A bad habit: Using other teachers for feedback
I've realized a bad habit of mine. I often turn to my partner, also a college instructor, and say the following: "Does this make sense to you?" Inevitably, I then show him an assignment or a set of instructions, and usually, he says, "Yeah, that's totally clear." The problem, of course, is that my classes are populated not by English-major professors but by just-starting college students. Things that click for me, or for C, do not automatically come across very clearly for my students. One of the ways one of my departments has proposed to combat this trouble is to allow/encourage teachers to send their syllabi and assignments to another faculty member with some experience in "grade leveling." The idea is that she'll read your papers and tell you what "level" they're written at. I like this idea, in a way, and I did send my papers off (though did not receive a response), but I also think it may, again, be a circular, insular process. Far better, probably, would be to hand out syllabi and let students edit and reword them (without changing the content) until they make sense to them. Oh. Hey. First day activity?