I like clear assessments and rubrics and I know this is a personal like, as I enjoyed them even as a student. I like direct communication, though I find many students enjoy arguing over elements of a rubric, even if it is offered well in advance. This exchange often causes me stress. Chris
I agree venting really helps me to reduce my stress. Afer i do i am able to redirect my attention to what needs t be done...
I currently work as a veterinary technician instructor and I consider the job very stressful for a number of different reasons. Making deadlines in covering material, organizing classroom lectures, writing and grading tests, and dealing with a variety of different personalities are major stresses that I experience on a daily basis. I also have 2 children, and as a full-time working mother, I find it very challenging to balance work and home.
Working in a Culinary College by itself could be very stressful. Teaching students in the same class that their ages range from 18 years old to sometimes 70 years old is very challenging. Over the years of teaching i have learned that there are actual LEVELS of stress within a specific major stressor. Working through the stress gives you the experiance that you will need when that stressor comes up again.
Wow, sounds like stress is coming at you from all sides Nicole, and that you don't have a lot of time. I might try doing some simple breathing exercises when you can.
I would say that the major stressors are the uncertainty of the economy and the impact on the people that I work with in my non-teaching life. People are more short tempered and demanding as a result. I tend to be a positive person, so this is disappointed to see as a workplace trend.
For those of us that are adjunct faculty who teach at more than one place, it becomes difficult to handle multiple educational institutions requests for meetings, training courses, and other certification type activities. For example, last year, I completed 4 very similar diversity trainings. This feels like non-productive ( and also unpaid ) time that could be better spend working with student needs. Thankfully this particular course can be utilized at multiple universities.
As I was moving through the module, I found that I was automatically making a list of the stressors in both my professional and personal life and thinking about how I deal with those.
In my professional life, probably my most stressful sitautrion is that I direct a government grant that requires a lot of accountability in the format that the government wants. I manage this stress by having a great office manager who stays on top of the data that I need on a daily basis.
As an adjunct online instructor, I teach composition courses and the most stressful aspect is the grading load. While the college standard requires a turnaround of 72 hours for assignments, my supervisor knows that I often find this impossible to meet. I will often spend up to 10 hours a week just grading the essays that I collect besides grading other homework and participating in the class discussions. When research papers are due, that time often doubles. As the module notes, I have found that expressing my stress to my supervisor who teaches similar courses and knowing that she understands the stress makes it much easier to address. I return essays as soon as I am able and always within five days. I also know that my supervisor has expressed this concern to the administration regarding all of her instructors who have similar classes.
Hi Dr. Read,
I think one of the biggest stressors is created in the online environment. Sometimes communication can be "lost" in emails and in the online community we have a little issue with "over-emailing" and important emails may be lost in the shuffle of all the other emails.
I also think that trying to connect with the students in an online environment can be stressful. As most of the communication is done via email on through the online environment it can be really stressful to make sure you make that "connection" with students.
There are also stressors of adminstrative changes, forms, changing of forms and such.
Thanks,
Toni :)
These are good points Toni! I agree that often times, instructors, administrators and students over communicate via email. When this happens, it's really hard to detect the signal from the noise. At times, I have asked my students to use concision when writing to me and to focus on the primary questions they have - with the understanding that they are welcome to follow up in detail during office hours.
Learning to deal with the stresses in the workplace can be quite exhausting if you do not have someone or something or some place where you can go or talk to or find some way to alleviate that stress. Dealing with student issues is very difficult when the students have the potential to be something great and they have stress in their life that causes them to have to stop and you want so hard to give them a helping hand, but you know that some things you have no control over.
As with alot of people, money and kids, or personal life can be a huge stressor in my life. Working more than 40 hours a week and trying to help teenagers in school or even my college aged daughter can be difficult.
Also, dealing with a sick parent or a special needs child can be difficult to get through the day. Taking it one day at a time or even sometimes taking it minute to minute is the best thing you can do.
The majority of stress in my life comes from sources outside of work. I cope with it via hobbies and exercise.
My stressors at work are meeting deadlines and dealing with student issues. I implement prioritization and discipline to reduce my stressors.
Deadlines and student issues are common stressors for instructors Shalomar. Another common stressor is fellow faculty members and administrations.
my stress come from my performace/evaluations of my duties being directly tied to people's willingness to give my students the opportunity to train in a clinical setting.
1. Rude Students/fellow staff faculty
2. Commute that I do every day to work 1 hour and 15 minutes a day going and coming back
3. Too much paperwork. Do it electronic
4. I work out every day so that is a stress reducer
5. No organized meetings
That's tough Kevin. It's important that we are evaluated based on our behavior and not on things that are outside our sphere of influence.
Some of the causes of stress in my life are paperwork and student needs. There seems to be more paperwork and computer work every week. As with student needs, sometimes I feel like a counselor. In one day, I had a student tell me he is homeless, another would be out because of a brain tumor, etc. It is a lot to take home everyday having a home and family to take care of.
All of the above are stressors in my life. I drive an hour to and from work, I have a family I clearly do not have time to maintain, i go to school on line, and I have a few supervisors that can be difficult to work with, depending on their mood.
Time management is a big stressor for me. I largely prefer a whole day to accomplish lesson plans and such, but with my current schedule, that doesn't happen very often. I end up procrastinating and staying up late often to accomplish things.
My main causes of stress at my school are as follows:
1. The level of accountability for instructors has greatly increased for everyone. This is management's approach to insure that the less dedicated instructors follow the class syllabi and accomplish the objectives for the class. Those of us who are dedicated must now also account for everything we do in our classes which adds to our paperwork and stress levels. We now have to submit our skills based check off lists to our program director upon demand which can be weekly. Sounds like micro-managing to me.
2. It is becoming more difficult to dismiss students with serious and ongoing behavior issues. All we can do is to document and coach...and coach more. Students have gotten the message that they can do as they please without consequence. This is clearly a stressor for many faculty members.
There needs to be more accountability placed on the students and less on the dedicated faculty. If this occurs, many faculty stress related issues will abate.
