Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Stayed overnight again, at the department this time, riding on the permit made by my co-teacher who has prelims at another university tomorrow. I fixed up my some more, taking advantage of the fact that my other co-teachers won’t be in the way.

Besides the two shelves I have in my cubicle and a small cabinet on rollers, I also have a drawer and a locker less than 15 steps away. I’ve reserved these for things I need on hand around the department so that means most of the other stuff I collected during the term have to go to the observatory.

This means the VHS tapes of the students’ oral reports, which I also have to arrange in my file cabinet there, plus the pictures from their field trip, and the illustration boards from their activities about ellipses. I also realized that some of the books I’m not using for last term are in my locker, so I can put the other books I won’t be using for the next term there. That would at least make my cubicle look less crowded. I also have to figure a way to make my stack of transparencies (not at five inches thick) more organized.

The students projects though, that are bulky, like the two models on the freedom of movement of the telescope and the star projector box, I put on one of the shelves at the back of the department that used to belong to the library. Now it’s being used to separate two of the cubicles at the back, and the upper shelves are not being used.

I probably have to think of a way to reduce the amount of material I receive from the students within the term. One way of course is to check all their submissions immediately, record them and give it back to them for placement in a folder or envelope that will be used at the end of the term for computing their pre-final grades. Another is asking for all their requirements on electronic file to be submitted on a diskette, although that’s more suited for laboratory work.

That reminds me, for the coming term, if that lone lab class of mine does not get reassigned, I will be implementing the short quiz at the beginning of each meeting to find out if the students read the experiment beforehand. It will also be a good way to check those who show up early for the class.
As of today, the start of the next school year is exactly three weeks away.