Countdown for course prep: one month to go!

August is here, which means that the fall term is right around the corner.  My mind seems to be constantly churning through ideas - course design, syllabus language, activities for the classroom, assignment options, etc.  I am ready to get some of the ideas down on paper to free up some brain resources!

I first laid eyes on McKeachie's Teaching Tips earlier this year (wish it would've been sooner - such a great resource!) and there on the first page of the table of contents is the breakdown of a chapter titled "Countdown for Course Preparation."  At the time, I made a mental note to return to this chapter when planning my fall course and experienced a moment of slight panic this morning upon realizing that the chapter kicks off with some tasks to complete three months prior to the course start date.  Luckily the course, Econometrics, is one I have taught before, so the wave of panic subsided once I realized that I have completed most of the tasks, which include identifying student learning goals and procuring any resources students will need for the course.  Next in line is the course syllabus; the recommendation in McKeachie's is to construct the syllabus two months prior before the first class meeting.  I have a draft put together, but I am interested in adding a statement about active learning (see examples gathered by the Center for Teaching and Learning at Boise State available here) and a graphic that shows how we will move through the material plus, more importantly, connections between topics and learning goals/objectives.  (If supplementing a syllabus with a graphic is new to you too, check out this post on the ProfHacker blog, Maryellen Weimer's take on it in this Teaching Professor blog entry, and, if you are also an economics instructor, "The Syllabus Evolved: Extended Graphic Syllabi for Economics Courses" by Sauer and Calimeris.)

Since the fall semester is just about one month away, McKeachie's recommends:

• planning for class meetings,
• selecting appropriate teaching methods, and
• selecting appropriate technology.

For me, decisions in one category tend to affect decisions related to the other categories.  The fall class is hybrid (blended) with our face-to-face meetings scheduled in an active learning classroom.  So, we will be using both a learning management system (D2L) and technology located in the classroom; since we have computers and large monitors for each group available to us while in class, then our face-to-face meetings can include data analysis, online scavenger hunts, consultations of online resources, constructing visuals, etc.  The active learning rooms are set up so that students are working in groups by default, so I am paying close attention to group-based learning methods as I construct plans for the face-to-face meetings and select the best environment - online, face-to-face, or both - for each activity.  I will continue to work on these over the upcoming weeks and then check in again at the two week and one week (before the first class) marks, which are the upcoming checkpoints in the countdown for course preparation include.

In all the books and resources I have skimmed or read, the timeline approach to course prep in McKeachie's stands out to me as being unique.  Do you know of other resources out there that also offer timing-related recommendations for preparing upcoming courses?

Reference:

McKeachie, W. J., & Svinicki, M. (2011). McKeachie's teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (13th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.