Faculty Development Days

Yesterday was the kind of day that was both exhausting and good.  A few weeks ago, my dean asked me to come up with some ideas for our Faculty Development day, which was yesterday.  Of course, we had no money, and not much time, since I'd be out of town the week before.  So I brainstormed some ideas and came up with a possible schedule.

I've done this before, and then there's been input and changes from others.  Not this time.  That's how I found myself running round table discussions throughout the day (the morning schedule repeated in the afternoon).

Luckily I had anticipated this turn of events, so I chose topics that interested me and wouldn't require prep time:  politics and our classrooms in election year 2016 and using social media in our classrooms.  I knew that both topics had the potential for people to go off track and talk about politics or spew about cell phones and students, and there was a bit of that.  But I was always steering the conversation back.

The election year/classrooms conversation didn't cover territory that was new to me, but the social media discussions did.  One instructor brought up the idea that we should be preparing our students to have a more professional online life so that they're ready to get jobs--I must admit that had never occurred to me.  I was thinking we'd talk about how we might use social media sites to improve learning, which we did discuss.  I also didn't anticipate that we would all have such different ideas about how to define social media--that was interesting too.

At one point, I looked around the room and thought, what a great group of people; I am so lucky to work with them.

The rest of the day was hectic--yesterday was the last day to get students admitted for the Fall quarter which starts on Monday.  So I looked at lots of Admissions packets and transcripts from other schools in the space of a few hours.

I got home frazzled, and ate quesadillas with wine.  I conked out early on the couch because I hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before. 

Today should be an easier day--we have new student orientation, but that schedule has been changed again, and I am not part of it.  Today I hope to catch up on all the work that the hectic schedule of the last 2 days has prevented me from doing.