Teaching Thursday: A Semester (and a year) in Review

I’ve finally reached the end of an exhausting semester and a good and productive year. My teaching has continued to change and I continue to learn things about my students and my own approaches. Here are three things that I learned this year. 1. Classroom Contingency. When I first taught Roman history again after nearly 20 years out of the loop, the class went remarkably well. The students read voraciously and discussed things vigorously. The papers were good and the classroom environment was exciting. Last year, when I taught History 101: Western Civilization I in the spring, the class met for 75 minutes starting at 12:30. It was a dumpster fire. The students were uninterested, didn’t engage in the work, and the class basically became triage. This semester, the same Western Civilization class at the same time was remarkable. The students were engaged and excited and interested and personable. My Roman history class, in contrast, felt flat and disengaged. The students didn’t seem to…