It's August; my classes begin 3 weeks from today. I've decided it could be interesting to share a slice of what I'm doing and thinking about my work as a college physics professor each (work?)day this fall. I'll aim here to be honest, respectful, and as positive as I can manage.

Today was full of meetings: over three hours. (All summer has been full of meetings.) Academic sector updates (including some budget-driven program cuts that break my heart), First Year Seminar plans, and helping with our General Education revision. Someday I can plan my classes.

[Clarification: It's become so much second nature this summer that I forget to even think about it, but these meetings have all been virtual. Our campus has mostly told faculty to use Microsoft Teams, so we do, though the President's town halls still use Zoom for some reason.]

Accountability post! I've been learning Canvas by transitioning the simplest of my three classes for the fall over from Moodle. Today's goal: finish it, at least the important parts. (Fancy polish and the first few daily schedule pages may come later.)

I claim partial success! After a few bugs & puzzles, my first Canvas course is scheduled through the end of September: assignments, documents, resources, & an exam. (Some, like the exam, are placeholders until written.) Tomorrow: daily online activity guides & an overview page.

I did a lot more class prep work today, almost none of it what I'd planned on. I delved into options and limitations for combining my two intro physics classes under one umbrella structure (with mixed results), and I got one topic schedule and formal syllabus more or less done.

I'm pretty confident that I'll get my classes ready on time, but I'm still a lot more worried about it than usual. I'm already getting faster with Canvas, but it still takes time. Meanwhile, I'm chair of my tiny department and there are necessary tasks there, too. And COVID...

...COVID is hanging over my head. I *think* my Provost OK'd my classes as "synchronous online", but even then we've been told we must require some sort of face-to-face (mask-to-mask) interaction. She suggested occasional small group conferences in a big room during office hours.

Hopefully that level of exposure won't be too bad. My family's been really cautious so far, and we're very lucky(?) that Kim isn't working right now so she can supervise Ms9 for online 4th grade. Ms9 plays with friends online, but misses them a lot. I worry about all that, too.

Okay! The first of my 3 courses is "done enough" on Canvas at this point. There's more little stuff to do and I haven't planned specific class sessions yet, but the structure is good.

Tomorrow, hours of meetings, and hopefully a draft daily topic schedule for one or both others.

Finished with virtual meetings for the day (3 hours of them: whew). I'm still working on class schedules, but that's getting close, too. I may even get a little more done today than I thought I would.

One piece of meeting stuff has me a bit nervous, though I don't regret it.

I've volunteered to facilitate 5 hourlong Orientation sessions to introduce incoming students to unconscious bias and how to address it. This is deeply important work; I'm proud to do my part. It's a responsibility.

But I'm also worried: that's a lot of potential COVID exposure.

Another syllabus written, and a good bit of its Canvas framework in place (it's faster when you can import a more finished course!) Still lots more to do, and a third course to prep, but it's coming along.

My courses got listed as "HyFlex", which usually means an A/B rotation (half the students attending virtually each day). I'm not sure if that means my request to teach mostly online was denied, or if it's for the mandatory face-to-face office hours the Provost insisted I include.

Ah, there it is: the inevitable anxiety about everything I need to get done before the start of the term. Not that I wasn't feeling some already! But I've hit the point where "need to set up online structures" starts to collide with "need to plan first day activities". Whee!

My fall classes are now successfully fixed and listed as "Online synchronous", though I'll still have required conferences face-to-face to comply with Provost's Office policies. Meanwhile, I've made solid progress on my Canvas site for my new prep this fall. Just keep working!

This morning, I got an email from a student who'd noticed that our class was now listed as "online". They were checking if that was right, and if I would be teaching any sections in person. I really empathize: students choose our school for close, personal connections, after all.

So I wrote an email and recorded a 5-minute welcome video for each of my classes, explaining what our class format would look like and why I thought it was the best option available. Is this what I wish we had? No. But I still honestly think it'll work out very well.

Today's was rough in class prep land. I did accomplish a flock of little things, but I dread the looming big ones.

I didn't engage well with a Zoom presentation this morning: partly my brain being flaky, partly a reminder that 60 minutes of pure video lecture is hard to absorb.

Solid progress today in setting up the last of my three classes on Canvas. Lots of importing old assignments and quizzes, lots of organizing course materials, and I've sorted out most of the syllabus. Good thing, too, since I need to turn all of my syllabi in on Monday. (Gulp.)

Even though it's Saturday, I spent some time reorganizing the way I've split information between my formal syllabi and my grading policy handouts. I think the new way makes more sense, and it left more syllabus space to clearly describe our online format.

(I work hard to limit my syllabi to a single double-sided page: maybe if I keep them short and very focused on essential plans and policies, the students will actually read them. I guess my page on grading is kinda part of it, too. Specific assignment details I just put online.)

Okay: at long last, I have finished(?) drafts of syllabi, grading policies, and official learning objectives for all of my courses for this fall. My Canvas sites are largely in place (except for linking a few videos). Next step: building the Teams sites for daily class meetings.

Today I sorted out lab details at last (conclusion: "it's a pandemic, don't be ambitious"), linked up a bunch of short videos, and created the Teams structure for one class's live component. (I hope my plans for active/fun engagement there aren't "ambitious". Or, not too much.)

Yesterday and today were my college's annual Fall Conference: meetings to set the stage for the year. There are hopeful bits and stressful ones. (I got a bit agitated about transparency in our strategic planning process. I hope I'm not turning into a gadfly in my old age.)

Meanwhile, plugging away at course details, but lots more going on: e.g. planning presentations about unconscious bias to give during orientation, finally getting permission to let a student take my intro physics class remotely, & phone tag with a contractor for house repairs.

I didn't expect to celebrate my birthday by getting up at 6:15am and working on a Canvas quiz, but I couldn't get back to sleep, so why not?

Hurrah! I finally finished re-implementing my "algebra practice quiz" in Canvas (my Moodle work was too fancy to convert automatically), which was nearly the last step before I was ready to go live with my Canvas classes and send students an orientation video. We're doing this!

Just had my college-provided back-to-school COVID test. (The lab supposedly promised 72 hour turnaround time: we'll see.) It wasn't bad, which I worry a little means they aren't using the most thorough protocol: just one nostril, and it made my eyes water but nothing worse.

Days later than I'd hoped, but my Canvas courses and their Teams counterparts are all published and live! I'm sure there will stil be bugs to work out, but I'm pretty happy with how they've shaped up.

Tomorrow, a video guide to it all, and details for Day 1 content.

Current mood:

"CJ, between friends, is the water over your head?"
"No. The water's exactly at my head."

Better late than never, sent all my students a tutorial video walking them through our Canvas and Teams sites. I've got a fairly thorough sketch of Monday's classes, too. Still need to get there for Tuesday's, including the new prep. And I need to set up filming in my office.

Also, this afternoon I finished six hours of diversity presentations to classes of frosh (half yesterday, half today). Observations:

* Every class's personality is unique.

* People get tired and shut down past 5pm.

* Masks and distancing are really hard to do consistently.

Last night, at long last, I had pretty much everything in place for classes this week, and students were happily introducing themselves in the Teams chat forums. This morning, class starts in just 15 minutes or so, and I may even be ready. Almost. I'm excited and terrified.

My first class is done, and I think it went pretty well! Not perfect, not everything I wish a class could be, a bit of awkward logistical stuff, but the students engaged with my chat questions and seemed to be able to follow the conversation and even a bit of board work. Whew!

First class, section 2 is now finished as well. It went... about the same, I think? There was maybe a bit less participation by voice and video and maybe a bit more in chat. We'll see how that evolves, and what feedback they have in their daily reflection journals.

I've looked through half the feedback for Day 1. Results: Surprisingly many thought it went really well, with no complaints. Several had video quality issues: mostly a problem for reading board work. One or two had significant trouble with the online format just in general. Okay!

One big and frightening takeaway: I definitely have enough time to prepare class and respond to feedback and do the things I need to for it. But during the day today, I did *not* manage to do much at all to prepare *tomorrow's* classes. The actual content for my 8am new prep? ???

My 8am class went at least reasonably well. It's a smaller class, and for this one the broad questions in chat channels for everyone to discuss fell very flat (maybe not enough people to build momentum). But small group work was immensely popular, despite an awkward "whiteboard".

Addendum: 8am is painfully early for college kids. I tried to chat as students tricked in before that, but most still seemed busy waking up. It struck me that the right sort of music might help, so I put on Good Morning Moon by @mariancall. Those who reacted at all liked it...

Finishing the day today, with all of my "first day of class" moments behind me and some last bits of essential start-up logistics done, I was surprised at how much relief I felt. On some level it was premature: there's tons left to do even for tomorrow. But I feel good so far.

Work is so hard. Sometimes I really do feel legitimately good about what I've accomplished, but the stress of getting everything ready before each class is just intense, even overwhelming. It's still going fine! But this will add up.

And cops keep shooting unarmed black people.

Maybe I ought to have included this sweet story about my daughter in this thread: https://twitter.com/steuard/status/1298805030590599168