Teaching in Higher Ed

Productivity

5 tools for when you’re sick

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sick_

I had a health issue come up this week that meant I couldn't teach on Monday, as planned. I'll spare everyone the details, but suffice to say once the medicine I needed kicked in, I knew it would only be a day or two of recovery time.

It got me thinking about the tools I'm grateful for, when things don't go quite as I've planned. No one likes being sick, but it sure can be easier to recover when you know that things aren't as likely to fall through the cracks.

5 Tools for When You're Sick

Here are five tools for when you're feeling under the weather, but you don't want your classes to fall apart:

Remind

The first thing I did when I knew I wouldn't be able to teach on Monday was to send a message out via Remind. This free service allows me to keep my cell number confidential, but have all the conveniences of a one-way text messaging service to my students. Sign-up is easy on all sides (for students and faculty). I wrote a more extensive review back in 2014.

They recently enhanced their feature set by adding the ability to chat with individual students back and forth. If you would prefer to keep the communication one-way, as you have been doing, you don't have to activate this setting. However, the ability to set up office hours makes it such that you can control exactly when students can initiate chats with you, or even make it only available to students that you initiate chats with… If you have more questions about how the new chat feature works, check out their FAQ.

FreeConference.com

Over these two weeks, I've been meeting with all the students in my Principles of Marketing classes. I had a few meetings scheduled for the afternoon that I really didn't want to postpone. That would only mean that the students wouldn't receive feedback on their progress on their marketing plans until quite close to when it is actually due.

I wound up scheduling conference calls with them on the FreeConference.com service. The company makes their money by charging for extras like call recording. If all you want to do is have a call, it's free.

TimeTrade

There were some students who preferred to wait until I was back on campus and we could meet in person. My scheduling tool, TimeTrade, made this process simple. I went to my list of appointments and clicked on the one for the group wanting to wait until next week. There's a reschedule option there that automatically sends a link to the student who scheduled the meeting, initially, and gives them a little nudge to remember to find a suitable time to reschedule.

Planbook

The tool I use to schedule all my class sessions is called PlanBook. It is available on Windows and the Mac, in addition to on the iPad. You can review what I wrote about Planbook in the past, as well as check out all the features.

timetrade

Planbook made it easy for me to see what my students would be missing, since we didn't have class on Monday. I could reschedule the remaining class sessions for the semester and easily get handouts and changes to them via the free Planbook Connect website that you publish with the Planbook software.

Netflix

I actually wound up working most of the day, despite not feeling well. The afternoon conference calls went well with the students. I was also able to write the remaining exams for the rest of the semester, using Cengage's exam creation software.

However, in the evening, I did indulge in an attempt to get caught up with Mad Men. I got through two episodes of season 7 and am on my way to being able to join all the chatter on social media about season 8.

[reminder]What tools do you use to keep things from falling apart too much when you're sick?[/reminder]

Getting things done gets redone

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I met with a student yesterday who was completely overwhelmed. She used to be a faithful user of a paper planner, but had not used it this semester and was feeling the consequences.

gtd

The student had come to the conclusion that while she might often be able to carry everything that needed doing around in her head, that any “change in plans” threatened to bring her whole system down. An illness earlier in the semester had thrown her off in most of her classes and she was having trouble getting away from constant chaos.

Of course, it isn't just our students who can get overwhelmed. One of the truest stereotypes that so many of us academics have earned is that of the absent minded professor. The practices recommended by experts in learning design can seem impossible to pursue, since just keeping status quo is hard enough.

I've just started reading David Allen's revised Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity. He shares in the first chapter about what has changed since he first wrote the book and what is still the same.

If you're not familiar with the Getting Things Done system, this is a good overview. Additionally, Dave (my husband) recently interviewed David Allen for his Coaching for Leaders podcast.

As I think about the key lessons I gained from the first time I read it all those years ago (not to mention the times I re-read portions of it), the following principles stand out:

  1. Get it out of your head. Our brains are not at their best when we try to carry our to do lists in our minds.By having some proactive and reactive means of capturing all that is coming at us, or otherwise occupying our thoughts, we can more easily tap into our creative capabilities and experience less stress.
  2. Separate the processing from the doing. When we are going through our various inboxes to sort through our tasks, we need to avoid the temptation to try to actually start tackling them.If a task requires less than two minutes to accomplish, it is ok to go ahead and get it done. However, those actions that require more time will be better served if we consider them in the context of everything that needs doing.
  3. Get better at saying no by allowing time for reflection. If we are simply “doing” machines, we lose the opportunity to cultivate those activities that provide the greatest meaning for us in our lives. If our system for managing our time and tasks includes reflective thinking about our dreams, goals, and priorities, we gain the courage and confidence to say no to things that aren't aligned with our sense of purpose.
  4. Only use due dates for actions that truly have due dates. I used to carry a Franklin Planner with me everywhere. I relied on it heavily to keep me organized. One faulty part of my approach, though, had to do with deadlines.Theoretically, if I didn't get enough done in one day, I should have copied the tasks to the next day's page. That quickly became tedious and I would have to do lists that I was consulting from three weeks ago, since I hadn't taken the time to copy them over to the current page.

    It can be that same way with electronic task list item due dates. We tell ourselves that it is due by this Friday, because there's a sense of urgency around it. however, if we don't get to it by Friday, we either reset the due date, or have a growing snowball of overdue tasks.Our productivity approaches should be ones that we trust. If we regularly look at outstanding tasks, we can prioritize as we go which ones are most important to us. That helps us avoid putting due dates on things that we no longer trust, since we know that so many of them aren't actually due on the day we say that they are.

  5. Invest time each week considering what's most important in the coming week. I perform a weekly review at least 75% of the time. The weeks when I'm disciplined enough to go through this activity, there's a noticeable difference in my stress levels and my productivity. I've decided, in advance, what is most important to focus on during the week and made any contingency plans for areas where there may be trouble ahead.

One of the chapters that David Allen added to the revised version of Getting Thing Done is a section on personal mastery. We don't ever “finish” GTD, but rather are continually developing and adapting.

Peter Senge writes of personal mastery:

People with a high level of personal mastery are able to consistently realize the results that matter most deeply to them–in effect, they approach their life as an artist would approach a work of art. The do that by becoming committed to their own lifelong learning.

We don't someday wake up and completely follow a system like GTD every day of our lives from then on out. Instead, we continually strive to incorporate habits into our lives that will maximize our effectiveness and cushion the blows when times get tough.

The quest is a worthwhile one to me and one I am continually seeking to cultivate even further than I have already…

[reminder]Do any of you have an interest in doing an informal book club on the revised edition of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity? If so, put a comment on this post. If there are at least five of us (including me) who want to commit to reading it within the month of April and having some informal, virtual dialog on it, I'll put something together to connect us.[/reminder]

Feedback and grading workflow guest on Mac Power Users

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feedback-workflow

A couple of weeks ago, I was the mini workflow guest for the Mac Power Users podcast, episode 240.

Katie and David were in rare form. It was David's birthday and perhaps nearly the last episode he recorded prior to announcing that he was going solo with his law practice…

I spoke about how to use screencasting to give feedback to students in a way that students report seems more authentic, honest, and helpful.

It's the first 15 minutes of their live show, recorded live on February 7, 2015, episode 240.

Listener Follow Up

I heard from a couple of Mac Power Users, after the episode, which was so rewarding.

David M. from Qatar wrote to say that he purposely doesn't include a track changes document for his students, as he wants to be sure they listen carefully and digest more of the feedback that way.

I hadn't clarified on the episode that I don't do track changes for the purpose of making corrections to the students' papers, either. I use the Word (or other) documents to place written comments or to highlight things.

David described more of his process for me:

Amongst other areas of EFL, I teach a lot of writing classes.

I am always concerned about the level of feedback I give students in their drafts. Too much and I am basically writing it for them and too little and I am not helping them.

I began to do feedback by screen cast using Camtasia and MS Word or PDFPen.

I read the essay before casting and then go through it asking for clarification, correcting errors and pointing out poor vocabulary, grammar, etc. I do type into the Word file but importantly I do not send them back the file with corrections, in fact I do not save my changes.

This forces students to listen, understand and fix their own errors.

I post the videos on Vimeo with a password only the student knows. Vimeo is great because I can track how often the students watch the video (up to 8 times). I do have a paid account and uploading can be a little slow but those negatives are not outweighed by the ease and tracking functions.

Tom S. also wrote to say that he uses screencasting in his business. He finds the feedback gets followed through on much more like his original intent when he uses this form of communication.

Tom wrote:

I am a Sales Vice President for a mid-sized electric manufacturing company in Connecticut.

Over the past year I’ve been using Tapes as a mode to provide feedback to not only my direct reports (regional sales managers) as well as my peers on the executive team at the company.

I do this often with financial reports such as excel documents as well as detailed word documents such as contracts and strategic planning documents.

The feedback that my team has about the process is incredible and I’ve found that the understanding and implementation of the feedback I provide is faster and more in-depth.

Reaching Out

I even got to touch base with Betsy Weber, Chief Evangelist for TechSmith (the makers of SnagIt), who I knew way back in my days in the computer training industry.

She thanked me for the mention of SnagIt on the show and also inquired as to whether or not I had any additional feedback for them.

SnagIt is, and has been for years, a fantastic piece of software. The only minor complaint I had was that it would be nice is there was greater parity between the Mac and PC versions.

Even More Tools

As I mentioned on the live MPU show, I reached out to the Mac Power Users Google Plus community for help on another grading-related workflow.

On the thread, Soram K. from UCLA Medical School reached out to share about other annotating tools he discovered from others in the community that meet his needs and augment the power of SnagIt.

He wrote:

I did find iAnnotate in my own research but do not like to convert the Word file my students send me to PDF. Too many steps!

I am looking at the following as a way that I think will be easier with a desktop screen writing app that will record in Snagit.

Here are some links…

Next Steps

As those of you who know me (or are getting to know me through the podcast and the blog) will predict, I am thrilled to discover these new tools.

However, I am going to force myself to hold off until after the semester ends before doing too much experimenting. It is too easy to go down a rabbit trail and lose time on the most important priorities for now.

I just finished reading the book Essentialism and am even more reminded of the importance of saying no to things. I've added the suggestions to my Evernote list of tools I want to try in the future.

Summer will give me opportunities to play a bit with technology, especially going to read some of the older posts on The Digital Researcher blog.

Inviting more ease into your week

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ease

I enjoyed the conversation with Natalie Houston immensely, which aired this past week in episode #034. She reminded us all to find ways to have more of a sense of ease in our lives.

She said:

Productivity, to me, is not about doing more things faster. It is about doing the things that are most important to me and creating the kind of life I want to have…

Here are a couple of opportunities for having more ease in my life that I discovered this week:

Set a timer to better enjoy breaks and conversations with students

Since the conversation with Natalie, I've been setting timers like crazy. While I had used this approach previously, she shed new light on the practice and inspired me to take more regular advantage of the focus on the moment.

I found a Tweet where Natalie coached a colleague who wanted motivation and concentration to:

I met with a few students this week and really felt more connected with the conversations in those times when I remembered to set a timer. There was one time when I neglected to do so, and I both wound up completely throwing off my schedule for the latter part of the afternoon, and wasn't as engaged as in the other “timed” conversations.

Natalie also offers these tips about using a timer while grading.

Install a custom style in Zotero, which enables you to create an annotated bibliography

This one is really more for my doctoral students than for me, though I treasure the opportunities to bring more ease into other people's lives. As a part of their program, they're asked a number of times to develop an annotated bibliography.

We also strongly encourage the use of the citations manager, Zotero. The annotated bibliography assignment hasn't aligned well with using the automated features in Zotero, since until now, I thought it could only “spit out” a list of sources, not something that included annotations.

Thanks to Emory Libraries and Information Technology, I found out I was wrong. Turns out, you can create a custom style in Zotero, or download one from their repository and leave the heavy lifting to others.

[reminder]How are you inviting more ease into your life this week?[/reminder]

Assessing and tracking blogs

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I made the move a few years ago in my hybrid classes to stay mostly away from discussion forum posts. They tended to generate more of a transactional perception of the assignments.

Blogs seem to inspire people to do their best work, given the public nature of the assignments.

assessing and tracking blogs

Plus, if a person takes their blog seriously, they can be on their way to building a strong personal brand. Their data isn't locked behind an LMS, but is theirs to do with it what they want, after the class has ended.

Audrey Watters has been an advocate for providing students their their own online presence, one that isn't trapped in an LMS. On episode 18, she describes the University of Mary Washington's “A domain of one's own” initiative, in which they provide all incoming students their own website that gets transferred over to their ownership upon graduation.

Anyone who has made the switch from forums to blogs knows that it isn't anywhere near as efficient for the professor. You need to subscribe to all the students' blogs, manually, and commenting is nowhere near as easy as on an LMS.

The benefits far outweigh the challenges, though, so I continue to make use of blogging as an assignment in many of my courses.

Assessing blogs

The vast majority of the assignments in my courses are evaluated using a rubric. I've seen my fair share of atrocious blog rubrics and am continually striving to make mine better.

The best approach to assessment of blogs seems to be that they should be geared toward the learning outcomes for the course (as in that a generic blog rubric could not be used to adequately assess a blog).

This is a blog rubric that I've created for a doctoral course on leadership and technology in which the students develop a personal knowledge management (PKM) and use their blog as a means of sharing their work with others.

A new approach to tracking blogs

I use Feedly to subscribe to the cohort's blogs and then Newsify to actually read them. However, since the rubric calls for different types of posts each week, it is difficult for me to quantify them at the end of the term for grading purposes.

I wind up having to go back and manually count the students' posts to see if they blogged each week. It is also difficult because they don't always categorize their posts, according to the rubric, so I make my best effort to guess which type of post they were intending, a method that no doubt has its weaknesses.

Richard Byrne inspires

rbtweet

Relief came when I saw a Tweet from Richard Byrne about his approach to tracking blogs using a Google form.

I wish I would have implemented his approach over the summer and used it with my undergraduate students in the Fall. However, I didn't invest the time and wound up having both inefficiencies and needless student conflict without a more reliable means for tracking.

blogformsmMy Google form for tracking blog posts

I have modified Richard Byrne‘s approach slightly. Since my students are asked to write three posts per week, they have three places in which to paste their links.

Additionally, there is a place for them to indicate the type of post they are submitting. This should help steer the students toward the types of posts they're required to write each week, as well as making it easier for me to determine their intent.

I'm already excited about the time saving possibilities that this approach will provide.

It also seems like it will help reinforce the expectations for the students.

[reminder]Are you trying out any new approaches in your teaching this year to try to add some efficiencies into the grading process? [/reminder]