Trying Something New

Trying something new with teaching this semester. Last semester was asynchronous; assignments were due weekly, by Sunday midnight, which ran into difficulty, because by halfway through the semester, almost all the students were posting their assignments between 10 p.m. & midnight on Sunday. Not ideal, esp. for commenting on each others’ posts, which they were required to do.

This semester, we’re going to meet on Wednesdays, and I’m planning to essentially break each week into three parts. More scaffolding! So it’ll be something like this:

– by Tuesday midnight, have done a little reading, journal entries, watching a video from me
– Wed class time, meet on Zoom; check in on any questions, set them up for more substantial reading

– by Sun midnight, do rest of week’s reading, journal entries, commenting on classmates’ entries.

I’m hoping that’s still reasonably straightforward for them. It’s so tough, building the digital scaffolding to replace the in-person, because it’s going to be a little different for every professor, probably, as opposed to the relative uniformity of the standard in-person class structure. It’s a lot for the munchkins to track, so I’m trying to figure out how to make it as clear as I possibly can…

…and jeez, Mary Anne, it’s past 10 on Friday night. Maybe you should stop thinking about teaching and go to bed.

Photo of dinner Kavi made from a meal kit (with Kevin supervising), that I got to eat in bed while deep in teaching prep — it was really delicious (no critique for a change, except for my standard it would be even tastier with chicken thighs instead of breast). I ate way too much mashed potato. No regrets!

(I am really, really lucky that I have older kids during this pandemic sheltering-in-place. REALLY.)

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