This week began on Sunday because a part of the facilitation assignment that I talked about last week is due on Sundays. To be specific, it is the part in which students present the primary sources they have selected for this week’s discussion and the questions to those sources, so it is important that everything is sorted out by Sunday night before the rest of the class proceeds with the discussion on Monday and potentially creates a chain reaction of comments and submissions unrelated to the class material or timeframe. Therefore Dr. Amanda Snyder and I had to keep an eye on the discussion board on Sunday, but most of this week’s facilitators followed the instructions carefully.
So far, I have not received any tutoring requests, but Dr. Snyder had anticipated this. Previously, she said that based on her personal experience students reached out for help
after they had received their first grades. Dr. Snyder had finished grading the first major paper this class had a little over a week ago, and the next paper is due next Sunday, so I will probably receive a few questions and tutoring requests next week.
On Monday, I met with my fellow-intern Stephen over Zoom. We decided to take advantage of the time we had free from tutoring requests and to get to know each other better and find out more about the academic experiences and goals each of us had. We also discussed the educational content each of us was working on and shared some insights with each other. Stephen suggested personally introducing ourselves to the students in order to break the barrier and make them feel welcome to reach out.
This was also the week when the mid-term evaluation of my performance was due. I was very grateful for how well Dr. Snyder graded my professional behavior, which is measured on various parameters in this evaluation. Dr. Snyder also left a very positive review in the notes section specifically highlighting my progress in content creation. In addition, the structured format of this evaluation form prompted me to engage in self-reflection and think of ways to improve my performance in each of the professional behaviors listed there, for example, response to supervision.
I look forward to any new lessons the next week will bring!