First Week: Spring 2021 Edition

Yes, we’re still remote. No, I still don’t like Zoom.

 

I’m teaching just two classes this semester. Both are G-Chem 2 sections, but one is a small honors class and the other is a regular larger section. The gender ratio is completely skewed this semester. Across both my sections, I have 92% female students. While the honors section normally has a significant imbalance, this semester my regular larger section is similarly skewed. Not sure why.

 

While the subject matter is the same, I’ve decided to sequence some of the topics differently in each section. Hopefully I don’t confuse myself. The reason for this is that the large majority of my honors section students are also co-enrolled in the honors section of intro bio that focuses on bioenergetics. Over the break, I zoomed with my colleague in biology teaching that section, to find ways for us to align the material so the students see the synergy between the two classes. Thus, my honors section this semester will feature bioenergetics applications in chemistry. Content coverage is identical in both my sections this week, but they will begin to diverge next week. There will still be plenty of overlap but there will be differences in examples, assignments, and exams. We’ll see if I can keep everything straight in my head.

 

I suppose it’s not surprising that there were technological snafus. Thankfully not a campus-wide wifi outage which happened on the first day of class last semester. The problems this time around were linked to the Learning Management System and student access to the online textbook and homework system. I don’t completely understand what the problem was on the back end, but needless to say the signing up for access did not work as advertised. We were getting different instructions from day-to-day as the bookstore, I.T., and a third-party vendor were all involved in the mess – at least in my ignorant opinion. Instructions that worked for some students didn’t work for others, and students and faculty were understandably frustrated. I also had the video recording for my first class not show up until 24 hours later. No one knows why, but I had it all set up correctly and for subsequent classes, it shows up in about an hour after class ends which was the norm.

 

Preparing the course web sites was much quicker this time around since I’m now much more familiar with the LMS. I still don’t like it, but I don’t have much of a choice while we’re still remote. Can’t wait to be back in-person, hopefully next semester. I’ve tweaked my course setup a little. For my regular section, there will be three self-tests following my take-home annotated method, but two in-class midterm exams. My honors section will still do their midterms with the take-home annotated approach. I will have final exams rather than final projects - the final exam went fine last semester (in my opinion) and I don’t think there were academic integrity issues. The average on the final was just a tad lower than in a previous non-Covid year, but not too different.

 

Because of the long break between the semesters, my Zoom teaching is a little rusty. I didn’t do well on Monday, but my Wednesday and Friday classes ran more smoothly. One challenge is that the topics in G-Chem 2 require more complicated problem-solving calculations, and the limited viewing space via Zoom is therefore even more annoying compared to last semester. I might also be a little too ambitious in emphasizing the how and why of using models in thermodynamics, simply because I’ve been thinking a lot more about it because of research-related papers I’ve been reading. What I’m doing is good from a “scientific inquiry” perspective, but with the limited time and the loss in translation of the Zoom medium, maybe my time is better spent focusing on the problem-solving skills. I decided to schedule the first test in my regular section at the end of Week 3 (students get full credit for the attempt) just to see how much they’re learning.

 

It’s Friday afternoon. I feel tired. Probably also not used to expending the type of energy I do when I’m teaching. And my first several days felt very unproductive with lots of e-mails to answer and other administrative-type duties. It feels like the semester is back in swing, although I’d say it’s a bit of a rude awakening for me after the two months of doing research at my own uninterrupted pace. Okay, gotta make sure I’m ready for Monday of Week 2.

 

I wish it was the first week of Spring 2019.