How I Spent My Summer Session

My summer physical anthropology course has ended, so my summer vacation has officially started. I get a few weeks of relatively less work to think about how prior classes turned out and start improving on the next semester’s version. Here are a few quick notes and lessons based on my most recent class.

• 5 Hour Energy Drink is my hero. I used it for my dissertation defense, knowing that I tap out at around 45 minutes during an oral exam. I still think that my defense was the best presentation I ever gave. Having a half bottle before my class kept me focused for my 4 hour summer lectures.
• Addressing student concerns reminded me of an article about the two types of favor askers (Burkeman, 2010). While I only ask for something when I am reasonably sure that I will get it (the guesser type), there are also people who ask for favors just to see what he or she could get. That is totally fine, but I have to remember to keep in mind that a favor being asked of me may not be rooted in an actual need.
• Asking about their favorite part of class, I was gratified to hear that the Skeletal Voltron activity was a hit. One of the full documentaries that I showed, Of Dolls & Murder, also got a few mentions.
• There was a surprise when I asked students to vote on the most confusing lecture. I expected genetics and evolution to be ranked high, but most votes went to modern primates primate/human evolution. Maybe it was because those were the most recent lectures, or it was the volume of information being presented about unfamiliar topics.
• One thing I have to work on is my leniency for student excuses for things. I tended to be very allowing in having students turn in assignments way pass the due date or missing class. There may be a personal issue involved as sometimes I feel in hindsight that I care more about late points and unexcused absences than the students care about those penalties themselves! I should keep letting the course rules do their thing in the future instead of relaxing them once the class starts.
• I had enough extra credit opportunities to move up a full grade. I noticed that the students with the lowest scores did none of them, or did not come close to the full amount. The B to low A students were the ones who did the maximum number of assignments, generally resulting in an A. I had a very skewed distribution of grades due to this trend, with few Bs compared to As and Cs.

The next semester starts in a little under a month! I look forward to a normal semester schedule instead of a hectic summer.

References

Burkeman, O. (2010, May 7). Are you an asker or a guesser? [Web article]. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/change-life-asker-guesser

Marks, S. (Director). (2012). Of Dolls & Murder [Film].