Betsy McCall Teaching Portfolio - Baker College Online Winter 2008

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Electronic Teaching Portfolio

Baker College Online, Winter 2009

You can visit the course pages here.

Percent agreement
	Winter 1		Winter 2
	Eng 101	Eng 101	Eng 101	Eng 101

See file for Winter 2.

Summary and Reflections:
This was the first term that I taught this course for Baker, and it was right after the course was redesigned, so even though I'd observed the course before, things were different enough. I especially enjoyed the critical thinking side of the course. The first term was a bit tough, and for many of them, it was their first online course, but the second term I was able to prepare some look-ahead emails to help keep more of the students on track with the material. I still could certainly tweak things and still improve, but that is per usual. I also had some issues with time management as I fell behind a couple weeks and got grades returned later than I should have. Grading English papers take a long time and I really needed to get ahead, but since I was always behind, that was tough. I got some good feedback from the Assistant Dean about the course:

I was going through my normal routine of course evaluations and was quite impressed with the feedback you are providing students in both the Grade Center and Private Feedback area of your English course! Good job! This is part and parcel of what constitutes as formative instruction and feedback. ... I am excited by the fact that you are teaching this course! - Tia Chaudrey, in an email dated 19 March 2009.

Student Comments:

I just wanted to say thank you very much! I enjoyed your class, and I really enjoyed your teaching style. I especially liked that you would post about things that you struggled with while learning, and things that you still struggle with. It made it easier to accept my own flaws. I hope to have you as an instructor again.

Thanks for your help during this class. I do feel that I learned alot and made great improvements with my writing skills.

First I would like to say thank you. I have learned a lot more from you than I had in this course my first time around with this class. You actually interacted with us which helped to understand things better.

I feel like I learn much more from the harder classes. When the class is too easy it feels like you really don't have to try to do well. This class you must try hard! I think you are a great teacher, at first I thought you were pretty tough and then I reminded myself... I'm in college. It's the easy teachers that make classes like this even harder because you are not fully prepared.

a big thank you too Ms. Mccall for being a great teacher.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have a new confidence about my ability to think critically and to write at a higher quality level than before. I have learned so much from the Writer's Brief Handbook and plan to leave it at work to use there. I can look back on past emails and business correspondence and notice the improvement. It's amazing what can be accomplished in only 6 weeks. Thank you, Ms. Betsy, for your contribution in making me a better thinker and writer.

I can say that I have a better understanding and I can say that I have learned some new parts to old "tools" if you will that were taught to me long ago. Some of these new things made it seem easier with certain things. So thank you Ms. McCall for everything.