Another semester of teaching as an adjunct professor is coming to a close. Sigh.

Of relief.

Of satisfaction.

Of peace.

I love teaching. I especially love teaching at the collegiate level and online. Online students tend to be older, than traditional on-campus students, and full of life, experiences, and desire to learn. This was my first term teaching Child and Family Advocacy for Brigham Young University-Idaho. It was a long semester and a very busy, but a delightful experience!

A few things I learned:

1. Online students are BUSY. They tend to have families, jobs, volunteer work, aging parents, spousal concerns, and otherwise full schedules.
2. Learning online is hard and students tend to view their instructors as dictators with little soul or mercy. (Having been an online student myself for two undergrad and two graduate years, I should have learned this earlier, alas it took being the soulless dictator for the message to really sink in).
3. A little understanding, or a quick email, goes a long ways.
4. College is just as much about learning to communicate effectively as it is about content mastery.
5. Working from home is wonderful. And awful.

Overall, I can’t wait for next semester! And I also hope next semester never comes :). Life is full of paradoxes, is it not?

For now, I am content to finish reading the papers my students are submitting for our final exam, provide grades, and work through my reading stack in preparation for next semester. Oh, and I need to make a plan for next year of homeschool. Everyone in my family is talking about their school start dates, and I’m over here thinking about napping ever day for the next sixty days to make up for all my early-morning grading the last three months.

Happy summer!