So it is July 22nd, and I can feel the tension gathering in my neck and shoulders… The fall is approaching and my body is already gearing up in readiness. This will be my 10th fall on my campus and by this point, I have a good idea of what’s to come and what I need to do now to get ready…
- Preparing all fall SoTL projects for final approach! – that means getting IRB’s submitted, rooms/labs reserved, getting faculty and admin approvals, setting up accounts, and finalizing the project procedures
- ELLI benchmarking (PSU 008, Bbh 14, ENGL 15, Math 21) project
- ELLI integration (ENGL 15, LL ED 005) project
- Faculty satisfaction survey ( all FT and PT faculty)
- HDFS ELLI/Mindfulness paper
- Working on/finalizing local pedagogical/ ed-tech/data projects for fall
- checking in with 3D Printing projects
- SmartBoard integration project
- Checking in with iPad mini folks, clickers, media commons projects
- Civitas Pilot with our Enrollment Mgmt Team
- We Listen project with International students
- Fast Friends project international orientation
- Updating Clickers to new version and re-distributing clicker sets
- Getting the fall newsletter ready – with what’s new in ed-tech – teaching tips – important updates for faculty – celebrating faculty projects from spring and summer
- Orienting new faculty to ANGEL, campus classroom tech, and and pressing pedagogical issues like syllabus prep and understanding our students
- Presenting/supporting at the major orientation sessions – campus opening meeting, adjunct faculty orientation, adult student orientation, international student orientation
- Presenting at our PSU 008 (First Year Experience) course that runs the week before classes start
- The onrush of faculty appointments – needing help in ANGEL as they prepare their fall courses – setting up GradeBooks and copying course materials
- Creating the fall workshop schedule
- Preparing my courses (LL ED 005 – College Reading) – Canvas pilot
It is going to be hectic from now through the second week of classes – running shoes on, seat belts fastened… then, the type of work changes to the day-2-day support of faculty, committee work, running campus projects, and planning future projects… until mid-terms, when it starts to ramp up in planning for spring and finishing up the fall projects on time.
In ten years, this pattern has been pretty consistent, in terms of busy times and types of activities… It is this back and forth flow between long-range planning and day-2-day just-in-time support. So for now, it is head down and get it done!!! The trick is to get most of the logistical stuff done now – the details, the handouts, the lesson plans, the room reservations, the scheduling, the approvals… and that makes it much less stressful come August when the faculty return and the main time consumer is helping individual faculty members with teaching and technology in the classroom and workshops and activities to build community and expertise among the faculty. This process has worked – to help find time for more in-depth projects that can help the campus overall – as well as to provide good customer service for our faculty in terms of what they need to support their teaching in the classroom.
