{"id":19373,"date":"2016-11-09T09:10:02","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T14:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/edc\/?p=19373"},"modified":"2021-08-13T10:11:27","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T14:11:27","slug":"blog-month-novemblah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2016\/blog-month-novemblah\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog: The month of \u201cNovemblah\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Claudia Buttera, Lab Coordinator, Department of Biology <\/em><\/p>\n

November can be a tough month to get through. It is dark when I get up in the morning, and it\u2019s getting darker and darker when I leave campus to head home. I look out my window to see that strong northerly winds and drenching rains have unapologetically stripped away all the beautiful colourful leaves from the trees, leaving behind somber, wet, greyish limbs that seem drained of life. Now seven weeks into the term, like the trees, I have lost the nice colour of summer from my face, my energetic stroll of September to my undergrad student lab has now become a deliberate, sometimes sluggish journey, and overall, I am feeling drained of enthusiasm. I call it \u201cNovemblah.\u201d<\/p>\n

The paragraph above could apply equally to myself, the TAs that work in my labs or the undergraduate students in those same labs right now. It\u2019s not just the weather, it\u2019s that we\u2019re at a point during the term where the gloss of the start of the year has dulled and the \u2018light\u2019 at the end of term tunnel is still too far to see, where the number of things that need to get done seems to be growing exponentially and where we begin questioning the value of our investment (time or otherwise) based on the \u2018returns\u2019 we are seeing.<\/p>\n

This week has been a long week of marking lab tests for myself and the TAs that I work with. Long, because there are many of them to mark but also because students are not doing nearly as well as expected. Feeling frustrated and disillusioned after we completed the marking, one of the TAs said to me, \u201cIt makes me feel like I am not doing my job well.\u201d And I could see his point. After five sessions of marking, the wind had gone from my sails as well.<\/p>\n

An effective teaching and learning relationship works on the assumption that both parties involved – learners and educators – are equally invested (head, hands, heart) in the success of the venture. It follows then, that when students don\u2019t do well, we may question our own performance as an educator even if we know that the assumption of equal investment isn\u2019t always the case. What that TA and I were both experiencing was that poor student performance not only affects student grades, attitude and motivation, it can affect our own motivation, attitude and enthusiasm as educators, leaving us feeling deflated and frustrated. This of course is not a good thing for anyone and it is a time when we must step back and regroup as educators.<\/p>\n

On average, the month of November is perhaps the most grey, wet, dark month of the year with no long weekends at all, and if we focused on these dreary facts, November easily lives up to its lackluster reputation. BUT, there are absolutely beautiful days in November (Wed. Nov. 2, 2016 was warm, sunny and oh, so nice) and there are things we can do to turn the tables around on the gloom. I\u2019ve noticed that in November, I shop for new clothes more than any other month of the year, I always get a fresh haircut within the first week of November and I start looking into winter holiday getaways. All of these are coping mechanisms that inject positivity and help make this time of year less arduous.<\/p>\n

We can and should take the same approach with our teaching because it is at this time of year in particular, when students are themselves feeling \u201cNovemblah,\u201d that they need a motivated, strong and enthusiastic team of educators to coach them towards that finish line that is the end of term. As there are sunny days in November, there are absolutely great students in our labs and classrooms who deserve our continued enthusiastic selves and there are others who aren\u2019t doing great but may be motivated to do better if they see continued energy from our end.<\/p>\n

So, bring on the last five weeks of term! I have prepared a fresh new deck of slides and material for the lab, the TAs are once again ready to roll and I have a fabulous new pair of boots and a fresh cool haircut. These last five weeks are going to fly by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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