I sat down yesterday in the backyard, and found myself revamping the syllabus. Why do professors do such things? Behind the scenes, I think we like to think we're good tinkerers. Or, at least, that tinkering is important.
Moving a syllabus used in a regular semester to a 4-week summer session takes some adaptation. Plus, I'm going from 20-25 students down to a half-dozen. Constraints and opportunities...and Syllabus 1.0 wasn't taking full notice and advantage. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
No coincidence that I finished Henry Jenkins' CONVERGENCE CULTURE for 396 prep yesterday...Jenkins gestures towards media literacy, and in particular the fostering of a more participatory media culture, as his key pedagogical issue. Reading him this month (both this and FANS, GAMERS & BLOGGERS) pushed me to have students make blogs like this. But with a class of six, I realize I can bring in some additional production stuff the textbook offers and still keep it managable.
So a few chapters in theory are off, a whole week on media production practices is on, and a third chapter of media debates (docs & reality tv) are also now in the mix.
Plus, time-management issues gesture towards in-class screenings. Mr Ledezma would be proud of me.
Now if I could only get someone to post a comment....
3 comments:
My blog is not2original.blogspot.com .
I think professors tend to tourture themselves in order to avoid the feeling they are tourturing their students, but in the end students always 'hem & haw!!! its a viscous cycle!
You can always ignore the syllabus and give us all A's! haha Just kidding. I actually like the smaller class size. Better discussions and an overall intimate envoirnment. And I must say, I wasn't too sure about this Blog idea, but I actually like it! It works out well and allows you to sort of vent and express whatever you want to talk about! HaHa, see you Monday!
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