How's it going? My second week back was somewhat uneventful, but a few colleagues have had covid positive students pop up. The uni has said to proceed with class as scheduled while the department of health does "contact tracing." What could go wrong with that plan? I am celebrating some personal good news today...my chapter … Continue reading Do You Plan an Ideal Week?
Author: tawnyaazar
Teaching Tip Tuesday: Define Your Terms
It feels weird to do another Teaching Tip Tuesday right now. Do you really want to read about how I create new units? Redesign courses? Organize teaching materials? At the same time, I'm not sure what to offer in the way of advice for teaching in person in the time of Covid-19. If we were … Continue reading Teaching Tip Tuesday: Define Your Terms
Covid-19 University
How are you all doing? Throughout the week, I collected some screenshots from Twitter that resonated with me and the experience of returning to campus for the fall semester. This past week marked my first time back in the classroom in 18 months. It was surreal. Partly because my department had moved into an entirely … Continue reading Covid-19 University
Teaching Tip Tuesday: Simplify
How was your summer? I took a much needed break to process a personal loss. This week I return to teaching in-person for the first time since March 2020. My own institution has mandated mask wearing and social distancing indoors, but many of us wonder just how long it will be until we pivot online … Continue reading Teaching Tip Tuesday: Simplify
Grief in Academia
cw: miscarriage, grief You may have noticed a slight gap between my last post and this one. I was not certain I should write this post. Contrary to what my robust digital footprint might suggest, I am not one to post a lot of intensely personal information online. But it felt weird to simply resume … Continue reading Grief in Academia
Am I an Early or Mid-Career Academic?
The other day I was scrolling through Twitter when I saw this tweet asking, "Am I early-career or mid-career? A Memoir." And, man, I felt that. I am arguably early-career, having only had full-time employment in higher ed for the past 2.5 years. On the other hand, I've been teaching college classes since 2009. My … Continue reading Am I an Early or Mid-Career Academic?
Teaching Tip Tuesday: Tell the Students WHAT You’re Doing
This blog is dropping later than normal because I'm wrapping up two 5 week summer WIT courses which can be...intense. This post is also Part 1 of a three part series designed to help you have a better relationship with your students. I find that a lot of issues in the classroom are rooted in … Continue reading Teaching Tip Tuesday: Tell the Students WHAT You’re Doing
Make Time for Professional Development
I'm betting that many of us entered academia because we love to learn. We were the kids who read extra books, did extra work, reveled in intellectual conversations. And yet in modern higher ed, many of us are in precarious, overworked and underpaid positions that offer little time or funding for regular professional development. It's … Continue reading Make Time for Professional Development
Teaching Tip Tuesday: Incremental Course Design
I recently wrote about establishing boundaries for teaching which has become even more important to me over the past year. One of the boundaries I've come to very recently is redesigning courses bit by bit instead of in huge overhauls. Look, I am on a 9 month contract, so it makes no sense that I … Continue reading Teaching Tip Tuesday: Incremental Course Design
My Low-Key System for Managing Academic Projects
As promised in my summer planning post, here is a description of the method I use to track my various projects. This method was originally inspired by two academic Gantt chart enthusiasts (one, two). However, I found that the traditional way of setting up a gantt chart (with the projects on the left and "steps" … Continue reading My Low-Key System for Managing Academic Projects
