I’m beginning to understand the concept of working smart rather than working hard and so approaching the start of Teaching Block 2, I have two resolutions.
The first is to stay ahead of the reading schedule, particularly for the Ancient History modules I have elected to take this term: Comedy, Epic and Hellenistic World. I tend to find that I have more of a clue of what is going on in lectures if I have actually prepared in advance and have questions ready to ask. Something I learnt last term was that lectures, though perceived initially by new students as passive reception of information transcribed in short hand onto paper or screens, require you to intellectually engage with your professor in order for them to have the desired effect. A meet-in-the-middle type arrangement if you will. That’s not to say I’ve entirely neglected reading. I simply think it’s an area that needs a tad bit of improvement. My motif therefore is that any work you do now lightens the burden later.
My second resolution is to go out and get more detailed essay feedback from my tutors in person. Feedback for essays unsurprisingly has no formula and as a consequence is varied in the level of detail from tutor to tutor depending on what they feel you need to hear and of course the time they have per script. For one essay I received five hundred words of advice and for another I received five. Rather than complain at the lack of continuity however I am reminded at this point that my tutors continually stress that they would like us to take advantage of the timetabled hours they dedicate to having their office doors open so that we might approach them with issues or questions. I imagine that they wouldn’t mind me asking them to elaborate on feedback, they are after all the experts on subjects I am merely trying to grapple the basics of.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
– Grace
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