New-ish Faculty

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This was my 1st week of a new group of students (I've completed 1 semester with an established LVN group)....Whoa!!! Each semester I teach all new courses, so all my work from last semester is no help. I have 1 coworker who does the other ~half, but I feel majorly overloaded.

Is it normal to feel like this?

I feel comfortable lecturing, it's the designing, organizing, grading that really stresses me.

Is it normal to teach different classes every semester? I guess I imagine I'd be awesome if I only had to teach 3 or so course rather than 10ish.

I'm trying to stay positive here.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

The first time you teach a class is the worst.

My school tries to keep instructors in their same courses. Each instructor has 1-2 main courses they teach and they repeat this each semester or year (some of our courses only run once a year). Clinicals vary, but med surg is med surg, and clinicals do not require the amount of prep and organization that lecture courses do.

My life was hell the first year I taught. It has gotten progressively better each year.

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thanks for replying. I'm miserable and thought it was just me :/ Too much work, no $$$.

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Specializes in med surg.

I think this is very normal. I do not lecture students only do clinical but I try to combine what they learn in lecture and apply it to the clinical setting. I always have anxiety with every new group of students because they are an unknown. But I would say be confident in your knowledge and skill and know that you bring much to the table. I agree that the money is not great but I decided after seeing some of the newer nurses and what little they knew it was time to either step up or shut up.

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Specializes in Occ. Hlth, Education, ICU, Med-Surg.
thanks for replying. I'm miserable and thought it was just me :/ Too much work, no $$$.

Welcome to academia. It will most likely be this way all the time. I taught for 5 years and every year I had to redo lectures, lesson plans, exams, etc. One of the reasons I left...got tired of the constant revamping of curriculum, heavy workload (i.e. classes and clinicals) and the terrible pay

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I feel like I am very lucky when I read things here. I have taught the same two classes for 4 years. The faculty I work with do the same. However I have friends at other colleges who constantly get moved around. I would not be happy that way at all. I will teach any med surg clinical, but that is all relatively similar. It is better for the students to have an instructor who teaches the same course consistently because you get better at it over time. Constantly reinventing the wheel does not help anyone.

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