Teaching in a Time of Pandemic

Aw. The students have started handing in their final projects, and some of them are accompanied with very sweet notes: “Thank you so much for a great semester. I’m sure transitioning online was not an easy task, but you handled it remarkably well. I appreciate how understanding you were of all of our schedules. Have

Just got my formal reappointment letter for next year — as NTT faculty, it wasn’t guaranteed, so I’m glad that I still have a job. So much sympathy to those faculty who haven’t been reappointed; our union has been putting a lot of pressure on administration to reappoint NTT faculty, but I know many higher

When your student’s final presentations make you teary, you know the semester has gone on too long. Good thing we can turn off the video on Zoom.

Seven students did their final personal history presentations today, and it was just lovely — smart and thoughtful and honest and provocative. Nice to be reminded that an online class can also be awesome sometimes. Proud of them.

I want to note, for students and parents everywhere, that what you’re seeing of hastily-converted-to-online teaching now is NOTHING like what online instruction would look like in the fall semester. If teachers have a summer to plan (would be nice to be compensated for that extra work, but anyway), and can thoughtfully structure our classes

Last week of classes. Not gonna lie — can’t wait for this semester to be over. I miss my students’ bright faces and interesting conversations, but switching to a poor simulacrum of online teaching mid-stream has been a tremendous strain all around, especially when my own executive functioning skills are pandemic-impaired. But on the plus

I feel like this is a dense question, but let me just ask — if you wanted to share a PowerPoint with your class electronically, how would you do that? Is there a way to upload it to Blackboard? Should I have students attach the PP file to an e-mail to the class? Is there

Good lord. I’m trying to put all my assignment dates for the last few weeks of the semester into one revised syllabus to e-mail the students, and I can barely keep track of them. Executive functioning is taking a big hit right now! Simplify, simplify — if it’s hard for me, it’s even harder for