After 5 semesters of teaching, I still feel compelled to tell anyone who will listen how the distracted, disengaged student has a profoundly negative effect on my teaching experience. After 5 semesters, it seems like I should have moved on. Reflecting on why I feel so compelled to share this negative point, I can only think there is some subconscious hope that everyone who hears me will go out and coach all the college students in their life to not be distracted as they move through life and to be engaged in those endeavors worthy of their attention. My class being worthy, of course.
As I have sought advice on how to move past this annoyance, the consensus advice is to focus on the engaged students who care and dismiss those distracted, disengaged students. However, this advice does not strike the right chord and I find myself wanting to bring everyone along and not leave a student behind. Another line of thinking is to just focus on delivering the course and let the students consume the course to the degree they wish, which I am unsure is a recipe for success either.
This past semester I did try some new teaching techniques. I recorded a couple key concepts and had students watch the videos before class. I thought of this as embracing TikTok. I also had a survey tool employed for students to rate other group members’ engagement. These led to some marginal improvements. I will continue to tweak the delivery to see where it goes and maybe the joy of teaching at some point will surpass the annoyance of the distracted, disengaged student.
On a final note, I did get a real boost by participating in the graduation ceremony. As an adjunct, I would not typically be invited to the stage, but many faculty had conflicts and they asked if I would robe up. It was a much more powerful experience than I expected. The ceremony started by the faculty creating a gauntlet for the students to walk through. High-fiving and fist bumping many past students was exciting. The student and commencement speakers were both inspirational. Seeing many of my students walking across the stage completely lit up with excitement was great to see - they did have a pulse.
