In last Wednesday’s open thread, Courtney brought up “resolutions for next semester, and how to make the most of winter break.” Now I realize that it’s the end of the semester for most of us and that everyone is up to their neck in grading and writing and and planning for the holidays and perhaps preparing for job interviews. However, this is the best time to reflect on the previous semester and evaluate what worked and what didn’t, not only in terms of your teaching (although certainly that) but also in terms of your research productivity and your ability to maintain a healthy and balanced life. Everything is still relatively fresh in your mind and you haven’t yet coated all of your neurons in cookies and hot chocolate.
So please take a few minutes to reflect and then share with us your resolutions for next semester. (After doing so you should feel free to dig into the cookies and hot chocolate.)
[cc licensed flickr photo by blumpy.]
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8 Responses to Resolutions. Do you make ‘em? What are they?
Nels - December 10, 2009 at 6:10 pm
I was working on syllabi last weekend so I could decide what books I wanted to order for my spring classes, and I decided that I was going to start trusting myself more. I was thinking I should change all this stuff to make the courses better, but I also think they’re pretty good as they are. And I’m going to stop trying to change things that already make me pretty happy.
William Patrick Wend - December 18, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Focus more on my own scholarship, which I have really gotten away from in the past six months.
Janice - December 8, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I won’t assign quite so much writing for them to do throughout the term, despite the obvious pedagogical value, as long as I have so many students in a class. Multiple tutorial response to grade in classes of 80 and 135 were too much for this buckaroo.
I will post a few more FAQs in each online course section — some very practical (like how to save as .rtf or .PDF from pages on a Mac so that your poor Linux/Windows-using prof can read these files) and others more policy-oriented (late policies; citation guidelines).
I will continue to circulate discussion questions from the start of the courses as it gives them guidance for their course readings as well as giving all of us a good starting point for daily debates in class.
grabs some cookies and a mug of hot chocolate
Aeon Elpis - December 8, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I’ll be giving students fewer options on assignments to minimize logistical changes — it got a little chaotic this semester. I’m going to try out the wiki of collaborative notes. And I’m going to systematize rubrics for grading blogs across all of my courses.
In terms of research, I’ve always been a task-driven writer, but that hasn’t worked well with my schedule this past term, which led to droughts and binges. I’m going to try the time-limit method for a couple of months to see if my productivity changes.
And I’m going to dig out all those manuscripts my writing group has marked up and make publishing them the first priority come January 1.
Tim Kastelle - December 8, 2009 at 10:52 pm
I’m going to get admin tasks that must be done turned around within 72 hours. This includes reviewing. When stuff like that backs up, it ends up distracting me too much from stuff that is more important.
Heather Whitney - December 9, 2009 at 9:44 am
Good idea on the FAQs. I’m hoping to do this too.
Tria Wood - December 12, 2009 at 9:31 pm
I’m going to finish that YA novel I started so brilliantly last year but have barely had time to touch this year.
I’m going to find ways to help my students do better research and to help them better understand the writing their research leads them to.
Courtney - December 9, 2009 at 1:39 pm
For Spring 2010, I resolve to:
* Go back to work on my own scholarship (I took this semester off from that to focus on moving/teaching).
* Lower the required word count on papers for my comp students–local secondary ed does not prepare them
to meet my previous expectations.
* Be even more explicit in making connections between goals, activities, and reflections.
* Train students in evaluation systems/criteria early in the semester.
* Return to using more peer review and incremental assignments in comp classes.
* Bribe someone to make me grading spreadsheets for each course well ahead of time.
* Quit explaining “Why?” unless asked directly–they don’t care, it makes them mad, it makes my life harder, and, realistically, most of them probably don’t really hear or benefit from the information anyway.
* Weed out at least half of the accumulated textbook review copies on my shelf.
* Return to teaching collaborative authorship.
* Make my office hours work better to benefit ME.