It's been a rough couple of weeks for me for the dumbest of reasons, but hey I'm an autistic human so that's par for the course.
In October I finally got my feedback for a paper I submitted over the summer. It's been accepted subject to some changes and I read through the comments and promptly burst into tears. The reviewer suggested the authors should do X. Authors plural. And I lost it. The automatic assumption that I would have a colleague to help me with editing the task hurt me. It was like I was back at school being last to be picked for anything all over again. I wish I could say it got better at university, but of course it got worse. I was always the leftover student. The billy-no-mates who had to be assigned by the lecturer because no one who knew me wanted to be paired with me.
So I have endless sympathy with the students who hate group projects because of painful prior experience. And I try really, really hard to try to make the SM123 group project work for everyone. There is more I can do, there was an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about socialization being a key to student success and I have some thoughts I'm mulling over that. I'll write them up another day.
But damn it. It's been a rough day in a rough month. I know I shouldn't but when students vent and take it out on me when they have a difficult experience it hurts me. I don't have a thick skin. Realistically I guess I should be unsurprised that 100 students in I finally have one that is grouchy with me. I can't expect to be everyone's cup of tea. So I'm taking tomorrow off to get some perspective and do something else completely.
The perils of groupwork
It's been a rough couple of weeks for me for the dumbest of reasons, but hey I'm an autistic human so that's par for the course.
In October I finally got my feedback for a paper I submitted over the summer. It's been accepted subject to some changes and I read through the comments and promptly burst into tears. The reviewer suggested the authors should do X. Authors plural. And I lost it. The automatic assumption that I would have a colleague to help me with editing the task hurt me. It was like I was back at school being last to be picked for anything all over again. I wish I could say it got better at university, but of course it got worse. I was always the leftover student. The billy-no-mates who had to be assigned by the lecturer because no one who knew me wanted to be paired with me.
So I have endless sympathy with the students who hate group projects because of painful prior experience. And I try really, really hard to try to make the SM123 group project work for everyone. There is more I can do, there was an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about socialization being a key to student success and I have some thoughts I'm mulling over that. I'll write them up another day.
But damn it. It's been a rough day in a rough month. I know I shouldn't but when students vent and take it out on me when they have a difficult experience it hurts me. I don't have a thick skin. Realistically I guess I should be unsurprised that 100 students in I finally have one that is grouchy with me. I can't expect to be everyone's cup of tea. So I'm taking tomorrow off to get some perspective and do something else completely.