The prepping thread

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I've been slowly plodding along. I created a lab schedule for one of my labs, edited some content on D2L,  deleted old files, etc.

[nonsensical]

I've been slowly prepping some Power Points for a course I will be teaching this summer. Before Christmas I got through about half the course, and my next task is to put together the midterm assignment before continuing with the Power Points for the rest of the term. It will be a new type of assignment that I've never used before so may take a bit of time to figure out, but I expect to get back to it in 2021 and will probably not be prepping - or doing much else that is work-related - for the rest of this year.

[polly_mer]

Faculty were asked to have complete syllabi and assignments, links to materials, quizzes/tests, and all discussion prompts.

This policy sounds absurd. When were faculty supposed to do this work? What is the typical teaching load where you are? Who are these "instructional designers" and what is their role in things?

Good online takes the better part of a year to get in place for each course and, yes, should be ready for the whole course before the start of the course.  Tweaking during the course for a particular section of students is reasonable; putting up the next lesson "10 minutes" before the students get to see it is very poor practice.

Letting people just put together online courses on the fly is one reason many students are right to complain about their online courses this year.  Those students are not getting good online courses, which take an absurd amount of time to plan and then prep, and students instead are often getting a very poor approximation of face-to-face.

Anyone who doesn't know yet that good online is harder initially than good face-to-face isn't doing good online instruction.

[sinenomine]

Faculty were asked to have complete syllabi and assignments, links to materials, quizzes/tests, and all discussion prompts.

This policy sounds absurd. When were faculty supposed to do this work? What is the typical teaching load where you are? Who are these "instructional designers" and what is their role in things?

Good online takes the better part of a year to get in place for each course and, yes, should be ready for the whole course before the start of the course.  Tweaking during the course for a particular section of students is reasonable; putting up the next lesson "10 minutes" before the students get to see it is very poor practice.

Letting people just put together online courses on the fly is one reason many students are right to complain about their online courses this year.  Those students are not getting good online courses, which take an absurd amount of time to plan and then prep, and students instead are often getting a very poor approximation of face-to-face.

Anyone who doesn't know yet that good online is harder initially than good face-to-face isn't doing good online instruction.

Agreed, Polly. With the institution-wide shift to online instruction, my school leveraged the faculty (like myself) who were already experienced along with the instructional design staff to make course layouts consistent and to maintain active, integrative learning approaches. Instructional designers did the building out of courses in the CMS, while faculty provided the materials. Chairs are responsible for checking courses for content, for answering faculty questions, and for chivvying those faculty who missed deadlines or who are resistant. Fortunately, not many have landed in those latter categories.

Biologist, the load at my school is 4-4, so yes, this was a big ask to have ready in November. I was gratified to see that most faculty stepped up and got materials in, and speaking for myself, I was happy to let the ID do all the technical work of building out my course shells.

[ciao_yall]

Prepared up to 3rd week, then took the holidays off so back on tomorrow.

Goal is to get up to 6th week by EOD Monday. Only problem is that I can't get to the new PPTs for the latest version of the textbook, so while the general info is the same, the slides and references will be off. And they redesigned the spiffy graphics. Grr.

[dr_codex]

Getting back on track... :-)

I normally prep Spring classes over the Winter break, but this year, the powers that be decreed that faculty have their materials ready by early November to allow chairs and instructional designers to ensure all the online versions of regularly on-ground courses are ready to go. So my classes are all set, and those I oversee are in good shape as well. I look forward to a couple relaxing weeks!

I'm curious about this policy.  Which course components had to be ready and submitted in November? 

I am revising course-that-should-never-be-taught-online for the Spring online iteration and working to improve components of course-that-everyone-hates using student feedback from last Spring when students got half the course remotely.

Faculty were asked to have complete syllabi and assignments, links to materials, quizzes/tests, and all discussion prompts.

This policy sounds absurd. When were faculty supposed to do this work? What is the typical teaching load where you are? Who are these "instructional designers" and what is their role in things?

My courses weren't even assigned by early November. I wouldn't bet a lot of money that they won't be changed between now and the first day of classes.

Heck, we didn't even know the college calendar at that point, and I wouldn't bet a lot of money that that won't be changed in the next two weeks.

[mamselle]

Had a cool idea for a three-week unit for my music theory class that will need even more serious prep than I've been giving it.

Aiming for late February to roll this part out; the classes up to that point are set, so I'm hoping to have time this week to do the prep.

If it works, I might repeat the idea on a a related topic in early April, so then just the weeks in between will be open, and those are ghosted in as well.

Hitting the ground running would leave more writing time open, too, so a "win-win" is possible.

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

Gonna post the readings for two classes today. Then all I'll have to do is post the lectures for all four, and set up the assessments.

[Larimar]

I received the new textbook & have chosen the short fiction stories I'll be assigning. A lot of what's in the textbook is ghastly, but I've found enough good stuff. I've got the first module planned out in the syllabus.

[apl68]

There are some ghastly textbooks out there, all right.  Was that ghastly book imposed on you, or just the best you could find available?

[Cheerful]

I've started prepping,
Pace has been schlepping.
Preparing to prep some more.
I'd much rather make S'mores!
Wouldn't be such a chore.
Takes time to create work that won't bore (students or me).
Must work more efficiently.
Preparin' to put this preppin' behind me.

What's that?  Why, thank you!
Alas, no.
Despite this here quality,
I do not teach poetry.

[Larimar]

There are some ghastly textbooks out there, all right.  Was that ghastly book imposed on you, or just the best you could find available?

It was imposed. I figure that as long as there are a few good stories so that I can genuinely say if asked, "Oh, yes, I'm making significant use of the textbook!", and as long as I can give the students web links to enough supplemental good stuff to fill out the syllabus, I can manage.


Larimar

[AvidReader]

I'm still grading. :( Had hoped to be finished by New Year's, but some family issues intervened and it looks as if it will be well into January. But they did (just!) finalize my Spring class assignments.

AR.

[AmLitHist]

Although Bb is down for improvements and updates (which usually result in complete chaos for a few days afterward) through sometime next week, I had the presence of mind to download the syllabi and schedules for the 4 Courses of Record I'll have to follow in the spring (one section of the godawful Comp I, and three of the pretty good Comp II).  I teach my own synchronous/LVL Comp II and Early American lit classes as well. 

So, I've updated all the Comp syllabi and am working to put dates to the schedules--and of course, some are full-semester, a couple are first 8 weeks, and one is second 8 weeks.  I hope to have all these done by the end of the day, then will work on the lit class tomorrow and Friday.  I need to add some structured student work to the latter, as I had good students in spring but they just weren't talkers, which is deadly in a live lit class.

Of course, once all this is done, then I need to go and plug in dates/deadlines in Bb.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I'm a prep the day before kind of guy, when it comes to putting together power points, but my classes in Spring will be ones that I've taught several times below, so will be more like tweaking the day before.  Of course there is some up-front stuff that needs to be done, but I sent in my syllabi and had instructional designer build my Canvas page in November, so I'm in pretty good shape there.  My first class will be Tuesday, 1/12, so I figure I'll spend the 11th finalizing things and getting the ppt ready to go. In the meantime I'll try to get everything else done (R&R, article reviews, a few letters of recommendation, etc.) so that I can go into the semester with a clear head.