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Reflections

Teaching Journal

As part of your community college teaching experience, I'd like for you to keep a journal. Please date & number each journal entry throughout the semester. The format and inclusiveness of the journal are up to you, but you should include commentary on the following items:

• Your preparation for teaching at GTCC and ideas or insights into how my part or others' parts in your preparation could be improved
• Your feelings about the teaching experience, before, during, and after it
• Specific commentary on your actual classroom experiences, both your successes and your failures. On a specific assignment, for example, what would you do differently next time around?
• Some thought as to the reasons for successes/failures you encounter
• Your feelings and experiences concerning classroom observations by me and your mentor
• Commentary on the teaching you observe when you visit mentor's or other faculty members' classes

Note a couple of important requirements: First, you will need to write a minimum of one journal entry a week, about a page in length. More is fine. Second, You will need to submit at least the first 5 journal entries to me electronically, via Blackboard e-mail.

Here are the steps for doing that:

1. In the Blackboard Course Site, go to "Communication." Then click on "Send e- mail."
2. Click on Send e-mail to Select/Single Users
3. Check next to my name
4. Click "Send E-Mail >>"
5. Write your journal entry & send it. I recommend that you also send a copy to yourself.

I hope the journal will function as both a record of and a stimulus to your growth as a teacher. It will be helpful to me, too, both as I prepare to improve my performance next time around and as I consider what positives I can emphasize in my formal assessment of your work here.

Please note two important items: First, what you say will be confidential. Only I will see it. Second, I expect I will request your permission to use excerpts of your journals-duly depersonalized--in my own scholarly work, as part of presentations or publications I may pursue as a result of our experience. You will have a chance formally to approve or disapprove my using the journal or parts of it in this way.

Community College Thoughts
View an example assignment that explores the milieu

Community College Thoughts Example Assignment

TA Orientation
Competency: Compare the mission/goals of the community college to those of the university system .
Assignment: Learn about Community College milieu & philosophy

To do:

1. Read George Vaughn, The Community College Story
2. Read NC CC history on the TA website
3. Attend Shelly Lutzweiler's presentation on GTCC history (item TBA)
4. Interview the following people, 1 interview per TA:
   
   
   • Bill Eversole on Tech Prep initiatives and Workforce Preparedness
   • Claire Hunter on Developmental Education programs @GTCC
   • Karen Hartsoe on GTCC business & industry liaison
   • George Fouts on CC funding & governance
   • Rankin Barnes on Ford Asset program
   • Margaret Reid on commercial art program
   • Randy Luddington on Electronics program
   • Betty Kittner on the GTCC skills lab
   • Keith Gardiner on GTCC Culinary program
   • David Reeves on EMS program
   • Pat Bungee on DisAbility Access
   • Todd DuPree on the Entertainment Technology program
   Some things you want to find out:
   
   • What the purpose of the program is and/or how the subject (e.g. cc funding) works
   • How the subject or program has evolved, from its beginnings to now
   • How the subject or program affects GTCC and/or Guilford County
   • Size and particular characteristics of the program
   • Projected future of the program or subject
5. Report to Seminar beginning 7/15 on your findings
6. Write a short essay (2 pages?) due @ seminar 7/22 which identifies what you consider 5 significant differences between the university and the community college and explains how or why they are significant. Note that if you prefer to have it so, this essay can be framed as a journal entry and will replace the required journal for the week