01/27: One Week Down...

OK, first week down and so far, so good. My two face-to-face classes are going GREAT. The Advertising/Promotions class increased 25% after day one and the Prof. Comm. class is over capacity (which stinks but...) however, the students responded well to my "rules":

1. Get a study buddy and ask that person before asking me (i.e. missed notes, "confusion" over assignments, etc.)
2. Participate in class discussions if you want an A
3. No late assignments
4. Etc. and more of the same

One chick was cracking up during my "welcome" speech and I stopped, "Uh...are you horrified or just happy?" She laughed and said, "I'm so excited...this is the way classes are supposed to be!" A good omen, I suppose. She was still there on Thursday so I guess she meant it.

It is exhausting, though. I should work out beforehand. The jumping around, the energy, the enthusiasm in a good lecture. No wonder so many instructors resort to the old lecture blah-blah. It's hard to be entertaining and educational.

My online course is another story. There is always ONE class a semester that sucks and this one takes the goose egg. Either I scared the heck out of these students and they all dropped (save two) or they are the one class that I seem to get every semester that is full of lazy "stupents" who haven't logged in...even though I have emailed and posted a dozen times that they need to log, read, post, etc. What the heck do I do if I'm down to two students? That's impossible in the online environment! It's basically an independent study which make the next 15 weeks drag on...

The other sucky thing is that my Ad/Promo class is too similar to other courses these students have done. It's going to be hard to differentiate since the other classes have used my cool project: develop an entire advertising and promotional campaign for a product (including samples of commercials, radio, promotional partnerships, etc.). Well, Principles of Marketing, Principles of Advertising, and (get this one) Small Group Communication used the same friggin' project. OK, I get Principles of Advertising but Small Group Communication? Come on! Project thief! And Principles of Marketing...that's rather aggressive for a introductory course. Now I'm sending this group off to interview advertising agencies and (hopefully) meet with the advertising department of a local NYC radio station. However, this is more work for me because I have to re-write my course to bring it up a notch. If someone steals THIS from me, I'll just throw my hands up in defeat...!