I try to connect personally with my students, both in and out of the classroom. I have found that a good course experience with students helps to establish me in their minds as a trusted authority, leading them to ask more questions about post-graduation plans. In most of my classes, I make part of the last class period each semester available for students to ask any question, even if unrelated to the course, and I promise to do my best to answer their questions. I hear many questions about careers or graduate school and even some personal questions about life choices that I have made. <\/p>\n
I make a special effort to identify and mentor computer science students who have an interest in graduate school, to provide them the opportunity to gain experience in performing research and writing papers. I believe that the opportunity for undergraduate students to participate in active research is an important component of their experience at ACU. Although few of them will go on to active research roles, the skills and experience learned during this time will prove valuable in many future endeavors.<\/p>\n
I am very pleased when students who have previously taken a class with me return to show me projects that they have undertaken. I have assisted several students in creating and debugging computer programs written for math and physics projects; other students show me programs that they have written because they found a problem interesting. These relationships are very rewarding.<\/p>\n
One of the most meaningful responses that I have received came from a mother (a teacher herself) whose daughter had just finished my Programming 1 course. The student is a Math Education major and had struggled but persisted in the course, ending with a moderately good grade. After final exams (but before grades were posted), I received this note:
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As a parent prepares to send their child off to college, we hope that they learn academia, but more importantly that they learn to grow as a person. <\/p>\n
Through conversations this semester, [student] continued to mention your name as someone who made a difference to her. Your class was something new for her and her first reaction was to quit and move down to CS 115. We encouraged her to persevere. She so appreciated the guidance you continued to give her and the patience you had with her as she had to dig deep and push herself to excel on something completely foreign to her. You taught her perseverance. I don't know if she will ever use programming again in her life, but I'm positive she will have to persevere over and over. Thank you for helping teach her that important skill. As she prepares to teach one day, I hope she can remember how you dealt so patiently with her and in turn show that same patience with her students.<\/p>\n
<\/tt><\/p>\n
I desire to model these qualities to all of my students. These qualities can make them successful in life beyond any career achievements. The courses students take at ACU are important and will form a foundation of technical knowledge and skills that they will employ in their careers, but the life skills they also learn during this time are more important in some ways. There are many intangible qualities and skills that cannot be taught in class but must be seen and emulated. I try every day to be a model for them of a Christian professional, content in my career and solid in my faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I try to connect personally with my students, both in and out of the classroom. I have found that a good course experience with students helps to establish me in their minds as a trusted authority, leading them to ask more questions about post-graduation plans. In most of my classes, I make part of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3371,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-224","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jdh08a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jdh08a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jdh08a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jdh08a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3371"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jdh08a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jdh08a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jdh08a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/224\/revisions\/871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/jdh08a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}