I need more Lecture Time

Today my students submitted their first drafts of their persuasive outlines.  More than half of the students wrote informative rather than persuasive speeches.  I am feeling anxiety about which lectures I was forced to cut this quarter. I am NOT taking furlough days but because of the performance nature of my courses I need every single lecture day I am allotted.  Even without cutting days my students need more explanation and face-to-face time with me.  There are just too many speeches too watch and not enough time for me to teach. I feel partly responsible for students poor performance on homework today.  However, they must learn to perform in larger classes just like I have to learn to teach in them. 

Class Time Running Over

September 28- Today was my first day of graded individual speeches.  My in class speech contest is designed so that the first research speech can be completed in one-class day.  Even arriving early and keeping students constantly on task my class ran 10 minutes over time.  The professor scheduled in the room after me was understandably cross and I sympathize with his position.  All my students deserved equal opportunity to speak but with 35 to get through there are enough minutes in a day.  

Making Time to Meet Students

It was nice having a building to myself and access to nice parking as most people on campus are furloughed today.   A required assignment for my class is mandatory meetings with the professor during office hours.  I am willing to experiment with pedagogy to accommodate my larger class cap but I not willing to compromise individual time with each student.  Today it took 3 hours beyond office hours to meet with every student.  I have often found in past quarter that I must stay an extra hour to make time for all my students but today even with shortened meeting times I was in my office with a line out my door for hours.  

Students on the Floor

Took class to computer lab for research assignment and had five students sitting on the floor.  I knew our largest campus computer lab only had 30 working computers. I assumed the extra 5 students could use personal laptops or share computer.  An unforeseen problem was the lack of chairs. I begged, borrowed and stole five chairs from another location in the library to save my students from spending the entire class period sitting on the floor.

The Unseen Chalkboard

Public speaking classes have rarely been scheduled in smart classrooms.  Because smart rooms are usually reserved for larger classes that absolutely need the technology.  This quarter my class was moved to DDH 106E, which has chalkboards.  I cannot reconfigure the tables because of their size and there is no place to write on the chalkboards that all students can see my writing.  When I came to the second day of lecture with overheads I found the projector was broken.  I found myself wishing for my old classroom building room that had clearly visible chalkboards; I cannot move back to that room because there are not enough seats for 35 students.   Now to lecture successfully I either need a smart classroom or a smaller class.