Teaching Early Shakespeare Step by Step: Week 12 Looking Forward

Now that final edits and revisions are done on #DevilDiss2 I have about a month before I get final looks/notes on it to fix before turning it around to the committee for my 17 June defense.

This is also the time of year where I start looking ahead. I make notes all semester long on things I want to do differently next time I teach the course. These notes usually take two forms- general things to change in all courses as I think about things and specific things for THAT course. This last year has seen a lot of changes in my teaching.
This morning I continued to think about some issues I've been thinking about the last year:

• Continuing to remove policing from my classroom
• Making changes to the course (particularly online ones) to avoid being overwhelmed the first couple of weeks
• Separating policies from the actual meat of the course
• Making it clearer what the course is about from the get go

So I've been playing around with a Shakespeare and Film Adaptation syllabus (for a shorter, or summer schedule) and I've implemented a lot of these changes.

• Notice the document is a lot shorter. In part I did this because I pulled the trigger on an idea I've been playing with for a while- separating required policies and requirements from the content of the course. Now it's a separate document that I linked at the bottom of the syllabus.
• This also continues to remove policing from my classroom, and not making it a focus
• The beginning of the document is also (hopefully) easily scanned and understood. I frontloaded the information that students seem to want to know most (readings, objectives). 
• I also added a couple of new sections. There's now an overview of how the course functions, what they can expect from me, and tips/behaviors to do well. Then the next thing is the more detailed explanation of the assignments. 
• After this is the week by week breakdown of what we're doing.

I usually have had assignments due on midnight Friday so I can grade on Saturdays.
I've changed this. For a couple of reasons. The first is that in the past students have really liked/appreciated the weekend to finish assignments. The other is that I need to stop working seven days a week. It's not good. I read and grade fast, and while it's commendable that I like getting things back to students by Saturday afternoon, if there's a midnight Sunday deadline and it's Tuesday before they get them back, that's okay. I'm glad that I prioritize getting work back quickly to students. But I also know professors that take weeks to get stuff back. I don't want to do that, but it puts in perspective me taking some stress of myself.

Today is the day I finish the course's weekly grading, and add onto and post the weekly announcement. As we're in week 12, it's also our last check in survey. This survey has (mostly) the same questions as the university's end of semester survey. While by this point (with two other check in survey results) I have a pretty good idea of issues and have course corrected. BUT, I also have had a low response rate this semester. And I've learned that people who don't like me don't fill out these surveys (I require names so I can do follow ups) but ding me on the final university. There's nothing I can do about that.
So I'm going to try and not stress over that. I send out three check in surveys (weeks 4, 8, 12) that ask students what they have issues with and how I can help/improve/fix the course. If they choose not to productively participate in those then there's nothing I can do. 

One thing on this survey, and that I've changed for the last month of the course is office hours. At the beginning of the semester the students voted on the office hours through a Doodle. My thinking was that if they have a voice in determining them they will be more likely to use them. So every Wednesday 1-3p my TA and I have held office hours in Blackboard Collaborate. And in twelve weeks no one has showed up. Several weeks ago I was worried about this and asked in a check in survey what they used to communicate, and more importantly if that form of communication was meeting their needs. All who answered said email was what they used and it met all their needs. So I kind of stopped thinking of it. But since I was tweaking the week 12 check in survey, and wanted to try something, I changed office hours. I put in announcements that for the last month we'd do them by appointment, on Skype or on the phone.

I'm also going to encourage students to do this. I made this change for a couple of reasons. One, why am I stressing about this issue if students say they're getting what they need? I mean, that's what matters right? Second, rather than tying myself into notes about this, I'm simply offering another option, pointing out the bonuses of using it, and then letting it go.

The other added question on this survey is how I can make the first couple of weeks of an online course less overwhelming. There's often a dump of information/large learning curve, between the normal course stuff PLUS the online course stuff. So while I have a couple of ideas, I wanted to ask them what ideas they had for making this introduction easier.

This week is a "light" week because their thematic papers are due by midnight Friday and I don't assign work when papers are due. I want them focused on thinking out their ideas, writing, and revising. So I'll answer email questions and give feedback on drafts but there are no assignments to grade.

So that's this week.
It's all downhill from here!