Life Happened!
I promised to let you all know what happened with the last blog. Life did indeed happen–let’s leave it at planning a major event in the middle of COVID-19 in a city that is pretty much locked down.
Everybody is still speaking to each other. At a safe distance.
Now, back to tips for academic sprinters–those of you who are in spring session right now. For both the sprinter and the spring/summer student, given the very fast pace, it’s easy to try to do too much too soon. That’s when a cramp can happen to the sprinter, or burnout to the student. Pacing is so much different in the three or six week course–you have to get right on to the reading, the assignments, the review, the projects. You will need to temper this intensity, burning all your midnight candles at once can lead to difficulties with recalling material during the exam, or failing to back up critical projects just before your hard drive dies.
No surprise here, the key to the balance between going too hard, too fast and leaving it all to the last minute, is the same as for the sprinter. Pacing for the student, I’m told over and over by my students, happens most effectively when they plan and schedule. So get out that agenda. I find a physical pen to paper agenda works best, but go where your strength is. Write down every assignment, project deadline, midterm and final exam. Next make a draft “time budget” so that you know where to focus your energy each day. Be kind to yourself. Don’t make a schedule that only Superman can accomplish, because I bet even he can’t keep that schedule.
That also applies to pacing group projects. I’m asked every term, “What do I do when my group isn’t organized, procrastinates, and isn’t appropriately addressing the objectives?” You could sit back, have that pity party and blame others group members for the low mark. I would suggest that you might need to take the unofficial lead role here. The spring/summer semester calls for a more active attack on group dynamics to ensure success.
How do you do that? You take the initiative in setting up meetings and schedules. You find out who has what strengths, and how they can be applied to the group project. You assume the best of each person, your energy here shouldn’t be wasted on the negative. Many people want to be led, they want direction; others may resist any ideas other than their own. During the fall and winter terms, you have time to brush up on supervisory technique–in a three week course, you don’t. So you set the pace through persistent, positive examples. One of the strongest tools for gaining compliance and agreement is e-mail. Emailing the group before a meeting, emailing confirmation after the meeting–including after ZOOM meetings–keeps people focussed and keeps the pace going, keeps the pace realistic. If you need to manage that resistant group member, give them the leadership of the meeting, with your previously emailed agenda. I have seen students document their contributions to planning and project work through the detailed string of emails during the course of the project. Detailed emails and recorded ZOOM meetings not only keep the project moving, they also document your own contributions, should that become necessary if mark allocation becomes contentious.
These two tools, daily time planning and active group management, keep the spring/summer student paced to the end.
You may have other tips for getting the most out of short-term courses–I’ll pass them along, too.