So Many Thoughts: Planning for Fall

There is an old saying that "crisis doesn't create character, it reveals it."

I am not sure if this is completely true, but I've been thinking a lot about this in light of how our emergency distance teaching adventure has unfolded over the past weeks and months.

This has been an educational crisis, for sure. And it hasn't all gone well, at least in my own teaching practice. There are plenty of things that I would have loved to do over, from the kinds of assignments I gave in some situations, to the way I communicated my expectations to students, to being a little more proactive in reaching out to a few students. It all ended up well enough in each of these situations, and we made it through. I feel like I'm still kind of catching my breath after the hectic pace and uncertainty of the end of the spring semester. I suspect many educators are feeling that way.

But the fall semester is out there on the horizon, and soon enough it will be here. And as much as I wish I could take more time to rest, to regroup...I think planning for fall has to begin now.

I know many schools already have those kinds of planning sessions underway, but I'm thinking here about teachers in particular. What can we do to be best prepared for teaching this fall? Here are six things that I think educators should think about. I don't mean this list to be a prescriptive "here's what you gotta do if you're going to be teaching this fall," but more of a "here's what I'm thinking about and I hope this might help spur your thinking too." I'd love to hear your thoughts in response.


1. Look for balance.

Maybe it's just my tendency towards workaholism rearing it's ugly head, but it's pretty easy for me to just throw myself into the work. I think it's important to keep a perspective of focusing on health. And for health, I think I need balance. I have to do some work. But I also have to have some time for play and rest.

Summer is typically a time when I try to recharge a bit because the school year is demanding and busy and stressful. This summer, thinking about fall...I'm thinking that it could be demanding and busy and stressful. So, something to keep in mind, for me at least: look for balance. Go for a bike ride. Read something for fun. Spend time with my family. Hobbies make me a better human overall, so I should not stop doing those things.

At the same time...I do start doing some work for fall, even now. At least in the broad strokes: what things can I start doing to prepare for my fall teaching now?


2. Reflect. (And then reflect some more!)

I've been thinking and thinking about the importance of reflection--and not just in the age of COVID-19. Really, that's what this whole blogging thing is about for me: this is one big exercise in reflection. I think that reflection is really about thinking about what you have done, read, tried, failed at, succeeded at, experienced...and making meaning of it all, and making plans for how use what you've learned.

So I think it's important to do some work internally in response to the teaching (and learning) we've experienced through this past semester. What should I keep doing? What should I stop doing? What worked? What didn't work--or at least didn't work as well as I had hoped? What would be a better design next time around?

I need to spend even more time thinking about my thinking, and reflecting on what I've done and learned in the past months that can inform my future practice.


3. "Good teaching is still good teaching," but...

I have become a little skeptical of the phrase "good teaching is good teaching" over the past few years. Why? Because "good teaching" is so often bound by context and content. We use different teaching methods in different contexts. We use different teaching methods for different content. Well, I am saying this as if it is exactly what we all do, using different teaching methods for different contexts and content. Perhaps I should qualify this and say it this way: we should use different methods if we are teaching in a different context, or when teaching different content.

I found this personally this past spring teaching elementary science methods. I've taught this course more than 20 times. I "know" this course; I know the goals, I have assessments sorted out, I have a general path through the content that is comfortable for me and has a track record of success for helping students meet the intended learning outcomes. But it is the most hands-on course I teach, and our distance teaching adventure forced me to re-imagine the course almost from the ground up. This was an EXTREMELY valuable experience for me...but I wound up teaching the course quite differently than I have taught it face-to-face over the past few semesters. This is what I'm thinking about for all of my courses for fall: how might students' learning benefit from this re-imagination, particularly if things again look different than "normal?"

Different courses are going to need different things, because the content is different. And my teaching practice as a whole might need different things, if the context is different.


4. "Remember the human."

Back in the days of yore, in the early 1990s, when the World Wide Web was young...netiquette was developed and codified. Netiquette is the catch-all for "how to be a good human online." And rule number one? "Remember the human." At its most basic, this principle is the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or, perhaps the Golden Rule for teachers: "never ask students to do things that you would be uncomfortable doing yourself as their teacher."

I'm thinking a lot about how I can humanize my courses. I think I generally do a pretty good job of this, but I'm sure I have blind spots and places where my students would say, "Yeah...Mulder does a pretty good job of this, but if he would just..."

I guess I'm thinking here about the ways I wish people would treat me with a little extra grace and kindness, and then try to lead with that sort of grace and kindness for my students, even in the way I plan and design learning experiences for them. And I don't want to make assumptions that this is all already figured out; I need to do this deep look at my whole teaching practice and keep refining the places where I find gaps between what I (say I) believe and what I actually do.


5. Keep the main thing the main thing.

I try to keep the main thing central. I really do. But there are so many shiny things that I would love to include--amazingly engaging activities, tangentially-related readings that are fascinating to me, compelling writing assignments, videos that help to flesh things out in much greater detail--that it feels like students are somehow missing out if I don't include all of these things!

But "keep the main thing the main thing" is my call to myself to clarify the learning targets I'm aiming for in my courses, and keep these central. What should students absolutely know, understand, and be able to do as a result of the learning opportunities? What do I want them to believe? To feel? What kind of people do I hope they will become? These are the kind of "main things" I'm thinking about.

I'm working on refining my teaching practices along these lines. Does this particular reading assignment help them understand the concept better? Does this simulation help shape them to be a particular kind of person? Does this discussion help them unpack their deeply held beliefs in a way that causes them think through what they think, and why? And...if these learning activities don't help me focus on keeping the main thing the main thing...I have to be willing to let some of them go. This is painful work for me, because I am emotionally tied to some of these great learning opportunities, and I want students to love them too. But are they "extra" in some way? If the answer is "yes"...I have to think about whether or not they should stay.


6. Capitalize on colleagues' wisdom.

I had a meeting this morning with several colleagues who I know and trust and value immensely. It was so good to think out loud with them, to plan with them, to imagine with them. I need to intentionally keep doing this. I recognize my own tendency to think I have all the answers somehow, to place a lot of trust in myself as the final arbiter for my classroom. But this is hubris. In my heart of hearts, I know that I don't have it all figured out. I know that there is a lot more I can learn if I have the humility to listen, to wonder, and to keep interrogating my own teaching practice. And if I have colleagues who can help me think better about my own work, its almost malpractice to not benefit from their wisdom and experience!

This is an ongoing process, of course. My hope is that we will be able to build in some structure to our shared learning throughout this summer, so I can share with them from my areas of expertise, and I can learn from them about theirs. I'm thinking of this all for our students: how can we leverage our collective knowledge, wisdom, and experience to ensure great learning for everyone?


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So, perhaps not the most cohesive vision for my planning for the fall semester just yet, but this is where my thinking is directed for now at least. We'll see how I'm feeling in a month or so, I guess!

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters via Unsplash