Planning for Fall (a story in pictures)

I’m overwhelmed.

Fall term classes don’t start for another week and a half, and I’m already at the stage where I’m semi-catatonic by the end of the work day. (Yesterday I gave up and took a nap. At 4:30pm.)

This time of year is usually full to the brim anyway — the mad rush to finalize the syllabi, helping advisees navigate changes in their schedules, setting priorities for the year for STEM at Carleton, meetings meetings meetings (and, hey, more meetings!), … the list goes on. This year, it’s that … times a thousand.

Yesterday as I navigated through various windows and apps on my laptop, I marveled at the juxtaposition between my “normal” workflow of preparing for the term and the additional preparations for a pandemic term. At the end of the day, I took some screenshots of some of the apps and sites I used throughout the day, to put together a mini photo-essay highlighting a “day in the life” of a professor preparing for the upcoming COVID-influenced term.

• 

  I’m a big fan of lists, and checklists, and while I haven’t updated my standard start of the term checklist for a pandemic term, many of the standard items still apply.

• 

  I find it helpful to make a mind map as I start to plan a course, even (especially!) if I’ve taught it before. This fall, I’m experimenting with structuring my Computer Networks elective around a central question: should the Internet be considered a public utility or a private good?

• 

  One of the silver linings from this summer: I participated in a ton of pedagogy workshops online. I’ve done variations of backward design for most of my teaching career, but I really liked using this worksheet to structure my thinking. Particularly since many items in the last column, “How will we scaffold the learning?”, look entirely different when the entire course is online.

• 

  I’ve been at Carleton long enough to have the class meeting schedule memorized. This fall, except for the first class period, all meeting times are different. Luckily “2a”, the period I teach, is not that far off from the “normal” meeting time. But I’m sure I’ll forget about the changed time for Common Time when I’m scheduling meetings in that slot.

• 

  My Moodle landing page looks a bit different from normal. Usually I only see the courses I teach, plus the STEM Board Handbook. That 90% completion of “Resilient Pedagogy” really bugs me, by the way. (I can’t earn that last 10% because someone else in my small group handed in our group assignment!) But at least my mandatory COVID training is complete!

• 

  I usually have the Registrar’s webpage up as I draft my syllabus, to make sure I have things like exam dates, midterm break, and other various policies correct. This fall, the COVID-19 FAQ page shares that honor (although apparently yesterday it was all COVID FAQs and no Registrar policies).

• 

  My teaching toolkit usually consists of a ton of whiteboard markers, sticky notes, and index cards. The iPad and Logitech Crayon were additions to my spring toolkit, but the fancy schmancy headset is a new addition for Fall 2020. I’m still getting used to all of it.

(I did, however, spare you the screenshots of the multiple Zoom meetings I’ve participated in over the past few days. And of the firehose of emails. And of the various ways my family interrupted me mid-meetings. You’re welcome.)

Looking at these pictures, it strikes me that even though everything seems completely out of whack, the basic things I do to prepare for a term — wrangle with Moodle, finalize my learning outcomes, assemble my teaching toolkit — remain largely unchanged. The details may look different, but the broader strokes resemble what used to pass for normal. And that provides me with a teeny bit of comfort as I head into what promises to be a strange and stressful term.

How does preparing for the upcoming term/semester look for you? What new things are juxtaposed into your normal workflow?

Advertisement