On Earth, our weather can be described as "chaos in order" because no matter how small of change made, the outcome is not totally predictable. On Jupiter, the atmosphere is understood as "order in chaos" because even though it's incredibly turbulent, the "eye" has persisted for at least 300 years.
Teaching has an element of chaos as well. No matter how carefully laid the plans, the outcome is not totally predictable. Sometimes something said that seems inconsequential becomes a big deal. Other times the whole focus of the course turns out to be not as important as we first thought.
With this in mind, I'm embarking on creating online courses for my meteorology and physical geography courses at Chandler-Gilbert Community College. May the muses of good fortune and creativity smile on my endeavor!
--Dr.C
6 comments:
Beautiful imagery! :-) I love the connection between your discipline and teaching...yes, teaching is chaos; however, I wouldn't trade it in for the world.
Shelley
Welcome to the blogosphere! Once you get hooked it's hard to let go. You're a brave soul indeed to call yourself Dr. Chaos! Love your new technology tools in the classroom.
gia
If you saw the clutter in my office you'd know I'm laughing at myself.
Peter
I am a sparrow fluttering my wing tip on the spherical ball of education fall from the maddening crowd. Welcome to my world, Dr chaos.
Dr. C - I don't like chaos! (Except on my desk top.) I admit that I don't know what you mean about teaching being chaos.
As teachers we map out the semester (have to meet those competency objectives established by District, after all!), we give our students deadlines and expectations to meet, and they generally do it.
Sure, there are all kinds of situations popping up in students' lives (and teachers' lives) that add a little chaos to the mix, but the teaching itself? Not chaos in my opinion.
However, I have to admit that all of the internet tools we're being introduced to in this course seem chaotic!
Kay
Thank you all for your feedback! I find myself amazed that anybody is listening.
My "active learning" faculty growth enhancement group met this past Friday. The group leader said "instructors hate chaos! especially if they're being evaluated."
I would much sooner work with a chaotic class than "the limp, cold, dish-rag" class. The former gives me feedback of sorts to work with, the latter are like energy vampires.
My biggest fear in teaching is being unprepared. I often wake up at 3 in the morning and start prepping just to cope.
My academic training is science, so I have chapter outlines, vocabulary lists, movie discussions, sample exam questions, further resource links, lists of topics for independent research and of course, lot of slides.
In the words of Robert Burns: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.”
And that's my chaos. There is no preparation sufficient to cover every contingency. Two presentations given exactly the same receive entirely different outcomes. And of course, my desktop clutter is directly proportional to the number of commitments I've taken on for the semeser.
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