Holidays and Weekends

In the end,how many hours are left for teaching and learning?

Minus holidays.

Minus public holidays.

Minus 1 week of mid-semester break.

Minus 1 week of special break.

Minus compulsory faculty events.

Minus 3 weeks for presentations and evaluations.

Yes,my dear students! 

Independent learning is necessary. 

Less than 2 hours per week in class is definitely not enough.

Group Consultation Week

I've decided to do group consultation for this week. It will be time consuming and I have to set the timer to 5 minutes for each group so that I can allocate the time to give face-to-face comments for each group. It seems impossible to do the online corrections for each group like I used to do before. Last semester, I had 12 smaller groups of 4 in a class and 6 groups of 4 for another class. So,about 18 groups,which means about 18 reports to supervise.

For this semester, I have 6 classes.

After counting,the total is 50 groups!

Rescheduling and Reallocating

While I was sitting reflecting on this week's classes, I think I might not have done very well this week. I wanted to give too much in such a short time. Less than 2 hours to cover several topics. I realized that within that time,it could be the only time that my students will 'touch' their textbooks.

I started to make some calculations.
I have 6 classes of EWC661.
In each class, I have between 28 to 36 students.
So,I will have 7 to 9 groups of on-going reports to supervise in 1 class.
I have 188 students taking this course which is the same number that I have to evaluate for their final exam paper that is 7 pages long.

Now,I wonder if the process approach to report writing can work well this time.

Okay, I'm taking a deep breath!

Wait a minute!
I have 2 BEL499 classes too.
Their resumes and job application letters have been submitted.
47 resumes and letters to be checked and evaluated.
Assuming that I look at each one of them between 5 to 10 minutes,
I need to allocate at least 470 minutes x 2 = 940 minutes.
(About 16 hours) = (4 hours x 4 days) = (2 hours x 8 days) = (1 hour x 16 days).

I'll go for the 2 hours per day of evaluating in between classes for 2 weeks.
This seems to be the most realistic time frame.

Oh dear! What about the setting of exam questions?
Today, I have been assigned to set another part of test question to be done in a few week's time.

Too much to give,not much time given.

It's time for me to reschedule and reallocate more realistic time frame.

Change of Plan

The initial plan this week was to ask all groups of EWC661 to do a 'pilot test' on the questionnaires that they had prepared. After looking at some questionnaires created, I decided to give more input and lectures on the basic steps that they need to know. I want them to see the link between the topics that they have chosen and the purpose of their studies. I want them to really understand what actually they want to know about. If they could not answer this basic question, they will have a difficult time to proceed.

Of course,I had approved all the titles since week 3 and 4 but I could see that not all groups had done further research or readings on the related topics. So,for my Sunday and Monday classes,which were 4 classes, I did a very quick review on several very important topics that I have covered briefly before.

The topics covered include:

1. Data collection
2. Sampling
3. Data processing
4. Questionnaire(sample)
5. Background of the Study

Open-Ended Question Data Analysis

https://youtu.be/yWBXV651yd4

How to conduct Interviews?

https://youtu.be/A-VhzWKaHB4

Designing a Questionnaire

https://youtu.be/FkX-t0Pgzzs

What is a Questionnaire?

https://youtu.be/CfEga-dr_Ww

The Magic Tricks

For the past 2 weeks, I have taught all my 6 groups of EWC661 - English for Report Writing classes 'The Magic Tricks' to assist them in completing their reports. As expected, nobody knew any of the 'secrets' in Microsoft Word that I've shared with them.

The content of my hands-on lecture includes the usage of these functions:

1. Headings
2. Page Break
3. Page Number 
4. Multi-level Numbering
5. Navigation Pane
6. Review
7. Spelling and Grammar
8. Thesaurus
9. New Comment
10. Table of Contents
11. Table of Figures
12. Table of Illustrations
13. Update Table of Contents

Everything was done in about 15 minutes towards the end of my lecture as a 'reward' to them.

So,my dear students,how have you enjoyed 'The Magic Tricks'?

Spring-cleaning My Office

Last semester ended in a breeze.
It had been my busiest semester with 273 students from 11 different classes and 5 different subjects taught. Imagine the amount of evaluation and marking of tests,assignments,reports and final exam scripts that I had to mark. When all had been uploaded,the setting of examination questions followed. Well actually, even before the final examinations were not yet done,the task of setting exam questions were given. I had to set 2 codes and also had to vet them. Setting exam questions can be challenging as you need to follow the specified test specifications and find suitable articles that match the requirements.

I haven't had any 'real' break since September 2014 as one task leads to another.

March 2015 started and ended in a blink I would say.

My room was in a mess full of students' papers. I usually make preparation for the following week on Thursdays after my last class, but not today!

Today, it was the start of my 'spring-cleaning' session for my room. I must throw away all the unnecessary items in  my room to make room for the next heaps and piles of reports and assignments coming in a few weeks time.