Is everyone this excited about their first course outline? I'm not sure why, but I'm feeling sort of giddy about it. I mean, sure, I've TA'ed before, and taught younger students for outreach and my mini-course, but this is the first full course I'll have ever taught. It's called Introduction to Computers for Arts and Social sciences, and I wrote a bit about it before.
The outline is available online on our School of Computer Science website. I wouldn't say it's 100% complete yet; I plan on finalizing it this weekend after I'm finished with the mini-course. I will also be organizing material on the course's WebCT page, and will have to link to that. I've also made up a schedule of topics and assignments separately, but I'll need to fill in the details soon and get ready for the first class.
As a bonus, I also just learned that this is not a required course for students (I thought it was). About half of the students are there because they really want to be, and the other half because it's an easy credit to fulfill their science requirement. I'm definitely happy with that!
I'll post some of my material as time goes on, and hopefully remember to record how well it went.
My first year teaching I had to teach 13 different groups of students in 8 different age groups is two different schools. Putting together a complete course outline for any of them was far outside my abilities. I was happy to survive. But the next year when I got to teach high school it was different. I was pretty happy about the first real complete course outline I did on my own though. I look forward to hearing how this course goes for you. And what you learn from it. Because trust me course outlines are where it starts and seldom where it ends. :-)
ReplyDeleteWow, that is quite the challenging first teaching assignment!! Looking back, I don't think I ever really remember getting course outlines before university, but I could be wrong...
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