Teaching at the Community College: Advice from a Senior Faculty Member
By Andrea Broomfield
It takes time, practice, failures, collegial support, and deliberate work towards professional development to become an effective professor anywhere, but particularly at a community college. While the above observation might seem obvious to senior faculty, it is likely not to those new to the community college and to teaching in general. The most important advice we can offer a new professor is to be kind to yourself and know that yes, there will indeed be difficult days, a particularly difficult class of students, and sometimes--although we hope rarely--a particularly challenging semester. After all, for professors teaching courses in our department’s writing sequence, they must prepare themselves to work with students of widely different abilities who enter the classroom often with an array of competing priorities and difficulties, including one or more of the following: transportation problems, outside work (often 40 hours or more a week), childcare issues, aging and/or dependent parents, a sudden loss of employment and/or change to work schedule, poor high-school preparation, JCCC academic probation, Access issues, and/or problems with study skills and note-taking. Rare indeed is a class of traditional college-age, college-ready students carrying a 15- or 16-credit-hour load with no other responsibilities other than being a college student. What, then, is one to do? The remainder of this essay offers strategies and resources to help make your transition less painful.
1. We have your back. We are going to do what we can to support you and prop you up when you confront a particularly challenging class or student (or two or three). Work with your mentor, chair, dean, your Peer Review Committee, and/or your Adjunct Facilitator. Do not attempt to solve complex problems on your own. Reach out to us. It takes time to learn how to be both empathetic and still hold to the rules you lay down in your course policies and on your syllabus. It takes time to learn when you should bend a rule--and how to bend a rule. It takes time to become both mentor to students as well as evaluator of students. And, it takes time to get to know the distinctive culture of JCCC. We know that. We are there to help you with this process.
2. Maintain high expectations for your students. Certainly, that is what our department expects of you. As the Chapters in this English Department Guide make clear, professors are expected to assign a lot of academic writing and reading, to abide by the Department’s “Grading Rationale” for major writing assignments, and to commit time to thoughtful grading as well as course preparation (see Chapter VII: Nuts and Bolts, for the “Grading Rationale”). Following any given course’s “Course Objectives” is not suggested, it is required, and ensuring that your students understand that you, the professor, are legally bound to fulfill the “Course Objectives” is one way of justifying academic rigor in your classes.
Take at least one class period early in the semester to have students “grade” a sample essay to help them understand the “Grading Rationale” and how it fits with your own grading standards. Let students from day one begin to internalize what an “A” on an essay actually means (A’s are exceptional), or what a “C” means (the work meets the requirements, nothing more--but also nothing less). Explicitly point out on major assignments what your objectives are and how they correlate with the “Course Objectives” on your syllabus. Such conversation will help students understand your expectations and the work required to meet them. Offering written feedback on essays that both justifies the grade but also offers constructive advice on how to improve in one or two categories, and offering a revision opportunity can help students meet your expectations.
3. Lead students to resources, but be cautious about bending your rules. Students will struggle, and our college is prepared to help them in any way possible. Knowing where to direct a student can help save that student’s GPA, help keep that student coming to class on time, or in some circumstances, it can literally save a student’s life. However, avoid making special accommodations for students that fly in the face of your stated rules and expectations. To do so is to invite trouble, including legal. Ensure that your rules and penalties for things such as late work are ones that you can live with. Otherwise, you are obligated to give everyone the same breaks as those who are asking for special treatment. It is wise to have a written policy that explains when and why an exception to the rules might be made. For example, under “Attendance” you might explain that if a student is involved in a medical emergency (a serious car wreck, for example), it is the student’s responsibility to notify the professor immediately “as special accommodations might be possible in extreme circumstances.” Beyond the Writing Center and other resource centers on campus to help students with their academic needs, consult the links below to direct students if they ask you for help with issues that are not directly related to your course’s content:
Academic Counseling and Advising
Financial Aid, Access Services, Enrollment
Domestic Violence and Stalking
Child Care Access Fund Scholarships
Also realize that if you begin a new message in Outlook and type “Early Alert” in the “To” bar, your email will go to JCCC faculty and staff with expertise in all the areas listed above, plus. Ask the student’s permission to issue an “Early Alert”, giving her/his full name, an explanation of the student’s need, and the best way that the student can be reached. Within 24 hours, someone will reach out to the student.
4. Technology can be your best friend. Prior to the explosion of online and hybrid courses, a lot of community college students had no choice but to drive to JCCC, sit in a face-to-face class, and try their best (sometimes with little avail) to arrange for consistent transportation and work shifts that fit with their class schedule. This lack of option could put an undue burden on the professor to try and accommodate a multitude of issues facing the students due to their personal circumstances. This is less the case today. If you teach a face-to-face section, state in your course policies that the student has deliberately chosen a face-to-face configuration, and as such, the student is obligated to be in class, on time, every class period barring illness, a sanctioned school event, or religious observance. Likewise, guide students towards a course configuration that might better suit their needs if your class does not. The department offers online courses, self-paced courses, and late-start courses for our required writing sequence (See Maureen Fitzpatrick’s essay, “Course Delivery Options” in the EPG). Apprising students of their options will help you justify and keep to your attendance and tardiness policy for all the courses you teach.
5. Beg, borrow, and steal. Our colleagues have many creative ways to teach the basics, well beyond whatever you might find in the instructor’s edition of your textbook, so just ask them for model assignments, feedback on yours, and various strategies. Furthermore, the librarians are eager to help you with assignments that play on research skills and projects. Outside of the department, the Office of Faculty Development likewise maintains a library of sources, electronic and hard copy. Professional Development Days that precede the fall and spring semesters work like a conference, with panels and presentations, round-tables and Q & As on a number of pedagogical topics as well as those that address the culture at JCCC specifically.
Our department is committed to your professional growth. We understand that it can become tedious to teach entry-level general education courses semester after semester, and so the college goes to lengths to offer you ways to reinvigorate tired curriculum, develop new areas of expertise, attend conferences both in your academic specialty and for pedagogy, as well as offer you internal awards and grants, including for adjunct and full-time faculty alike. Again, to see a list of what is on offer, please visit our Faculty Development website.
6. Take pleasure in the contribution you are making to transform students’ lives. Many of your colleagues would not trade their position here for any other option, community college or otherwise. We experience a deep satisfaction because we witness first-hand the vital role we play as we help turn our students into confident critical thinkers and writers--not to mention respected thought-leaders, published authors, government officials, chefs, peacemakers, police officers, teachers, computer engineers, and nurses (among other professions). The writing classroom is an incubator, the place where we teach often eager (but sometimes frightened) students the power of words and how to leverage words. We touch the lives of almost every student who comes through the college doors, no matter if they plan to become a welder or a lab technician or transfer to a four-year university. As a result, we experience firsthand how teaching a student to communicate through writing pays off. Not many professions offer its members such satisfaction in watching that transformation. We know that you, too, will experience that satisfaction as you join us in our mission, worth repeating: “The English Department’s mission is to teach effective communication with an emphasis on improved writing, reading, verbal, and interpretive skills; to encourage critical thinking and information-seeking from both primary and secondary sources (including online); to promote a broadened world view through the study of literature; and to foster collaborative learning and the use of computers as a resource. In fostering these skills and attitudes, the department fulfills the four aims of general education: development of a point of view, acquisition of essential knowledge, adherence to important principles, and development of skills or competencies.”