Chunking away

Today started with a 9:30 departmental assessment meeting, which was the usual process of trying to sort out what makes sense for us and then figuring out how to massage it so it satisfies the administrative assessment folks--who, of course, are slightly peeved by our use of narrative, wanting more graphs and charts, numbers, quantifications of the unquantifiable. We also got into a discussion of the need for a course designed for those who are in the uncomfortable middle ground between remedial--excuse me, developmental--level courses and those who can more readily begin to perform at the college level. I tried to get support for such a course eons ago, to no avail, but suddenly it's looking valuable, largely because of the debacle of the computerized placement test. I could spend quite a bit of time passing along the problems pointed out by the Placement Coordinator, which go far beyond the simple fact that a computer's only problem with "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" would be that it isn't sufficiently sesquipedalian. And as usual (she says, with all due modesty), I was pretty much the one clarifying the threads of conversation so they weren't all in a snarl but carefully differentiated. Others had much of great value to say--probably more valuable than my contributions. I'm just good at recognizing when too many related ideas are getting muddled together as if they are one.

The other hairball arising from that committee is that a bunch of us need to be trained in how to use an idiotic online assessment machine called TaskStream (which is, I hasten to point out, costing the college a gazillion dollars a year for the license and unlimited one-on-one tech support from the company--and do I remember rumors that somehow our illustrious ex-president has a connection to that company?). The administrator in charge of assessment is making tsk-tsk noises at us because we're behind her schedule for getting all our shit put together in a way that works with the program and getting it on our "workspace"--but Bruce and I both say, "Ah, fuck that. Let her fuss." The whole TaskStream idiocy is quite a bit too much the tail wagging the dog, and I'm not going to get my knickers in a knot to jump through those particular hoops. (An interesting mix of several metaphors there.) But I am on the subcommittee that has to deal with it eventually. Still, I'll learn the program, but then I will maintain my function as a conceptual voice: I'm not getting my hands dirty with too much of the actual inputting of crapola.

As for the teaching end of my professional life, in the Short Story class today, most of the period was taken up with handing out assignment sheets, getting the student information cards filled out, doing the name-game (more for my benefit than theirs, but they got into the spirit of the thing), so the students only had about 15 minutes at the end of class to discuss the day's story. I told them we'd simply have to discuss two stories on Monday (and right now, I can't remember what the next one is; I guess I should take a look at my own schedule). They seem lively and interested; I'm hoping we get some good conversation going next week.

I was successful in chunking through the first batch of 102 idea logs in Advisement today. I had intended to get a handful done for the second batch when I got back to the office, but I ended up doing something somewhere between sweeping up a few little pearls and noodling. I made the first "to do" list of the semester; it's relatively brief and doesn't have much that's particularly onerous on it, but still.

As Paul said, two weeks down, fourteen to go.

I also realize I am going to have to take work home this weekend, dammit. I need to return the first two sets of logs to the Short Story students when we see each other next--which will be on Tuesday, given the school holiday for Rosh Hoshannah (no classes Monday; Tuesday classes follow a Monday schedule, to be sure every class has the same number of meetings). Nice to have the extra day for the weekend; rather sucky that I have to spend a chunk of it marking logs. Ah well. I didn't push like mad today to get the 102 logs done, which would have allowed me to work exclusively on the Short Story logs tomorrow and perhaps at least reduce the weekend work, so that's the bed I made. No, wait; that analogy doesn't work: I treasure the mornings when I can sleep in, so unless the bed is made of nails, lying in the bed I made sounds like a treat, not a come-uppance. I'll have to find an alternative cliche.

Shifting focus, I had one of those "damn, I wish I'd thought of that before" moments this morning. I suddenly thought that at the end of the PowerPoint exercise, I should have had the students write a brief note explaining whether they thought they were doing what they should in their first logs or whether they needed to adjust their process. I also am thinking of ways to rework the entire PowerPoint, less on what I underlined, more on showing the move from observation to something more substantive. And fewer slides overall. I'm not sure if I'll get to that before the spring semester, but I hope so. Maybe that's a task for a day when I want to feel I'm being productive but don't want to do the work that's in front of me (like today, for instance).

I detained Paul for a good while; he was on his way out, and I trapped him in conversation. I enjoyed the hell out of it; I hope he did, too, but I feel a bit guilty about keeping him from his retreat to home just because I didn't want to work.

And now that I'm blogging, of course, my psyche says "I'm done for today." I won't be able to get myself to do anything else productive, apart from maybe shoving a few things into slightly more organized piles on my desk. As for the rest of the logs, and everything else on that to-do list, "I'll think of that tomorrow, when I'm stronger." (One of these days, I need to re-read Gone with the Wind to be sure I'm quoting correctly; a lot of other sources equate Scarlett with "I'll think of that tomorrow," but as someone who works with literature, I should be sure....)