Bon voyage Annette! You will be great, and I am sure will have a lot of interesting academic and other adventures!
Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Psychology Saginaw Valley State University University Center, MI 48710 989-964-4491 [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Annette Taylor" <[email protected]> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2012 1:23:00 PM Subject: [tips] Teaching Abroad My ship sets sail on Monday for semester at sea. If any of you have taught in similar situations or abroad for a whole semester and have some last minute advice, I would love to hear it. I am a nervous WRECK today! I think the schedule is extremely demanding--3 courses, 2 of which were new preps for me, but not a stretch. The biggest challenge is a special topics course: Culture in Personality Development. When I was first given a previous syllabus it was just a stock child development course. So I built from there. But the dean is an English prof and I can't seem to get through to him that this is not a standard course offering. They want the global aspect (culture in...) for a course that combines two areas, personality and development. I think I have it handled nicely now. At least I feel confident about it. But I have felt challenged--in a good way! The biggest added challenge: each course has 2 mandatory field trips in foreign ports. I have to lead students on assignments I have never used before (I never do field trips in my classes except for intro psych), in places I have never been before, where people speak languages I don't speak! Have I mentioned that I am nervous wreck today in thinking about all of this? I finally came up with ideas that are not ideal but don't require any oral communication with residents, etc. Of course, I did get grief from the UVa IRB because we are going to do observations of children's attachment and temperament behaviors, strictly as a classroom exercise, but they wanted to run me through the IRB wringer--I successfully convinced them we are not doing "research." On top of that all of the faculty must lead small groups on global common readings--things I personally have minimal interest in, and readings I disagree with completely after reading them. Boy, oh, boy. Should be fun ;) Anyway, I look forward to snorkeling in Dominca in a few days :) Yeah! Spending several days at an ecoresort in the Amazon in two weeks...I'll keep you all posted on teaching-related topics. You'll have to friend me on facebook to know more. Annette ps : And then there was packing to live on board ship for 15 weeks and fitting it into two suitcases (I never had the experience of living on campus and moving in and out every 15 weeks), getting all the visas (10), vaccinations/immunizations (can we say pin cushion/basic training?), money exchange, closing down the house, suspending utilities and deliveries, filing income tax extension, paying property taxes due in April, getting my medical forms completed which got rejected 3 times, filling prescriptions for 120 days (my health plan won't cover that long). Oh my! Have I mentioned that all of this has made me a tad nervous--I've been practicing being seasick (read that as nervous/upset stomach, big time!). On the plus side, only about half of what could go wrong did go wrong (e.g., big time rash from yellow fever shot; 5 months advance HOA condo fees lost in the mail)), so that's a plus :) haha , cup half full. Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] . To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13445.e3edca0f6e68bfb76eaf26a8eb6dd94b&n=T&l=tips&o=15313 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-15313-13445.e3edca0f6e68bfb76eaf26a8eb6dd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=15315 or send a blank email to leave-15315-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
