Almost another teaching year!

Well - it's almost the beginning of a new teaching year and I'm making my teaching resolutions.

1. Anything done on line, from emails to facebook statuses and IMs can lead to communication misunderstandings. I'm going to try harder than ever this year to make all my communications with students crystal clear.

2. Students - like everyone - suffer anxiety about submitted work. This year I'm trying harder than ever to complete marking within a fortnight from submission date. This, of course, only works with assignments that are submitted on time.

3. I'm always urging students to read widely, attend writing and reading events, take themselves on artist's dates and generally immerse themselves in a reading and writing world. This year I'm urging myself to do all these extra curricula activities as well. It's very easy to feel swamped by work - particularly online work as it oozes over to evenings and weekends - you don't close the office door at 5.00 pm and go home. Sometimes, however, that swamped feeling is actually relieved by going off and doing something for your writing self - and that's what I intend to do this year.

4. Use the audio facilities on the Blackboard more - it's fabulous being able to leave voiceboards and podcasts and I was delighted when I discovered how easy they were to set up and use. But my enthusiasm waned as the year got underway and time seemed to vanish. This year I hope to post voiceboards and podcasts more regularly.

5. Explain more clearly how I teach - and how that teaching might change throughout the year as I expect more from students - this is related to Resolution One but I think it needs a separate resolution as it's an area that I don't think is always clear in the online environment.

6. Keep up my own writing! All teachers in the Professional Writing and Editing worlds struggle for a balance between their teaching profession and their writing profession. It's very easy to lose the writing self in the teaching self, but I'm working on two major projects this year and I can't afford to lose sight of them.

7. Keep up with blogging - I'd like to use this blog and the picture book blog to post extra exercises for you, as well as alert you to events, books or information about writers you might find interesting. Again, the year starts off with great intentions, but during crucial times - usually the marking season - the blogs tend to drop off. I hope this year is a little different.

Welcome brand new teaching year - and here's to making it an uber one!