Our science building is bustling with students in the hallways, wandering around looking for their classes – not helped by the arcane numbering system of rooms and doors. One also enters the main doors on the third floor, while most of our lecture classrooms are on the first and second floors. We’re all masked, so it’s hard for me to recognize students. Thankfully, they recognize me and at least some of them are not shy about greetings. In several of these encounters with students who I’ve never seen in person but only through a Zoom box, I was able to remember the student’s name before he or she had to tell me. In other instances, my puzzled look prompted an introduction – after which, it seemed obvious when you know what to look for.
My main worry was teaching while masked. Microphones were hurriedly installed over the past weekend into classrooms that lacked them. They worked okay, but they’re stationary, and I’m always walk back and forth across the board as I write with occasional stops at the projection screen to explain a figure. Thankfully, the rooms aren’t that large, and the students at the back gave me the thumbs-up when I asked if they could hear me fine. My P-Chem class is a little smaller this semester, and I was pleased to walk in the first day to see them occupying the front rows. (In my larger G-Chem sections, the rooms are more full.) My masked regularly dipped while I was talking and gesticulating so my left hand was busy pushing it back up so it wouldn’t drop below by nose.
I was rusty in-person after the two-year hiatus. Last year we were all remote. And the year before, I was on sabbatical and not teaching. I pontificated more than I needed do, and covered less material than I had planned. But there were also additional housekeeping items we had to talk about, for example, my new office hour protocol so that students don’t crowd the narrow hallways of faculty office suites. I’ve had my first student visits and so far the protocol seems to work fine. There were also LMS problems related to first-day-access of the e-Textbook and online homework system. I had hoped the relevant folks had ironed out the problems from last semester where it was a fiasco, but no such luck. Students are frustrated through no fault of their own. That being said, the problem only seems to affect a few students and not the majority even though everyone is following the same protocol. The reasons are unclear.
I’m teaching three classes on MWF. P-Chem first, then an early lunch break for an hour before two back-to-back G-Chem classes. (It’s my first time teaching back-to-back classes.) After the first day of classes, I was exhausted. My body was not used to it. Teaching while masked might be a contributor. Overall, my teaching wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible. The next class meetings were better; I’m slowly building back the stamina. Thankfully, we have a long weekend with the U.S. Labour Day holiday so I’ll have a shorter upcoming work week.
This week I also trained new research students. I’ve cut down the session to just one full day by streamlining certain parts, making better handouts, and moving some other topics to when-needed sometime later in the semester. I’m excited to be rolling out a couple of new projects, and I think I’ve done a better job preparing templates to help my students organize their results. It will also help me when the time comes to write up a research article.
For the first time in a while, I am not an academic adviser for new incoming first-year students. This would have involved additional meetings this week and much more prep the week before. I had the luxury of spending last week focusing on class prep so that things are not as frantic when the semester begins. Still, there was a lot of running around this week with all those little tasks that add up. But I survived. Hopefully next week, I’ll thrive, even if masked.
No comments:
Post a Comment