New Classes Started Monday

I have about 28 students in each of three classes. About half will either drop or not show up this first week. The classes are only three weeks so DONE by Christmas YAY!!!

This is a short academic integrity course. 90% of the students are in the class because they plagiarized on a paper in a previous course. They cannot take any further academic courses until they pass this course.

About 3/4 are new undergrads. The rest are graduate students. About 10% of the students are taking the course by choice because they (1) need a single credit this term or (2) they just want to learn more about how to avoid plagiarism.

So I've got students all over the place in terms of writing and critical thinking abilities. The brand new undergrads are something else. They don't use punctuation, or capital letters, or paragraphs, or decent grammar. Frankly, those types are a lost cause. They won't pass this course and they will most likely drop out of school.

Then there are students like that who take this class multiple times. They also take the remedial writing course multiple times. They are determined to learn and, for the most part, they do and eventually go on to take academic courses. With that kind of determination, they generally succeed in the academic goals.

So this term, I'm fortunate to have graduate teaching assistants in all three classes. It's a new program at this university and these TAs only work in the courses in the Student Success Center program. I am just THRILLED to have these ladies in my classes.

These students need SO much help and there's just so much of ME to go around. So it's wonderful that I have a helper in each class to take on some of the individual assistance that these students need. I'm anxious to see if the pass rate is higher this term with the TAs than in previous terms without the extra support for the students.

So everything's going along nicely with my teaching. My other grad course ends the Sunday before Christmas, too, so I have NO classes over the holidays for the first time in years. My undergrad class at the other school ends next week. And I won't be teaching for them any longer. After 6 years with them, the original director left, and things have totally gone to crap since then. A lot of my online teaching colleagues are leaving the school. The hassles are not worth the time or trouble.

Not sure yet about traveling over the holidays. If we end up getting a new RV that I can drive, then I'll most likely put off my long trip to TX until after the first of the year and then head out by myself. DH and I will take the new RV out for a short trip over the holidays (IF we get one in the next couple of weeks). A private sale right here in town could work out that way! We'll see how it goes.