Teaching in Higher Ed

productivity

GTD Tools for Faculty

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Students often perceive that they're the only ones in our lives making requests of us. The first couple of weeks in the Fall as I attempt not to perspire directly on my students as I go from class-to-class teaching typically from 9:00 am till 3:00 pm with only a lunch break in which to catch my breath, students will come up and ask, “Did you get my emails?”

I ask, “When did you send them to me?”

The typical reply: “A few minutes ago.”

We're definitely living in the age of instant-communication. It can be tough to juggle all the demands for our time and attention. Those of us with a system at least find some relief in the structure it provides.

In this post, you'll discover what tools are available in your quest to get things done (GTD) as a professor.

GETTING THINGS DONE

If this is the first time you've heard the phrase ‘getting things done,' Nels Highberg clearly articulates what this system is and how to apply it in an academic setting. I use a combination of David Allen's GTD system, along with some of the classic approaches described in the Franklin Covey system, such as considering our various roles and prioritizing tasks around our roles. If you want a great training system to walk you through getting started with GTD, check out their GTD system product. [Read more…] about GTD Tools for Faculty

Two Basic Excel 2007 Tips for Grading Efficiency

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The upgrade to Excel 2007 brought with it some great new features to make managing data easier. When creating Excel-based gradebooks in the past, we would have had to do a lot of manual set up to create design features that are now just a few clicks of the mouse away.

I highlight two such features here, but encourage you to share other tips for grade tracking in Excel 2007 in the comments section.

AUTO TABLE FORMAT

Excel1

Excel has 44 built in auto-formats for tables. To use one of these great-looking formats:

  1. Sort your data (under the data tab)
  2. Highlight your data
  3. Choose format-as-table from the home tab and select your desired format

I find this makes the data more easy to read on screen, since each row is kept more visually separate. It also makes printouts much more appealing and professional.

CONDITIONAL FORMATTING

Excel2

Another great feature is the ability to see visually how each person did in comparison to the others. You used to be able to do this in Excel 2003, but you had to program in the conditional formatting (for example, you might have indicated that if someone scored below 70% that you wanted the font to be displayed in a red color).

Excel 2007 makes this much easier, plus you have far more options available in terms of your formatting.

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In my example, I selected the red/yellow/green arrow formatting, to quickly see which students scored the best and worst on the final exam. To create custom formatting:

  1. Select the collumn you want to format
  2. Choose conditional formatting from the home tab
  3. Indicate which custom formatting you wish to use

This only scratches the surface of what you can to in Excel to track data, but I know it is better to give information in bite-sized pieces. Give it a try as you set up this next semester's gradebook and feel free to share other tips in the comments section.

Keeping Up to Speed

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It is definitely getting harder to keep up… with our industries, research, teaching techniques, political affiliations, books-of-interest, and whatever else aligns with our passions and goals.

Rss

I use RSS feeds to stay up-to-speed on what most interests me. In my case, I use Outlook 2007 on my primary computer and it has RSS Feed capability built right in. You just look for the orange RSS feed indicator on your favorite site or blog and it will automatically add the feed inside of Outlook with two clicks of your mouse.

It doesn't make your in-box crowded, because the RSS Feeds are kept in a separate folder (see graphic above for an example straight out of my RSS feeds). You get to decide when you'll invest the time to catching up on your various feeds.

If you don't have Outlook, there are plenty of other free feed tools. Google Reader is one of the best ones out there and it links with your Gmail Account, Google Calendar, custom Google homepage and whatever other apps you use from Google.

Think it will be too hard to learn?

With Common Craft's video: RSS in Plain English, it couldn't be easier
(and they're pretty darn funny, too).