intertext | Back at Work

First official day back at work today! Classes don't start till next week; in fact, today was mostly an excuse for the Dean's welcome back "luncheon" (don't you love that word, "luncheon" - such a posh name for what was actually quite mediocre Chinese food). Then some hanging about in the hallways schmoozing with colleagues I haven't seen for ages - longer than ages because I've been off for so long since my mum became ill.

I'm looking forward to teaching again. I have a dream teaching load this year - two online composition courses: one 1st year, one advanced 2nd year, which is new and I'm going to be trying using blogs and "Writely" for peer editing. Then I have two British Literature survey courses, parts 1 and 2 of the Beowulf to Virginia Woolf (except ours stops with the Victorians) running concurrently. I shall be teaching Spenser or Gawain in the same week as perhaps Wordsworth or Keats in the other class. Interesting. It will be nice to be teaching without as in the past year or so being close to a physical and emotional breakdown from stress and exhaustion.

Hip is holding up well. I'm glad to have two online courses, as I only have two days of "real" teaching per week, plus office hours. My classroom time is in the afternoons, which is good as I'm kind of low energy in the afternoon. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but I'd rather go and teach then, because it actually usually refreshes me, and do my prep work or marking, for which I need a more alert brain, in the mornings when I AM more alert.

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So, tell me, what's a 'normal' contact load over there? Do you have a formula for allocating who's teaching what? It's all so confusing.

And congrats on your hip doing so well. Or is that you and your hip doing so well?

I can understand you being confused, because I think it varies from college to college and even from department to department, and then of course universities are different again. But at my college, a "normal" full time teaching load is four courses per term, and for each course that usually means 3 hours in the classroom per week and about 1 or 2 hours office hours (per course). Actual course allocation, that is who gets the "choice" courses - everybody has to teach some amount of 1st year composition ever year - is sometimes by seniority, sometimes by choice. Our department has quite a democratic "no hogging" policy that if you've taught a specialty course (like the 2nd year ones I'm teaching now) for two years you have to give it up is someone else wants it. In practice you usually get the courses you want because the more specialized ones are tough to prep, and in fact we sometimes have trouble filling them if someone goes on leave or gets sick or something. I'm a DE specialist as well, and I choose to do the online courses because I like the flexibility they give me in terms of hours (and I like the technology) We don't usually have people lining up to teach those, but they are much in demand with students.

And thanks - I think it's me and my hip :)

YIkes! To my ears that sounds like a huge workload. We have just had a new workload model approved which is based on the requirement that we do research (40%), teaching (40%) and service to the community (20% of our time). This model essentially gives us, on average, 8 hours of contact per week per semester. At most that allows us to teach (and convene) 3 courses. Most people get to do 2 courses. Then there's extra time counted if you have a large class and extra time for first year classes. So having a large, first year class can reduce the amount of face-to-face teaching you get to do.

It is very different.

And we do not have any courses currently 'online'. We don't have a distant cohort, well not in my faculty. But I think that's going to change, which explains (in part) why I got my job! ;-)

That sounds more like a standard university workload. We don't have a research component. A lot of us do research in our own time, and we have a two-month "professional development" period as part of our year of service, but publication is not a requirement of our employment - the "pd" can include prepping a new course, giving workshops to other faculty, working on college wide business etc, as well as or instead of personal research, in fact we're encouraged to diversify. So the teaching load isn't as bad on its own. "Up the road" at UVic, the instructors usually teach 2 courses in one term and maybe 3 in another, but they have to publish...

Aaahh, I geddit! We used to have teaching only institutions, but then we decided that two tiers of tertiary education were enough. All the teaching institutions (Colleges of Advanced Education) were merged with univerisities. It's had both good and bad outcomes.

But I'm flat out working my way through two or three courses a semester and I still don't get enough research done. Hopefully, that will change with mah wiki work!

Glad to hear things are coming along nicely for you!

But just a week?? I need more time.. I haven't stopped stressing out over summer classes yet. Fall classes can't start now. lol.

Hmm, I shoulda taken the second year composition class with you! Got fixed on transitioning to UVic. Didn't know it at the time, but I need that class now. :)

Having to get 282 too. Mighta saved some money taking classes both places. Easy to walk to UVic though.. guess I'll have to stick with it. :)

Good luck with the new semester!

Well, UVic students have been known to pick up a few Camosun courses to fill in some gaps... and there's still room in 282 if you change your mind :) Best of luck with all your courses, though! I'm sure you'll do wonderfully.

Back at Work

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