In my first several years as a faculty member, much of my time went to class prep. The first time you teach a new class, the prep is substantial. This was certainly true of the standard lecture classes I taught: both semesters of General Chemistry, both semesters of Physical Chemistry, and one semester of Inorganic Chemistry. Coming up with all your course materials from scratch is a lot of work. Back then my lecture notes were handwritten, and updated regularly. I used an overhead projector when absolutely needed for visuals.
Teaching G-Chem lab was a little easier because we had materials prepped for the instructors thanks to a fantastic coordinator and lab-prep staff. My first Computational Chemistry elective course was also a ton of work because of the additional computer-lab exercises, but subsequent elective courses (e.g. Chemical Origins of Life) were essentially reading and discussing the primary literature. While I had to come up with the readings and discussion questions, I didn’t have to prepare lecture notes, make slides, assign homework, or write and grade exams. I haven’t taught Inorganic in a while (since we hired two inorganic chemists), and while I do update my G-Chem and P-Chem lectures every year, it’s not too time-consuming.
But for the first time this semester I will be teaching the first semester of Biochemistry lecture. Why? Because I really want to learn the material given my origin-of-life interests, and the best way to do so is to force myself to teach it. The biochemists finally agreed to let me take one section this coming fall semester. And the prep work is very substantial. I knew it would be ahead of time, but I’m still struggling with how much time it takes to put together one class session (the textbook reading guide, my lecture notes, my slides, the study guide, the homework assignments). I’m much more detailed now, because the students seem to need the extra support – but that means a lot more work on my part. I don’t begrudge it, in fact I’m enjoying thinking about how best to help the students learn the material, but it’s eating up gobs of my time. What’s being sacrificed? Research progress. That’s okay. It’s the choice I made. Also, my blogging has reduced by half.
I don’t like the feeling of being last-minute so I front-load my work. I have my overall course schedule laid out, I know what my goals are and what I want to achieve (having consulted with by biochemistry colleagues). Last semester, I sat in every class meeting in a colleague’s class. I took notes. I have copies of slides. But my teaching style is quite different from my biochemistry colleagues, and I need to play to my strengths. Thus, it’s almost as if I’m starting from scratch – certainly in creating and organizing all my materials. As a non-biochemist by training, and with a slant towards the origin of life, I have a unique way I’d like to teach the class that will still cover all the learning goals and outcomes. My physical chemistry background also influences the way I think about and teach chemistry.
At the moment, it’s taking me about 15 hours to complete a thorough and detailed production of one week’s worth of material. I hope to cut that time down a bit, or I might have to reduce my thoroughness somewhat. Essentially, I prepare to the point that I can walk into class and get through everything confidently. But my summer is coming to an end, and I still have to prep my other classes and get ready for a new class of academic advisees. I’m going to a national chemistry conference next week. (I had my talk prepped two weeks ago!) And once the semester starts, there’ll be more meetings, office hours, and besides Biochem I’m also teaching P-Chem and G-Chem. I’ve substantially prepped the first four weeks of P-Chem (with much of weeks 5-8 also done), updating my worksheets and problem sets, thanks to motivation from LABSIP. I’ve done a little reordering in G-Chem and don’t expect to make too many changes other than adding Study Guides that were quite successful last semester.
Wish me luck!
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