One of the aspects that makes
Concordia a very special community is owing to its
diversity, in terms of origin, background, and age
of our students. This diversity is particularly
obvious in Spanish courses with high enrolment.
Students' diversity means the individual treatment
is essential for a student's success in a course;
in a language or literature class of twenty-five
or thirty students, individual needs and abilities
can vary quite widely, especially at the outset of
a course. That is why I consider each student
deserves a personalized treatment according to his
or her needs and interests; personalized attention
can only occur partially during class time, where
the emphasis tends to be on the collective. In
order to provide personalized treatment, I rely on
two dimensions of the student-professor
relationship: feedback and availability.
With respect to feedback, I don't make a
difference between mandatory and optional
assignments: I carefully analyze all the work and
provide my students with a reasoned, personalized
and encouraging feedback which is sometimes larger
than their assignments! This time-intensive work
reaps benefits: I can appreciate improvement in
most of my students throughout the term, and they
show in their comments that they appreciate it.
Concerning availability, I constantly encourage my
students to approach me after class to make
specific appointment times and I offer to speak
with any student who simply drops by my office.
Furthermore, my students know that they can simply
send me an e-mail message and I am going to reply
very soon to answer their questions or to make an
appointment which fits their schedule. As many of
Concordia students work on a full-time basis, my
schedule is so flexible that, to my knowledge, I
have always been able to meet with a student
within a week after she or he asked for an
appointment.
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