Well, I am working as an assistant professor in computer science at one of state universities in Bangkok. Six months ago I was nominated by my colleagues to become the BSc.(Computer Science -- English Program) Chairperson. So now my day job besides teaching, I also have to run the BSc. program which has about 300 young Thai teenager students. It is not so easy. I do love to work my heart out to make sure the students have good learning experiences, graduate well, and get great job in Thai IT sector. However, I am not a manager type person; I am more of an artist, passionate and very emotional (at times). It is a challenging job for me to try to motivate the students. I told them many time "Motivation is not available for sales; you have to find it yourself". Some students are highly motivated but a lot of them also low-motivates and sometimes get in trouble of failing a class or the worst, on the verge of probation. There are a lot of good moments in my career. Following pictures show one of my artificial intelligence class, which they make computer games and compete with other groups in class. We all do have fun for that day. I also let the class critiques each group graphic user interface. So they gets the feedback from their peers about their design. I also get to use my art skills to comments on their game user interface design too, as you shall see in one of the pic.
The same day we had game competition, in the afternoon, I invited our successful alumnis to give a career prep. talk to the current students. But that very same day, at half day I got a STUPID letter from other lecturer of other school sending to my dean commenting on how bad of the "dress-code" that some of my CS students had violate.... Yes, "dress-code"!!! Excuse me !!! I am trying to make sure they are motivated to learn and graduate well; and someone actually pettition a formal letter to my dean to subotage my program for a few students dress-code violation... This really hurt my feeling. However, thanks goodness that at the end of the day, I could get over this annoying letter with the help of talking to my good students. What a day !!
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2 comments:
You look like you connect well with your students! Having been a teacher for over 30 years I found that some people tend to think that if you are the teacher then you are responsible for everything that your students do, say, wear, etc. They have so many influences that are not under our control.
Thank you Joan for the veteran teaching comment. I will remember your words.
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