Mixed Messages
Day 19 (of 187) – September 28, 2018
I’m back home in Sechelt… even though I think this is a photo from Prince George. It’s been a crazy day so far… ranging from super awesome to super awful. I guess it’s ok to have one of those days. I am glad to be back home and to be with my family. Today, I am riddled with conflict. Mixed messages, really. On the one hand, I am offered many compliments by those in the field. It almost frightens me how nice the comments are such that it sets the bar of expectations too high. I was offered a continuing position at the university and I eagerly accepted it. I was also offered to be a part of several edu-opportunities that I am honoured and humbled to be a part of. I can’t help but be excited.
Although today was not an instructional day for me, I had the opportunity to talk to several folks in the field today via phone and face-to-face. It’s so nice to talk to people about education, to share information, and to learn something new. I feel very lucky to have people like this in my Professional Learning Community (PLC). I chatted with a couple of students via Google Hangout to clarify an assignment (and I hope I did) and yes… I got my course evaluations from SFU this afternoon. My ratings ranged from VERY GOOD to VERY POOR and “this instructor should never teach again.” Wow. That’s rough. I guess they were very clear by the end of our course that this evaluation was SUMMATIVE.
The irony is, I think this was one of the best courses I’ve taught and this is probably the worst ratings I’ve received. I am lead to a place of deep reflection, fear, and wonder. It’s so strange that one of the comments I received that I did not give any feedback yet this group disliked receiving “low marks” for each assignment they received in other classes. What I wonder about is, if they weren’t receiving any feedback, neither was I. Based on this feedback, this class wanted a rigorous Q-course, less student led learning, and more direct instruction. I did not know that at all. The formative feedback in this course was definitely not two-way. This course helped me to understand BC’s New Curriculum in a deeper way, but that learning was not reciprocated with this group of new teachers.
One comments said, “I don’t even know what environmental education is?” My response today is, Google it. The course was more than that. Some students were so beside themselves that I posted their pictures and talked about our class in my personal (aka. it’s my professional) blog. It was in my course syllabus that I would be blogging about our course and answering the same questions as they did during the course as part of being a reflective practitioner. They were welcome to do the same. I heard no complaints or concerns about that until the final evaluation. Well… I am going to take the time to remove their photos from online. This is disappointing. They are adults. Student teachers. Modelling their learning to the world. They were awesome. Their learning activities exceeded my expectations. They were living and doing environmental education that was personalized (and I had hoped more meaningful than me lecturing to them). I guess this was not the case. There were expecting something different and the formative feedback that I received during the course did not align to those in the final course evaluations.
