Christie's Reading Notes #1

I must admit I prefer Lang’s text to Davis because I can connect with the informal way in which he writes compared with a more standardized Davis text. Perhaps this is a problem that I will not encounter for some time given that I am fairly close in age to the students I will be teaching but when Lang mentions technology and how it has changed so much I am concerned with how as I age I will lose the capability to connect with my students. I do not use twitter, facebook and I do not blog so already I am behind the technological curve even with the students today that I interact with. The students are for the most part the same age 19-24 give or take a few nontraditional students yet I am getting older. I am concerned with how an older professor is able to connect with students who are quite a bit younger. I feel that this might be a barrier and a challenge for an older professor similar to how youth can also be a challenge.

Lang mentions that the use of blackboard is helpful to build a community. In my experience with blackboard and having to post threads and responses it felt very cold to me, it created the opposite of a community. The class was social inequalities and some of the material was sensitive in nature. Many of the students were willing to post some very opinionated statements on blackboard but refused to really discuss them in class. Instead of creating a community it seemed to give people the freedom to write whatever they wanted with little regard for what they were actually saying. I appreciate that using blackboard gives people a voice that they do not feel they have in class but I also feel that students need to be accountable for what they have said. I felt that blackboard created more of a barrier than a community. It seems that with all of the social media sites people are allowed to post whatever they wish with little consequences and that scares me if the material is sensitive in nature. I am curious to see if any of you have had this similar experience. Also how do you penalize a student who is disrespectful in a discussion or post such as this?

In the Davis readings I found two ideas to be of interest to me for further discussion teaching a course you are not comfortable with and developing the content. I cannot imagine being a new professor and then being asked to teach a course you are not very familiar with, talk about daunting. Not only would I be nervous but to try to establish what content to include in the course would seem impossible. The Davis book mentions consulting a department curriculum for the course, this might be an ignorant question but does every course a department offers have a predetermined curriculum to follow? Is it possible to develop your own class or is that something you have to propose to a department? Lastly if you are really feeling uncomfortable with teaching a class that you unfamiliar with is there any flexibility or are you just stuck with teaching it?