Señora Cummins' Reflections

I like taking Fridays to reflect. For me, it's easier to disengage from work if I have closure. I have a weekly to do list.  On it I have all the items I need to check off M-F in the first part but second part contains the items that need to be done eventually. Everything from the first section is checked off.  Whew. Wins from week 1: I stopped using Zoom in my class lectures.  It was a headache and I'm not sure the students really utilized it. I started making the PP slides for the lecture available on Canvas.  I upload them by 10am so my 10:30 and 1pm class can access them ahead of time if they want.  They can also access them after class. 3 students missed day 1 of class.  It was so nice to send them the pdf of the slides and tell them to see what we did in class. I am uploading weekly songs for my 1411 online classes. My F2F classes do weekly songs.  It feels unfair that the online sections don't get to benefit from them.  This semester I'll u...

Change.  Boo.  Thumbs down. This semester I'm not doing anything "new." I'm not launching a new curriculum like I did last spring. I'm not teaching an Honors section for the first time like I did last fall. Everything I'm doing this semester I've done before.  However, there are tweaks: In 2311: *All students are online. *I have more students enrolled in this class than I ever have before. *They are using Day One Access to purchase the curriculum.  If all goes well it should be cheaper and easier for students.  Fingers crossed that all goes well... In 1411: *I'm making attendance required in F2F again.  I stopped this after COVID but a student last semester asked me to add it back.  She said it helps her be motivated to attend class. *I'm giving grades during my F2F classes again.  I used to give a general "participation" grade in each class but I dropped it because it wasn't really working.  This semester I'll give specific parti...