Welcome to the Tuesday Teaching Tip, an easy-to-implement tool that you can use immediately in your classroom teaching.  

TUESDAY TEACHING TIP: End of the Year Checklist

This has been a long and uniquely challenging year, and even though we’re so close to the finish line, making it through this last sprint can feel like a marathon. And while the relative freedom, or at least change of pace, that comes with the summer that lies ahead is energizing, for many of us it is also attended by a sense of pressure to produce in order to compensate for what we imagine we should have done over the year, and/or increased caregiving responsibilities, and/or a slew of online teaching responsibilities, and/or the need for just a total collapse into an abyss of television and excessive napping. Before we take the leap into the summer pace, and whatever that brings, this week we challenge you to take a moment for yourself. Give yourself a small break. Lower your standards, maybe. A little bit can go a long way. 

Here’s how:

• Close your office door and keep your lights low so no one knows you’re there 
• Take an extra hour to respond to that “urgent” colleague or student email, or maybe even set your auto-reply to give yourself some breathing room
• Take the scenic route to your end-of-year department meeting—the one that involves going through the rose garden and wisteria behind the mission church, and maybe continues down Park Ave for a while before looping back
• Take an hour to envision the summer ahead–the real summer productivity plans, sure, but also the aspirational ones, maybe. The ones that involve your family and friends, your health, and your whole self, as well as your work. Just dream for a moment. THEN sit down to calibrate your SMART goals and map them to your calendar–including time for family and friends, health, and self. 
• Do something that brings you joy–something for which you are the primary beneficiary. 

 

DID YOU DO IT?

We hope you will all take us up on this particular challenge, or adapt your own activities in the same spirit. We also want to recognize the curious, thoughtful, reflective folks who read and engaged with these tips throughout the year, some of whom reported back to us and many who have not. We see no better way to acknowledge you all and the work you do than with a quote from our final two TTT drawing winners:

Jui Bhagwat, Associate Teaching Professor, who had this to say in about the Tuesday Teaching Tips:  

“[I] love reading the Tuesday Teaching Tip email, and I love that you time the tip based on where we are in the quarter. It feels like you're reading my mind for what I need at that moment. For example, tips to help with flagging participation in the middle of the quarter, or tips to create classroom community at the start of the quarter, and tips for course design in time for the upcoming quarter."

 

And Melissa Brown, Assistant Professor, who shared this: 

“I will say that these tips have helped me think about creating smaller assessments that have bigger impacts, as the suggestions I have used have helped me to facilitate more meaningful discussions and reflections amongst my students.”

 

Jui and Melissa each won a copy of How Learning Works: Eight Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching by Marsha C. Lovett. Please join us in congratulating Jui and Melissa for taking the time to read, to reflect, and to share their experiences. And join both of them next year in reading and trying out our timely tips to enhance your reflective teaching practice throughout the year. Plus, be on the lookout: with our new center for teaching and learning, our weekly tips will be redesigned and promise to be better than ever. Stay tuned for more this fall! Until then, take good care. 

 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• AI Exploration Grants, Priority Proposal Deadline on Monday, June 15 Read More & Apply

• June All-Day Accessibility Working Sessions on Wednesday, June 17 RSVP and Tuesday, June 23 RSVP
  
  
• September All-Day Accessibility Working Sessions on Wednesday, September 3 RSVP and Friday, September 11 RSVP

This week’s Tuesday Teaching Tip was prepared by Amy Lueck on behalf of Faculty Development and the Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning.

Missed a teaching tip? Read them all here. 

And check out our full calendar of CAFEs and other Faculty Development events.