Re: Physiology lab. [HAPP-L]

[Alice Mills <amills@xxxxxxx>]

I echo these concerns, twice having been the new instructor (not adjunct,
but uninformed).  At my first school, no A&P lab teacher who had
been there longer than I ever seemed to think they should volunteer info
(how would I even know what to ask, overwhelmed as I was with writing new
lectures too, and never having taken human A&P as a student) - in
fact, I didn't teach in the same lab as everyone else, so all the
materials had to be carted down to the other room, while another A&P
section was in session, and I didn't know what materials we had, we
didn't have enough for 2 sections, I assumed the students were required
to know everything in a given chapter, etc.  It was a nightmare for
me and the students.  When I became one of the 'senior' staff, I
went out of my way to help the new folks, adjunct or otherwise.  I
didn't want to seem like a micromanager, but I wanted them to know our
inventory (which I wrote up), what could be left out and what should be
locked up, where things belong, how equipment works, and as much
standardization of lab exercises as possible.

Then I relocated and though I am now the sole A&P teacher, everyone
helps themselves to my lab stuff - I'm still discovering lab supplies
after a full year, that I didn't know were "mine."  I
ordered expensive micr. slides that I needn't have ordered.  It's
never easy!  I was a good friend with one of our adjuncts, and she
would applaud the comment that sometimes the full-timers are
worthless!

At 11:28 AM 1/22/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> Sorry
> that you feel "We have tried adjuncts, but most are more trouble
> than they are worth" have you tried explaining what is expected and
> where to find materials (or even that the materials exist)! Did you hire
> adjuncts with a proper background or just a warm body? Having taught both
> full and part time for more years than I care to count I know that
> whenever more than one person teaches in a lab, a good deal of
> coordination must occur. Unfortunately no one is born knowing where the
> other 2,3,4...n people that also teach in the lab tend to put stuff. It
> takes a few years of teaching with others to know how to share a lab
> successfully. Many new adjuncts make up in enthusiasm what they may lack
> in procedures. After a few semesters of not being able to find things or
> hearing about them after they've covered that material tends to really
> dampen the enthusiasm. I have found over the years (none currently at
> least) that some of the full! timers I've taught with were also more
> trouble than they were worth! 
>
> Leslie Lichtenstein 
> Massasoit Community College 
> One Massasoit Blvd. 
> Brockton, MA 03203 
> llichtenstein@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dr. Alice Mills
Dept. of Biological Sciences
University of Tennessee at Martin
Martin, TN  38238
(731) 587-7175
(731) 587-7187 (fax)