Time Management

I complained recently (me? complain?) about the amount of non-instructional time science teachers spend on both the regular teaching duties that all teachers struggle with (such as planning lessons and grading papers) plus all the extra work associated with getting materials together for labs. Keep in mind that most of these labs involve consumable materials that have to be re-organized and replenished after each section goes through the lab plus there's always some clean-up, even if you successfully complete the lab in time for students to participate in the cleaning.

The first marking period ended last Wednesday - I am totally unaccustomed to the 5 week marking period. So of course I had a ton of projects and lab reports due on or before Wednesday not to mention a last minute quiz, so I've spent now the last part of the school week working those 12-14 hour days trying to catch up with all the paper and all day today getting grades entered into those awful new report card scan sheets with over 500 bubbles to fill in for my 110 students, not to mention agonizing over the standardized comments (2 per student) that have to be entered along with the actual grades. At least now I have the computer do all the grade calculations - I can't imagine how I did it all with paper & calculator just a of couple years ago.

It's also Sunday night and next week is the real start of the new marking period and I would like to be ahead of the game, but I'm just a little too burned out right now to think more than a day ahead. I have a lab period first thing Monday mornings, and I think I may have to start making Saturday mornings at the school a regular part of my routine just to get the labs ready for the following week. This Saturday (yesterday) was my twins' birthday party, so I was pretty occupied all day. Otherwise I would probably have been at the school yesterday.

I'm looking at ways of streamlining some of the paperwork - including assigning less of it, having homework monitors at each station just check to see if the work is done or not for the minor stuff, and getting some peer assessment going - not sure yet how I will do it, but when we get more into the meaty content and regents practice questions it should be a lot simpler. I do know that when faced with mountains of work to correct, I start looking for quick, easily recognizable criteria for grading.

For example, I had students write reports about scientists and asked them to write in their introductions about their motivation for choosing the scientist and in conclusion to write about the qualities that made the scientists successful (usually hard work, determination, imagination, etc.) and whether those qualities might also be important for the student's own personal goals in life. In between they were to discuss the biographical information and a summary of the scientific work. Most of the student's papers were plagiarized in the middle sections (copy & paste with various degrees of editing from one or more sources), so I found myself focusing on the intro and conclusion. Their grades depended on the extent to which they made those personal connections. I might be more explicit about those things in the future, or better yet, warn them that I will focus only a particular point as a sort of "spot check" without telling them ahead of time which particular point I will "spot check." Yeah, I like that idea. Here's a perfect example of why I blog - I get to think through what I've done and sometimes ideas just crystallize.

I've got a few ideas kicking around, but not much time to flesh them out or write about them now. I discovered a nice 3-tier "GroLab" that was about to be given away and quickly claimed it for the biology department (me). So I'll be looking for some ways of using it, maybe with some Wisconsin Fast Plants if I can get any. I have a small allowance to spend on biology materials, but it won't go very far.