54 Making note of changes
How did you digest the experience and make note of changes you’d like to make?
BF: The student evaluations helped, although I didn’t read them right away (never do—leave yourself some time to relax and reset after the term!). But given that I’ve been teaching for a while, and that I was encouraging students to reflect on their work all the way through, I did that as well and made notes on the rubrics, assignment sheets, etc. about what needed to be improved, clarified, etc. I also learned MS Teams hates me, so I’ve made a note to avoid it where possible if I ever find myself teaching online again. I would probably put a few more of the synchronous lectures in if I had to do it again, because I found I missed even that little sense of a live-class environment.
EG: I also annotated my course documents (syllabus, rubrics) with changes I would make, and I tried to keep track of readings that students identified as particularly rewarding, complex, and so on. I still do this, well after the term has finished—teaching work is deeply iterative, and will continue to be altered and enriched as your own research and experience develops.
Also, in a meeting with my supervisory committee after my teaching term, we discussed having my supervisor observe one or two of my lecture recordings so that she could write an informed letter of reference for my teaching portfolio. So, in non-remote years, you may want to plan this in advance!