It's all good...

I got through all the accumulated homework for the 101s before end of day yesterday--despite time spent doing things like going to riding lessons, fiddle lessons, yoga class. The secret? Barely pay attention.

I'm a bit concerned that I haven't been paying enough attention in the past, however, as in their notes, several students quoted directly from the readings without using quotation marks--so I've had to nail them for plagiarism. I hope they haven't been doing that all along, but I suppose better I catch them now than not at all.

Today, I got through all the discussion boards. I took a lot longer at that than was strictly necessary, as I kept looking things up, both through highly unacademic Google searches and through more academically sound database searches. But I had fun pointing students to further information. It may have been completely wasted effort--I don't know how many (if any) of the students will bother to return to those discussion boards to see my comments, even though I told them in an email they could and should. But we know that they don't tend to read their email. Ah well.

And I know, but keep willfully forgetting, that their diligence in keeping up with the discussion boards will wane if they don't see evidence that I'm checking. Between that and the fact that the boards are really only working for one of the classes, I'm considering not doing them at all next semester. Whether I do or not will depend a lot on how much work I get done on the online Nature in Lit course before the start of the spring semester, which will dictate how much time I have to reconfigure the 101s. If I don't have time to reconfigure the 101s, I'll just adjust dates to fit the spring schedule.

I started working on the accumulated notes for the SF class, too--and realized that I hadn't returned some old homework as well as graded essays to a few students who were absent or late when I was returning work. I feel terrible that I have such a huge accumulation of stuff for certain students, as my comments might maybe have been beneficial. But again, ah well. What I'm liking is that most of the students seem to be doing a better job of their notes of late. I'll take that with gratitude.

Of course, typically for me, I had ambitions to get a lot more done this weekend than I actually accomplished. I have decided, however, that between now and Wednesday, when I collect the first version of the second essay from my 101 students, I should be able to find time to noodle around with some of the stuff I'd hoped to do this weekend--including cranking through the rest of the accumulated notes from the SF students so I can return everything  to them on Tuesday. I'll have the homework for the 101s that Paul collected to crank through as well--and we're getting to the point in the semester when I can't count on having time in Advisement to get my own stuff done, so that may mean an early alarm for tomorrow. At the moment, that doesn't seem dreadful.

Now, however, it's a chilly, rainy day, and I intend to simply enjoy being cozy with what remains of it.