Ready for another year?

 So, amid all this stuff (cutbacks and much, much worse), are you ready for another year? 

I think I am, despite what I'm hearing and seeing.

1. The AI train has truly left the station. From what I see around the news and at r/professors, there's kind of an arms race going on with professors trying to prevent AI use (white text, anyone?) and students keeping one step ahead of them. If you have an in-person class, the blue book solution is staring you in the face, but aside from that, we just have to figure it out, I guess.

2. Speaking of an in-person class, I'm excited to teach a course in the literature of a previous century that I haven't taught for a while. In addition to having them write drafts and exams in class,  I am devising hands-on activities so that they can really experience reading & writing back then. Think about these: 

(1) library scavenger hunts in regular and closed stacks for copies of the magazines and books that they're reading; 

(2) bringing in copies of the original manuscripts so that they can see and decipher what it looked like when it went to the printer; 

(3) bringing in some stick (dip) pens, paper, and ink so that they can try their hand at writing sans electronic technology.  Maybe they could try their hand at crossed writing? At writing in the style and with the method (pen & ink) of an author? We'll see how it goes. 

3.  Worried about whether the course will have enough students to run? I'm concerned about this, but admin doesn't seem to be, so as my mother used to say (she said it was from George Washington, though I doubt it): "Worry is the interest you get when you borrow trouble." If they give me a little notice, I'm game to teach (though with varying degrees of aptitude) anything except Chaucer or linguistics, so I won't worry about it. 

4.  What's concerning you this year besides the obvious?  

Edited to add: Anne and Gwinne, your comments are there now; sorry for the delay! 

Classroom multitasking

The other day, I came into class and had about five things to do at once before class could start: (1) set up the laptop and equipment (screen) so students could give presentations; (2) give out handouts; (3) get books and other materials out of my bag; (4) answer the questions of the nervous, hovering student who was about to do a presentation; (5) put information on the board. As I was doing all this, going from one to the other (writing on the board while the projector warmed up), another student, from his seat, started asking, "When are you going to collect our assignments that are due today?" "I have a plan," I said, and kept on writing, etc., to which another student stage-whispered to the first one, "and you're messing it up." They laughed.

Having that much go on in the minutes before class is a little unusual, but unless you're like a professor I once had who'd walk quietly into a room with his book, no notes, and launch immediately into a discussion of the day's reading without even a "Hello," there's some preliminary set up--staging?--before class can start: you have to get out the book, marker or chalk, notes, papers you intend to give back, and so on, and this takes a little time. Packing up takes a little time, too, because you want to clean the board and get out of there before the next class comes in.

The multitasking I like is the kind that occurs when students want to linger and talk about what we've just been saying in class or walk back to the building to keep the conversation going. The multitasking I'm lousy at, though, goes something like this: I'm frantically stuffing books, papers, computer, and the rest into a bag to get out of the classroom, and a student comes up and says, "I have to be absent on [a day a month away]; what will we be doing?" or "Can I meet with you on X day at X time?" or anything that involves something I have to remember. The same thing happens some times when I'm ready to start class and a student wants to come up and discuss some projected absence or an appointment.

Note to students: The pencil is my memory stick. If you don't see a pencil in my hand so that I can write down what you're telling me, the chances are good that I won't remember it.