Greetings from the lovely Alaska! I am enjoying my little adventure at Eagle River and I am sad to say that it will end this Friday. Anyways, I cannot believe that the semester is over, I know that I’ve been inching closer to the ending. But it is finished. I remembered that I had a severe case of sophomore blues at the beginning of my epoch. There is something I would like to share about Gallaudet University. I looked back on how my courses were and the benefits of General Studies Requirements course, which consists two professors teaching an integrated course.
When I begun my freshmen year and I learned that our class will be the first to explore the new curriculum which has GSR courses in it. I didn’t understand what GSR was for until I got my schedule. For example, First Year Seminar is GSR 101. When you register for classes you’ll see the headline to be “GSR 101” and the topic will tell you what this GSR course will cover. I have taken seven GSR courses and I have had a quite interesting experience.
The pros of having an integrated teaching environment is that you do really get most out of the course itself. Because you have two different professors who have undergo an experience of a lifetime where they fully invest in their doctrine. You hold an option of talking to one of them, in certain situations. One time I recall myself being very uncomfortable about my paper’s thesis. I decided it was best for me to ask one of my professors for an opinion because I am comfortable with her. You will also be able to get am insight of your professors’ strengths and weakness where you will become familiar with situation tactics they use. Once there was a scramble between an enraged student and one of the professor. The professor who was dealing with the angry student couldn’t understand “fast” American Sign Language. The other professor who was also hearing but is a CODA herself quietly interpreted what the angry student was saying. It was wonderful watching an actual integrated team work in action.
The concept of having two professors can be difficult because when they disagree on something, the classroom environment can become awkward. Some of the professors have different learning outcomes which makes it much more frustrating for us. Some of the professors bring up an issue which other professor strongly disagrees on, which becomes a squabble inside the classroom. Sometimes the professors do not communicate with each other where the lesson plan is lost; it can be frustrating for students because it is a waste of time. One of the few guarantees about having a GSR course is that you will get a very strict professor and a sweet one. I remember my GSR 101 professors very clearly: one was a mother-like and another was just some kind of crazy aunt! The motherly one was all about making sure that we got our life under the table. However the crazy aunt really kicked our rear end with tons of academic workload.
Overall I am glad that I enrolled Gallaudet in time they invested in the GSR courses. I feel that I do get the most out of those courses and it is not like I have this attitude where I groan and say, “I have to take this course!” I do not think that GSR course needs a major facelift but they do need to polish up some area.
Ok, I need to go back to where I was in Alaska!
Till the next time I blog,
-C