The semester ended yesterday at noon for me, as I turned in final grades.
It was a rough semester on many ways. One way that is was rough was simply the schedule. My teaching schedule was rather like working split shifts. I had three morning classes, and three evening classes. This sort of schedule just exhausts me, and it swallows up huge amounts of my freetime. The lack of freetime cuts down on the amount of grading time which then stresses me out as I lose sleep from working to 8:30 or 9pm, and then turning around to be back by 8 am. It is also near impossible to come home from a night class and want to spend anytime grading–I simply cannot focus.
Then, I chose to mix an online learning component into my classes. This was a very mixed response experiment. This made it much easier for me to keep track of quizzes and tests. However, the submission process for papers was horrible, and our online learning program doesn’t work well with IE 8 or Vista. This meant my students with brand new computers would get thrown offline by the program. Also, I clearly over-estimated my students’ ability to attach files to an email. The most technologically savvy generation, my ass.
I also have to say my own bad habits didn’t help to make the semester better. My tendency towards procrastination, my disorganized nature, and my much too generous attitude toward late work helped to sink me in many ways.
On the other hand, my NCTE conference was a nice break, and I gleaned some very cool ideas to try in class. I also found some books that might help me.
And to steal from Linda Ellerbee–and so it goes.