I'm remiss in my posting, but in my defense it's been a hectic couple of weeks. Fortunately, I've been able to take today to catch up on email, twitter, blogging, and news.
The biggest new in my world is that my class, ITCS 1600 - Computing Professionals, has started. We're just over halfway through the first team meetings. The groups are diverse; the learning community and the transfer students have very different needs and concerns.
This week's lecture was one I actually gave, and it was, as always, a mix of success and opportunities for improvement. One thing that went well was that students did respond to the idea that they are responsible for developing their identity and they seemed to understand that the class is about teaching them how a successful student operates at UNC Charlotte. I offered them an option: I would pay lots of attention to them in exchange for just $20,000, about half the difference in price between UNC Charlotte and a private school; none of them took me up on the offer. One thing that didn't go well was that I had underplanned the preparation for the blogs, the forum, and the description of the Engagement Scavenger Hunt; fortunately, my trusty TA, Ryan Marsh, was able to backfill much of this information, but the issue with student confusion over the Scavenger Hunt is concerning me. Before I run this class again, I will probably poll some students about what confused them, although I will wait to do this until they have a couple of weeks of activity. I need to make sure that students are making progress on the Scavenger Hunt, so I will rely on my TAs for reports. I really hope that we will have a high number who clock at least one hour this week.
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