Mid-Semester Doldrums
Has it really been that long since I've updated? I guess it has.
Keeping a blog current and up to date has been difficult since the semester started. I think part of it has to do with the fact that during the summer, I just don't have as much of an outlet in colleagues as I do during the year. During the summer, I'm itching to get ideas out into the world and this blog becomes a repository for it. During the school year, I'm surrounded by colleagues to bounce ideas off of. This takes away the drive to really keep this blog going.
Its a bad excuse, I know. But it is the only one I have.
But a couple things of interest to note (and hopefully this means more time is starting to open up for this blog...)
I have begun planning my classes for next semester, and as an interesting experiement, I'm using a blog to track my thought processes in designing a class.
You can read all about it over HERE
Also...
Things this semester are going well so far. Instead of doing weekly updates (which fell WAY behind...and this is partially not to give away things to students while things were in progress)...I'm beginning to prep for a larger end of semester lessons learned sort of thing. I have a feeling I might work on a few sample syllabii and assignment sort of things that I'll probably share. This semester has been far from perfect, but a lot that I didn't think would work as well as it has...has. That has been encouraging. I know for a fact that I'm having much more fun teaching this semester than nearly everyone else in the department.
I wish I had a substantive essay to write here...but frankly, all that effort has been going into this research I've been doing on creative writing exercises and composition processes. Maybe parts of that will work its way on to here, too.
I really am wanting to breath some life back into this. Soon. Bear with me. Such is the life in academia it seems.