Well, as of Wednesday I finished my first University course at Carleton. I wrote a few times that I was looking forward to starting this course and that it looked very interesting and the instructor seemed very nice and helpful.
*whoops*
Wrong! The first week of class was the only good thing about the whole class. After that it all went down hill.
1. Before class started she seemed very helpful and willing to make sure that I had everything I needed to be successful in her class.
Well, that definitely fell flat. She didn’t honour my accommodations, for example, making sure I had the material ahead of time for class ust in case I needed the transcription department to put them in a format the worked for me. Instead she posted the slides up at the least right when she entered the class room. At the most maybe half a hour before class started.
2. She asked the class to give feed back on how class could be better and hold everyone’s attention.
Whoops, she didn’t really pay attention to those either. The class liked having a little lecture then a little group work. you know split up the 3 hour long class of just sitting there listening to her go on and on and on. Nope, instead she took out the group work and kept it straight lecture.
She was also reminded to not speak in all visual terms since she had a “blind” student at the very least in her class and pointing at things on the board saying, “you see this line here connects these two groups” is not very helpful. *sighs* in one ear and out the other. That made it very hard during one of the test where all the questions had to do with material that she only discussed visually. When it was pointed out after the exam I was ignored. Lovely for an instructor to do eh?
3. Speaking of ignoring a situation. My instructor assigned the class to listen to a podcast and answer some questions. Awesome, no big deal I thought at first. Come to find out that CBC is not as easy to manipulate when it comes to speech. There are some things that speech won’t tell you is on the screen. When I pointed out to the instructor that I was having problems with the podcast such as that I couldn’t pause, rewind or fast forward it, this was her response:
“Oh, the rest of the class didn’t have this problem. Maybe it’s cause you have to listen to it?”
Um, someone please explain to me how that statement makes sense.
*duh* of course I have to listen to it just like the rest of the class.
Great, the rest of the class didn’t say they had a problem with the podcast so just ignore what I tell you thanks a lot.
So after being ignored twice in two very important cases my confidence in this instructor and my willingness to want to go to this class seriously fell. How can you want to help a student when you ignore issues they tell you they are having just because the rest of the class didn’t tell you they had a problem? How is it helping a student by penalizing them on an exam when all the questions have to do with material that you discussed visually and then ignored when they asked to speak with you about the issue.
So, my first class, Childhood in the Global Context at Carleton didn’t go as I hoped it would. I most likely will take this class again, but maybe in the winter term. The course itself seems very interesting and I feel I could actually learn a lot from it if the instructor was willing to actually honour disability accommodations and not ignore the students. The instructor will also be different and it’s not so intense like summer classes. Not to mention this program, “Child Studies” is the program that I’ve been looking for like forever. It could finally get me going in the direction I want, working with children with disabilities.
I won’t let this colour my thoughts on my next class which starts on July 7th, but I do hope it goes much better than the one I just finished. He’s been helpful just like my last instructor and see where that got me, *sighs*