The academic cycle requires us to always be thinking about what’s coming next. Before I even interviewed for my current position, I knew the courses I would be teaching, both fall courses and spring courses. I signed up for teaching times way back in September (the department was helpful on that score, allowing me to
I don’t teach on Thursdays, and early in the semester made the decision that I would spend that day working on things that don’t relate to teaching: research, when possible, but thus far mostly job market stuff (and not incidentally, most blog posts have been on Thursdays). I’ve stuck to that, generally, though I’m sure
I give reading quizzes in my classes, at least those classes that consist mostly of freshman and sophomores, or survey classes where part of the point is to read widely. Quizzes provide students with an incentive to do the reading, and they give me a sense of how manageable it is, and what parts of