Lecture Writing

I subbed for a professor last week. It was a topic I know but hadn't written a lecture on before. I had really forgotten how long it takes to write up a lecture, especially if you add PowerPoint to it. I think the lecture went okay. It was a smaller class than I'm used to, and in a smaller classroom too. There will be a test question from my lecture, so hopefully most of the class was actually there. Most of the students seemed to pay attention, and a few asked questions, but I did notice the usual sleeper in the back. A friend of mine mentioned that he'd kind of gone off on his class last semester when a lot of people weren't paying attention. He rather loudly explained how many hours it takes to prepare each lecture and how the least they could do is pay attention.

I don't think most students realize how much time it takes to prepare for a class. Especially as a teaching assistant, I work my ass off. I'm taking classes and teaching classes and it's a lot of work. I agree with my friend that at least the students could pay attention. In an interesting side note, I read an AAUP article that mentioned a study showing that there was higher student attrition when freshmen classes were taught by part-time adjuncts professors. But it was "normal" when full-time professors OR graduate students taught the class.