By Jack Prostko, Director, Faculty Development Center
Near the end of last semester, I wrote a brief article in Insights ("Racing to the Finish") about how faculty can help students successfully manage the final weeks of the semester. As this semester speeds to a close, I would like to discuss how faculty can best prepare themselves for a successful conclusion to the academic year. Effectively managing time and stress during the end of a term (instead of wearing ourselves out) can help us enjoy these weeks, conclude with a sense of satisfaction, and be primed--after a brief rest--to begin summer projects.
The final month of teaching presents various challenges, including finishing the material originally outlined in the syllabus, preparing tests and assignments, giving feedback on projects, and dealing with individual students' late papers, personal crises, or grading concerns. Depending on how closely the current calendar matches with the original syllabus, consider cutting back on content (if this is an option). Students don't benefit from having four weeks of information squeezed into two since there's little likelihood that they'll have time to comprehend and digest the new information. Focus on the major concepts of the course and tie as much of the course together (through review) as possible. Most of the memorization should be over for students by now: they should be concentrating on integrating and consolidating information.
This notion of limiting new content to the most significant ideas during the final weeks also relates to another key factor in managing short periods of time well: make priorities stick. Decide on what is most important and be ruthless in staying on task. One of the most insidious forms of procrastination is to imagine that smaller and more trivial things need to be gotten out of the way before we tackle larger tasks (like grading that set of essays or reviewing those final reports). Tackle the big concerns first, when you're fresh and able to concentrate best. This may require spending a little more time planning out the day, but such planning becomes especially crucial in hectic periods.
For other teaching tasks, two suggestions offered by Douglas Robertson in Making Time, Making Change (see below) may be useful: "require students to monitor their own completion of course assignments," and "require students to prepare their own study guides" (p. 42). The rational for both suggestions is both to save faculty members time and to place greater responsibility on students for their success in a course. Robertson takes this position on study guides, "because it has now become clear to me that on many of our campuses the professor's study guide may constitute the only course reading that some students do" (pp. 42-43).
In the last weeks of the semester, many faculty feel that review sessions are more effective that office hours. Review sessions help one avoid having to repeat the same information or review the same problem several times for different students. If possible, videotape the session and make it available for students who can't attend. In the same vein, asynchronous online discussion boards can serve the same purpose--and even save more time if students are encourage to answer each other's questions.
Other common time management advice also holds: set time limits for tasks and stick to them (if possible); avoid interruptions by isolating yourself if necessary--inform people in advance when you'll be available and when you won't; finish a task if possible, rather than jumping from one thing to another. And finally, save time every day for yourself-to unwind, exercise, enjoy pleasure reading, or relax with family or friends. You may have noticed the phenomenon that occurs regularly for undergraduates: by winter break in December and by finals time in May, they have worked themselves so ragged, slept so little, and eaten so poorly, that their first few weeks after classes end are spent with the flu, or a cold, or home in bed with another ailment. It's nice to have learned from our experience so that even though we are on similar schedules, we don't have to repeat the mistakes of our youth.
And of course the biggest reason for avoiding an end-of-semester collapse is to move into the summer months with energy for our research projects and a clear plan to carry them forward. Use some time in the coming month to begin careful planning and setting small goals and tasks to accomplish soon. Another of the worst causes of procrastination is imagining a task that is so large that it seems impossible to begin. To avoid stalling in the face of a trek up Everest, start small and make certain that several short hikes are taken before the summer even begins.
Resources on Time Management for Faculty:
On the Web
Richard Reis on Tomorrow's Professor Web site:Establishing Your Absence
Faculty Time Savers
Time Management for New FacultyAnastassia Ailamaki, Carnegie Mellon University and Johannes Gehrke, Cornell University
"Lessons in Time Management"Lee Tobin McClain, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 16, 2003
"Time Management 101 for Grant Applicants"Vid Mohan-Ram, Science's Next Wave, October 8, 1999
Books available at the FDCGmelch, W.H. (1993) Coping with Faculty Stress, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Robertson, D. R. (2003) Making Time, Making Change : Avoiding Overload in College Teaching, Stillwater, OK: New Forums.
Zahorski, K.J. (1994) The Sabbatical Mentor: A Practical Guide to Successful Sabbaticals, Bolton, MA: Anker.
