“The best laid plans of mice and men…” something something something. I forget how it ends. Okay, so yesterday’s post “Learning from the past” was whipped up in about 5 minutes when the screencast I had created turned out to be my first foray into silent movies. Having left myself with not enough time to re-do the screencast with sound (or to add sound after the fact), and not having a backup plan, I was forced to create a fairly lightweight–in my opinion–blog post. Ah, well. Such is life. However, my gaffe is your gain as it provides me with a reason to emphasize this point:
Always have a backup plan!
Of course, you cannot realistically anticipate everything that might go wrong (with regard to your research, your teaching… your dinner), but you can count on something going wrong sometimes. And when that happens, you’ll be much happier if you’ve prepared yourself by having some other plan ready to go.
When it comes to teaching, I always keep 4 different colored erasable markers with me in case the projector doesn’t work–which has happened twice already this semester. When it comes to research–and I spent 3 summers in a row doing research in England right after I started my first job–sometimes what you think you’re going to find turns out not to exist, so come up with a Plan B or get comfortable with the idea of changing paths midway through the journey.
As for blogging, now I’m going to plan on writing up a few short–but not lightweight–ProfHacker posts to be used in the case of future situations like yesterday’s.
What backup plans have you devised? When have you not had a backup plan but wish that you had? Let us hear from you in the comments!
(Image by flickr user striatic. (CC-Licensed))
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3 Responses to Always have a backup plan
Joanna - September 2, 2009 at 7:46 am
Over the years, before the classroom technology and support was as reliable as it is now, I’ve had all kinds of tech failures (no sound, no dongle to connect to the projector, no internet connection, wrong file) so my backup plan is often just a set of questions/topics for discussion or a mini-lecture and a blackboard. I’ve been teaching for long enough that those were the tools I used to have as my first plan. In other words, punt.
George H. Williams - September 2, 2009 at 9:18 am
That’s a perfect backup plan, Joanna. But don’t be so modest: why think of following your backup plan as a “punt”? Discussion questions (followed by discussion) are a great way of teaching!
As Jason recently pointed out, “The Old Ways Still Work“
Billie - September 2, 2009 at 8:11 pm
This is an interesting post….after a day of teaching preservice teachers who are frustrated by technical glitches. Maybe I should direct them to this blog. :-) We all–students and teachers alike–need to learn to have a backup plan. Life and its events will not always go according to schedule.