Forgot to Save

Worked hard on this blog's list of interesting links, especially those about teaching. But forgot to click the "Save" button, so all work was lost. Emphemera. Yuck. Went back to emailing students, posting assignments, and grading quizzes instead.

Need to brag . . .

Just finished grading the first assignment from one of my online sections of Tech Writing. I'm so impressed with myself! I think this is the first time in my life that I've turned work back the day after it was due.

I deserve a glass of Red Bud shiraz. Yeah!

New World Order

I'm not a person who's been big on keeping a tally or record of what she's been doing. Mostly, I seem to accomplish things in what I like to call "an associative" way rather than a linear way. In other words, my work/life consists of things interspersed with other things. (Let's blame it on the multitasking of motherhood.)

This tendency toward a fluid relationship with record keeping (okay, with non-recording) has prevented me from getting all kinds of good stuff: reimbursed for expenses, paid for work hours, stuff like that. Lately, though, I'm trying to keep track of the work I do that's related to teaching: not the hours I put in, exactly, but the tasks I complete. Well, not "complete" as such because teaching involves more than completing tasks. Rather, this semester I'm tallying some of the teaching-related things that I do. We'll see what comes of this attempt at "recording a teaching life," to echo Carolyn Heilbrun's Writing a Woman's Life.

Online teaching

Maybe I can't call it "teaching" yet because I've simply been responding to student work. I've just spent three hours reading student discussion postings, downloading student homework, writing responses to their work, uploading the work back to them, rearranging links on the course website, composing "News" items for the entire class.

And this is just three days into the semester. The workload will increase , I know. There are ways to manage online teaching, but I've yet to discover many of them.

Tomorrow (or is it Today?)

I've just spent the last two hours trying to get the wrinkles out of the two online course websites, wrinkles I should have had ironed out this afternoon. But while building quizzes this afternoon, the system kept freezing: I wonder if other folks had the same problem? I finally abandoned my efforts and turned to my lit course - that's fun, too!

Things should be up and running right now (or "running right right now" or something like that). The semester has officially started! Hooray!

The Never-Ending Tasks . . .

Prepping syllabi: why is it that every semester I make changes to what I teach and how I teach it? You'd think by now that I would have a method solidly in place. I guess it's the nature of the liberal arts: we adapt our message to our students, so that means I'm constantly tinkering. I do still want my British lit students to read Jane Eyre, though, even though some said last year that it was boring. But it's such a great novel!

Okay, I just added a lovely blog to my "Websites of Interest" list: Teaching Carnival V. I can learn a lot from her, I think.

New(s) Semester!

In a week, Spring Semester 2007 at Century College begins. This blog begins today - a chance for one community college instructor to share what's going on at her college (and perhaps beyond!).

I'm excited to begin the semester because my courses are great. I get to teach most of my favorite subjects/courses/students: technical writing, first-year composition, British Women's Literature, and Introduction to GLBT Studies. Stay tuned for how my semester progresses!