a humanities research paper. Many of the mentor sessions were spent as Archeology labs, rather than the normal community-building sessions. To make sure the sessions would remain cohesive, however, I had the students give speeches to each other during the mentor sessions. On the first day, each student give a three minute speech about themselves, than in week eight they gave a speech about their major. I discovered two things about my students that I did not expect. First, speeches are much less traumatic if the students have almost no prior warning. All the students gave great speeches on the first day with very little preparation. In the eighth week however, the students found the speeches a bit painful and many did not even show up to give them. Apparently the combination of nervousness and no significant grade weight to the speeches equals a luke warm attitude. Second, students like to talk about themselves much more than I expected they would, but were much less interested in defended their interests to fellow students.