Olds Dog Can Learn New Tricks

So, we're at the back end of this first course on teaching, or rather improving one's teaching style and there's some expectation that we take what we're doing in class this week and reflect upon it in the context of what we've learned.  Upon reflection, the biggest benefit to me this week was utilizing BOPPPS in at least some of lectures, or rather as a framework or wellspring from which to build my lectures that day.  It is surprising how much more fulfilling it can be...for me for sure, and one would hope for at least a portion of my tender charges in the classroom...there's a certain more orderliness that I now rely upon, perhaps weirdly, in both a pre- and a post-delivery manner.  Things also seem a little less manic but as with change in anything, and as the saying goes,'Rome wasn't built in a day,' expectations also need to be built realistically too.

Why do I say this?  An example.  I am manic, my delivery is often manic; fast-paced and active would be the minimum I would suggest as descriptors for what I thought was the former me-in-the-classroom.  Until today...one single issue pinpointed that I ain't there yet, may never be, but at least if recognition is part of the solution, then at least I'm part way there.  The example?  The proverbial rhetorical question.  In other words, we often ask the question, quite typically already knowing the answer, but in my case, there's never much of a pause between Q&A...as in ever. In my hurry to get things done, to cross off the coverage of item on the list, to NOT let it gets in the way of progress and perhaps, I just don't listen.  I think I do, but I suspect that I also sometimes don't.

Half way through a difficult topic today, I realized that the gap, the space, the void, the silent hesitation between Q&A was quite simply non-existent.  I know that this is a problem, my colleagues brought this up specifically in my demo teaching moment in this course, yet here I was back to my old tricks again.  You know what I did?  I adjusted.  Didn't take much, just some realization  that I'd lapsed.  And the strangest thing?  The students noticed immediately when the gap became self-evident.  I'd like to think that more students gave answers or participated because of the lapse, but what I did notice was that they paid more attention.  One student, from her reaction, I swear thought I was going to get angry or say something to try and motivate folks...of course I wasn't and didn't, but that void, that 'hole' caught them off-guard and at least had them paying much more attention to what I was saying...it's really as easy as counting...One thousand and one, one thousand and two.  A pause.  Magic.