This past week in teaching has proven to be pivotal for me. Many of my students failed their mid-term while some scored perfect 100’s. It’s clear that some students just are not doing the work but my heart broke a little bit when I saw students crying after getting their tests back. I heard one woman sob, “But I studied so hard and I still failed!” I now understand that there are students who are working hard and still not grasping the key concepts.
I spent the better portion of my week creating a PowerPoint presentation to review all the key terms and ideas we’ve discussed and they’ve read about these past 6 weeks. I’ve put on hold what I was planning for this upcoming class and have decided to make half the class a review day.
It’s easy for me to forget that the knowledge I have around this topic has been building for the last 20 years. I didn’t learn it all in my first Women’s Studies class.
As I move forward in creating my spring course, a transnational feminisms course, I plan on reducing the readings and adding a PowerPoint presentation to really help solidify the material.
I was talking with a teacher this week and she gave me a great piece of advice…pick the one key idea that you want to get across to your kids each week, so that at the end of the term they have 10 key ideas that work together to create your message.
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