Hi writers! Somehow, we’ve made it to August.
And you know what that means for most academics? Summer is over, baby!
It’s time to get your head back into the game when it comes to teaching and course preparation.
Summer is like an hourglass that starts out wonderfully full and then all of a sudden you look over at it and realize the final grains are about to pour out.
I’ve had an extremely busy couple of months because my clients are busting their butts trying to get as much writing done before their teaching and service commitments ramp back up.
Some of my clients teach four courses per semester or are running their department’s graduate program or even chairing their departments.
There is a lot of work to come, and they’re anxiously anticipating the onslaught.
Many folks return to teaching in mid-to-late August, which means they need to factor in a lot of time for course prep into the 2-3 week period beforehand.
At least half of their work schedule will be taken up by creating or updating syllabi and assignments, monitoring enrollment, uploading readings and other materials to Blackboard or Canvas, etc., etc., etc.
I remember spending many, many hours preparing for classes even during those semesters where I was repeating a course I had already taught.
Figuring out the schedule of lectures and assignments and exams, updating readings, arranging guest lectures or films for when I would be traveling—all of that took up precious work time.
Plus, lots of folks like to have their first couple of lectures planned so they don’t need to worry about it during the craziness of the start of the semester.
One of my former colleagues even used to plan ALL of his lectures in the summer!
But, no matter how you approach it, this is the time when people start to panic about their ability to get their own work done.
They think back to previous semesters where their writing took a major backseat and worry that it will happen again.
Well, I’m here to say that you can absolutely still maintain progress on your book and other writing projects while you’re teaching.
In short, teaching and writing do not have to be at odds with one another!
Today’s episode will be focused on how you can consciously design your courses to help you attain your own goals.
I’m going to talk about why you need to drop your standards when it comes to teaching.
I’ll also share some critical questions to ask yourself as you’re planning your courses, along with some different strategies for how you can use teaching to enhance your own research and writing.
Why You Need to Drop Your Standards
So let’s start by talking about why you absolutely need to drop your standards when it comes to teaching.
If you’ve been teaching for awhile, you know that, like a sponge, it will expand to take up as much time as you give it.
There’s always more lecture prep you could do.
There’s always another, more interesting YouTube video you could show your class.
There’s always another, better group exercise you could employ to reinforce student learning.
There’s always more detailed comments you can leave on their assignments.
When I first began teaching, I thought that I had to give it 100% of my focus and attention.
I had a really lofty view of teaching and felt like I had to transform the lives of each one of my students through my lectures.
It’s no wonder that teaching came to feel like a huge burden!
Having such high standards literally sucked all the fun out of it.
As a grad student, postdoc, and young professor I was also scared to death of not having the right answers for everything and looking like a fool, so I would vastly overprepare for lectures.
I would spend hours googling everything I could on a topic JUST IN CASE a student asked me something about it in class, which of course they never did.
I let my perfectionism and imposter syndrome take the driver’s seat for years.
It was both exhausting and time-consuming.
I would return home from teaching and collapse on my couch, unable to get up for hours.
And then came a semester when I could no longer do that, and I was forced to change my approach.
Without warning, my father, who lived on the opposite side of the country, was admitted to the intensive care unit with heart and liver failure.
It was barely three weeks into fall semester when my mom called to tell me to jump on the next flight home because they weren’t sure if he would make it through the night.
I was teaching two courses on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule and immediately set about creating alternate plans for my classes so I could return home.
In what can only be called a medical miracle, my father survived this ordeal, but he was still hospitalized when I had to return to Boston 10 days later.
And he continued to be very ill for the next six months.
I spent the rest of the semester on pins and needles, constantly waiting for more information from my family.
And, in case you’re wondering, my father is fortunately still with us now so everything worked out in the end.
But during that all-encompassing family crisis, teaching HAD to take up less time and headspace for me or else I would not be able to function.
So what did I do?
I dropped my standards to allow me to still do my job and be able to leave to help my family for a few days if need be.
I put exams online instead of having them in-person, and this was pre-pandemic so it was a big deal.
And, I should add, a number of other instructors in my department ended up doing this after I did once they saw that it could work just as well.
It also provided more flexibility for our commuter student population.
I showed more films.
I reused as much material from previous classes that I could.
I asked more people to guest lecture.
However, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t overburdening my colleagues, so I asked them to give a lecture they’d already prepared before.
I also shared with my classes—one of which was a large lecture course of 100+ students—what my family was going through and asked for their patience and cooperation.
And you know what happened? I received the best evaluations of my career.
I also really bonded with many of my students in a deeper and more authentic way.
This experience showed me a few things.
The first was that I was holding myself to impossible standards for no good reason.
After this, I no longer spent hours and hours overpreparing for class.
Instead, I started allowing more space IN-class for spontaneous discussions to occur, which were often a lot more interesting than what I had planned.
The second is that students are often much more understanding than you might assume if you are willing to be vulnerable and show them your humanity.
The third is that, because my evaluations had always been good, even if I had gotten poor evaluations that term, it wouldn’t have mattered in the long run.
Everyone has an off semester. We’re just human.
The Two Questions You Need to Ask Yourself
After that experience, when I planned my courses, I started asking myself two important questions when I was planning my courses.
The underlying priority of these questions was ensuring I fulfilled my obligations to students without overtaxing myself, and I encourage you to ask yourself them now as well.
#1: The first is, when it comes to teaching, what percentage effort am I going to devote to it so I can prioritize other personal goals, especially my writing?
#2: And the second one is, where can I cut back on teaching in ways that both save me time but do not negatively impact my students’ learning?
In other words, what can I do in terms of assignments, readings, and other class materials that will make my life EASIER and create more mental space for my own work while not shortchanging students?
I’m going to go into some detail on each of these, but starting with these questions automatically imposes certain boundaries on your work.
And if you want to get anything else done during a busy semester when it comes to your own writing, you need to have boundaries with your teaching.
These questions might make you feel uncomfortable because they’re putting your own needs and priorities first rather than those of students.
But I consider teaching to be similar to parenting in that if you don’t take care of yourself first, you will do a much poorer job caring for others.
You will probably burn out and/or become quite resentful that you’re not able to achieve other things that are important to you.
#1: So let’s start with the first question: when it comes to teaching, what percentage effort are you going to devote to it so you can prioritize your personal goals, including your writing, as well?
This is actually a question that academic life coach Katie Linder asked me when I was preparing to go back to teaching after taking sabbatical and parental leave during the pandemic.
During that time, I was taking care of my child full-time and really had some mental space to ponder my life and career.
I knew that what I had been doing prior to my leave was completely unsustainable, and I wanted to approach things differently.
So I talked to Katie about how to be more strategic about using my limited time and energy.
I had already published two books by then, so I wasn’t as concerned about my writing time, but I was terrified of teaching swamping everything else that was important to me.
With Katie’s prodding, I decided I was only going to give 70% effort to my teaching.
She then asked me what 70% actually looks like in practice. This question stumped me.
I realized that before you can choose a number that feels right, you need to take a closer look at everything on your plate for the term.
So, here’s a short exercise you can do:
Take out a sheet of paper and list out all of your teaching, research, service, personal life obligations, as well as your non-work-related goals this semester.
Then honestly assess how much time and effort each of these will take.
Now that you have your responsibilities laid out before you, what’s the percentage effort you want to give teaching so that your personal goals—especially your writing—can stay front and center?
Of course, I recognize that this depends on how much teaching experience you have and your position in the university.
If you’re new to teaching, if you have a very high teaching and advising load, if you’re teaching new courses, and/or you’re a lecturer who is precariously employed, then your percentage effort will need to be much higher.
But if you were like I was, someone who had been teaching a long time and was often able to repeat the same courses, I could choose a number that suited my life better.
And maybe you’re in this camp as well.
#2: So this gets us to the second question: where can you cut back on teaching in ways that save time but do not negatively impact students’ learning?
In other words, what can you do in terms of course planning that will make your life easier and create more mental space for your own work while still prioritizing the needs of your students?
I know so many people who revamp their courses every semester, even if they’ve taught them before.
They choose all new readings or assign a new textbook they’re not that familiar with, or they create all-new assignments.
I get why people do this—you want your students to learn as much as possible and you’ve learned lessons from previous times about what works and what doesn’t.
Or maybe you’re just bored with the material and want it to be a more interesting experience for yourself.
Plus, the advent of ChatGPT has forced instructors to rethink their entire approach to their classes.
So some amount of revamping is usually necessary.
But there are some obvious problems to completely revamping things if you do it too often.
By bringing in so much new stuff, you will end up putting in nearly as much time and effort as a brand-new course.
So the question then becomes, how can you make your effort stretch further?
The answer, as I’ve talked about before, is that you need to double-purpose everything.
For example, when it comes to syllabus design, can you reassign readings from previous courses or readings you’re already very familiar with?
Alternatively, can you choose readings that you need to do anyway that will help you with the next stage of your writing?
One of my clients is an assistant professor at a small liberal arts college and is able to design courses that align with her research.
For her book, she needs to master an entire new literature and has geared one of her courses in the spring around this goal.
Other ideas for double-purposing include showing films or shows you’ve taught before.
Also think about how you might be able to utilize your students’ help with your research.
You could have your students do research projects that will provide some insight into your own topic.
I know a lot of schools really prize having faculty incorporate students into their research.
So, you can observe which students really excel at their class projects and then consider hiring them as research assistants for your own work when the course is over.
Another idea is having your students read your work-in-progress, which many of my clients do.
One of my clients is assigning some of her book chapters that she’s still working on to students in an advanced seminar this fall.
Others share papers or chapters-in-progress with specific graduate students or undergrad mentees with great success.
Of course, this means you need to choose students who you know are on the intellectual level of the material.
But rather than thinking of it as just enlisting their help, you can think of it as a reciprocal exchange.
This is an opportunity to teach students how the “sausage is made,” as they say.
They can watch a paper take shape over time and play a role in helping it have a clearer argument and implications.
I know that when I was a grad student, I would definitely have benefited from seeing the behind-the-scenes work that goes into creating publishable material.
I wouldn’t have felt nearly as lost when it came time to publish my own articles before I hit the job market.
The point is, your students are not just people who need your help. They can also help YOU move your own work forward.
Summing It All Up
I’ve offered some important questions to ask yourself while you prep your courses to help you keep your own work front and center.
I’ve also given some different strategies for doing so when it comes to assignments or incorporating students into your own research.
I know many people who are able to get their writing done while juggling multiple courses.
But it will be easier to do if you’ve done some planning ahead of time, prioritizing your own personal goals and well-being as much as your students’ learning.
If you use any of these strategies, let me know how they go.
Best of luck as you get ready for the new term.
I hope you’ll surprise yourself with how much writing you get done this time around!
I’ll talk to you again soon.
