I read a really interesting blog post by Nathalie Tasler on the seven steps of semester prep (https://acdevadventures.blog/2023/08/20/my-seven-steps-of-semester-prep/) and it got me thinking about how I prep for semester. I don’t think I’m nearly as systematic but I can see that I have a few annual habits? rituals? things I do when I remember? There isn’t an exact term.

Firstly a word on timings: our new module proposal deadline is now very offset with respect to the academic year so substantive change is slow, but our module revision process and deadlines are very tight on the academic year so some semester prep is speculative pending approval of changes. This means that big thoughts on modules have to happen in June, really big thoughts on modules have a year lead time, and more detailed thoughts happen far nearer to semester start.

Typically I try to find a full day per module/content block in August or January to get things setup. That might include copying course material between spaces on the VLE (I didn’t use to do this but because of how I now set up the VLE, it’s easier to copy then delete/hide things than to create from scratch), creating versions of quizzes and forms for this academic year, checking the sequence of activities and reviewing the notes. I’ve been thrown out a little this year because we will have an additional week for induction (freshers) week where previously week 1 was more a hybrid. So my 1st year teaching has moved forward one week. I find it fairly easy to get confused so this year I’ve created week-by-week plans for each module/content block that lets me identify what is done and what is still to be done.

Part of this review is checking back on the previous year’s materials and any notes I’ve made on how they went and shifting things around or creating new activities or materials as required. I have one module where I’m struggling to pin down a logical running order for the key concepts because they don’t want to be linear! There’s strengths and weaknesses in different arrangements. Another example would be whether to stop/keep/change a particular activity or block of content, particularly in the sustainable chemistry module where the rate of change of knowledge about climate related matters and appropriate examples is gut-wrenchingly rapid.

I make sure all timetabled activities are in my diary once timetables are known then try to block out time on a weekly basis such as student hours, writing time, breaks and teaching prep. I struggle a little with keeping an online calendar in a system where people can use outlook tools to work out when I’m potentially free for meetings and am trying to deescalate my instinctive approach of diary blocking to ensure sufficient time in the right places to be effective. My preference is to create blocks of time of a productive length and all of these ‘find a meeting slot’ apps seem to delight in fragmenting time into smaller shards that break attention and increase the amount of switching between tasks.

Being acutely aware that no plan survives first contact, I try to get the balance between flexibility and doing similar things at similar times of day/week. For example, I’ve not met all of my project students for the coming academic year and we’ll need to talk about arrangements for supervision. But we have to work out their project topics first, and whether the projects are pedagogical or laboratory based…too many variables.

Generally I enjoy the semester prep part of the summer because a lot of the tasks are easy to complete and quite satisfying. That makes some space/time for more demanding tasks like getting projects lined up for the academic year or writing. One of the biggest challenges of working part time is that it has really increased the intensity of working days, which makes being flexible a greater challenge. To me, getting reasonably organised is key to handling this.