I woke up this morning in Darling Daughter's apartment in Los Angeles a couple of hours before any of the younger folks in residence opened their eyes, so I hopped on my computer to catch up with email and RSS feeds that I missed yesterday as I traveled west.
The computer had barely come up when an instant message opened. The screen name was one of our online students who took my graduate course a semester or two ago, so my immediate thought was "Good grief; how did I mess up that grade?" rather than "Ah, I should wish her a merry Christmas!"
I had had many "office hours" chats during the student's semester with me, but I nonetheless replied to her usual, "Good Morning Ma'm" with a bit of trepidation.
After she was sure she had connected with me, she completely changed my mood: "Every time I had to use some of the knowledge I got from you class my heart goes out to you to say thank you." Wow! That's the sort of thing I love to hear.
After a few more exchanges, I discovered that this student—like a couple of others I've heard from this semester—credits her success with her final writing project (an engineering report, which is similar to a thesis but not quite as intense) because of the planning I had her do when she took my class.
She said at one time she didn't realize what a "bad" writer she had been before my class, although I'm pretty sure that she wasn't so much "bad" as "uninformed." What I do in my class can't be enough to make a "bad" writer good, but I think I teach some skills that help them organize their thoughts better, and that at least makes them more efficient writers, which for engineers is often a big step forward.
It was really a nice way to start my day!
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