Monday's class, yesterday, was weak. I didn't feel on top of the material I was presenting (The tragedy of the commons) and had trouble making connections with personal experiences and other types of things we have studied this semester. I needed to distill the ideas down better and illustrate them more effectively. It was a Monday, and reminded me of how Monday's don't always do well for me. I need the interaction with students to see where to go, how to gauge the presentation of the content. Teaching communications is about what most students already know and reframing how they think about it. It's a balancing act of paradoxes.
Also the fact that few students have turned in their collaborative negotiation papers is alarming. This is the jewel of the course - the place to put it all together. It is clear that some of them have missed the point of the class, have not taken in the initial ideas that demonstrate the guiding principles. They are still working off their own experiences and not making new connections.