Saturday, June 16, 2018

one of my best KMA days ever

Today's KMA session turned out to be awesome. There were only two students, which might affect how much I get paid, but the three of us had a great time. Both of my students were married adults—a man and a woman. Until recently, the man worked for some agency related to nuclear power and the engineering of nuclear power plants; now, he's in another company's R&D department. The lady, meanwhile, worked for an agency involved with the currently tabled Kaesong industrial complex in North Korea. She said she's hoping for reunification, a subject we all discussed further during lunch. The guy had traveled around the world, and he spoke English quite well; the lady was shy about her English ability, and while her speech was slower and more hesitant, she actually spoke fairly competently.

The seven-hour class went by quickly, and both students thought the intensive course I had designed (to improve online-research skills) was quite interesting. By the end of the course, we all had big smiles on our faces. I suspect the course's charm lies in the fact that it's very task-oriented and student-centered, per my pedagogical mantra. While students generally like my persuasive-writing course, the ones who take my online-research course usually enjoy that more: it's less like a regular class and more like fun.

We ended up going a bit overtime, which has never happened before; I guess we were all having too much of a good time. While I normally have great students at KMA, this pair of learners was especially good to have in class: they worked hard, they participated actively, and they both said at the end that they had learned a lot. What more can one ask for? I didn't peek at my evals this time because I'm pretty sure I got a 100%. All in all, a very good day.



2 comments:

John Mac said...

A symbiotic relationship between teacher and students bringing to mind how it must have been for Socrates back in the day.

Well done!

Kevin Kim said...

Grazie, grazie.