Wednesday, 28 November 2007

28th Nov: SPIRE Audit

Work at 7.30. Helped Aidan (a bit!) with a PhD question., then prep's for SPIRE Audit. Chaired Audit meetings from 9-5 without any breaks. 5-7 off, then 7-10 prepping lecture for Friday and dealing with day's backlog of e-mails/student queries.
12.5 hours working today.

Friday, 23 November 2007

23rd November 2007 - d'oh!

Well, we knew I wouldn't really keep that up, didn't we. It was a bit naff doing it hour by hour and I really can't keep doing that. Minute by minute might be interesting, if life-filling, but I think I'm going to have to go with day by day. The hour by hour approach is possibly the worst because it misses all the interesting stuff (big and little) and catches only the dull medium stuff. For example, I don't think I actually recorded the event when I finally completed and submitted the book proposal for the Environmental Geography project to the publisher. It was a big job and a big weight off my mind, but was immediately replaced by the next big weight in the queue!

Yesterday was full of all the usual unique-to-the-day stuff, but I couldn't face another day of recording it all, so we're changing approach again; I don't know what the new approach will be, so this is more exciting, isn't it. I still have 3 more weeks of being required to record how I spend my time for the University "Full Economic Costing" project, so there will probably be something here... I wonder what.

Today I am scheduled to observe a colleague giving a lecture, to see a couple of students about their work, and to meet with colleagues to discuss nextweek's teaching and next year's prospectus entry. I'm also going to Keele M6 services for a coffee with Debbie, to the vet with a cat, to a field with a horse and to a lane with a dog, but I guess those are things for another diary.

The "big job" of the day is to do something on the PIPG Paper. The other little job is to sort out what's happening in a meeting tha tI have on Monday. Oh, and to sort out my lectures for next week. Oh, and to pick up a pile of coursework that students handed in yesterday and I have to mark. Oh, and... you get the picture.

Wednesday, 21 November 2007

21st November 2007

Lots of big pressing jobs overwhelming me at the moment: Chairing an Internal Quality Audit, preparing a book proposal (deadline about now), writing a paper for Progress in Physical Geography (deadline coming up), sorting out the Physical and Geog Sciences School Quality Assurance paperwork, doing all the paperwork for Physical Geog for the upcoming Annual Review of Courses, supposed to be getting back to Routledge about another (overdue) book project proposal idea... but can't find time to do them in amongst a heavy teaching and admin burden at this time of year.

Today: 9.25hours
1 hour staff meeting
0.25 hours safety training and form-filling
1 hour planning a new research paper to be written with Rich
2 hours working on the Environmental Geography book proposal
1 hour helping students
1.5 hour setting up teaching and assessment materials
1.5 hours assorted admin
1 hour online student support

Tuesday, 20 November 2007

20th November 2007

7.30-8.30 Marking
8.30-9.00 Teaching prep
9-10 Teaching
10-11 Teaching prep
11-1 Teaching
1-2.30 Meetings with students
4-5.30 assorted admin (clearing e-mails)
evening: mark esc-30018 class tests 30mins

4.5 hours teaching
3 hours prep/marking
1.5 hours admin
9 hours total

Monday, 19 November 2007

19th Nov 2007

1 hour scheduled teaching
1 hour meetings with individual students
3 hour meeting for SPIRE Audit
2.5 hours marking coursework
2 hours preparing teaching and teaching materials
1/2 hour book project work
Total: 10 hours

Sunday, 18 November 2007

18th November 2007

Sunday.

45 minutes preparing teaching for esc-20004.
15 minutes conducting on-line plagiarism check of esc-20004 coursework
15 minutes writing employment/training reference for student
2.5 hours working on Book Proposal

Total: 3.75 hours

Saturday, 17 November 2007

17th November 2007 (Saturday)

Saturday: 4 hours total.

0.25 hours following my tutorial group students' online discussions on WebCT.
0.5 hours thinking about whether to proceed with each of three book-writing projects that several different publishers want me to pursue.
1.75 hours preparing esc-30006 lectures and online resources for next week.
1.5 hours marking 1st-year student tests. A lot of students wanted to refer to the Isthmus of Panama in their answers. About 70 students did so, but managed about 20 different ways of spelling it! Here are some of their bizarre spellings and misunderstandings:
  • Ipathus of Pameline
  • Ismar Panameus
  • Isima of Panamar
  • Isama of Paninar
  • Isthus of Panama
  • Isthis of Panama
  • Ismus of Panama
  • Ingalamus Panama
  • Isethus of Panama
  • Isathus of Panama
  • Isathmus of Panama
  • Isthamus of Panama
  • Istimus of Panama
  • Itsmus of Panamar
  • Ithumus of Panama
  • Islas of Panama
  • Pirmis of Pangaea
  • Pangeian
  • Iapetus
  • Gateway of Isthamus
  • Gateway of Isthamas
Even though they're only first-year students I'm astonished by the extent and variety of their wrongness!

Friday, 16 November 2007

16th November 2007

7.30-8.00 Helping a colleague with publicity/recruitment materials
8.00-8.45 Teaching admin and preparation with colleagues
8.45-9.45 SPIRE Audit work
break
11.30-11.45 SPIRE Audit
11.45-12.30 Work on book publishing project
12.30-2.00 Talking to a series of students: helping with a dissertation, commenting on essay drafts, discussing revision strategy and learning skills, etc.
2.00-2.30 Work on book publishing project
2.30-3.00 SPIRE Audit
3.00-4.00 Peer Mentoring and discussion of Peer Observation of Teaching

0.5 hours recruitment
1.75 hours admin
0.75 hours teaching preparation
1.25 hours book project
1.5 hours student support/teaching
1 hour mentoring
(6.75 hours total)

Thursday, 15 November 2007

15th November 2007

7.30-8.30 Teaching and admin related office housekeeping including discussions with colleagues about teaching, and WebCT / e-mail delings with students.
8.30-9.30 Setting up an assessment: setting questions, designing the test and photocopying test papers.
9.30-10.00 admin work on forthcoming IQA Audit of another School, (SPIRE) which I am chairing. furure refs to SPIRE Audit are all this.
10-11 Lecture
11-12 Student visits: problem-solving, congratulating and admonishing by turn.
12-3.30 SPIRE audit preparation (with occasional interruptions for helping students and general admin)
4.5 hours admin
1.5 hours teaching preparation
1 hour scheduled teaching
1 hours helping students

Wednesday, 14 November 2007

14th November 2007

a half-day today:
2 hours of student assistance
45 minutes of teaching preparation
45 minutes of administrative tasks

Went to a lot of trouble to attend a stupid administrative meeting that turned out to be a total waste of my time. 15 minutes.

Saw a stream of students with queries, problems, issues, questions, excuses, etc. 90 minutes.

Dealt with the daily flow of e-mail queries and problems from students. 30 minutes

Organised a tutorial schedule. 30 minutes.

Assorted administrative tasks. 30 minutes.

Checked my teaching for tomorrow and ensured that lecture was ready. 15 minutes.

Tuesday, 13 November 2007

13th November 2007

7.30: Arrive at Keele. Administrative Housekeeping (dealing with e-mails, checking schedule, etc).
8.00: Work on PIPG paper
8.15: Mentoring discussion with junior colleague

Schedule for today:

9-10 2nd yr Geomorphology Lecture
10-11 Meet student to discuss progress (didn't take the whole hour but there were other students waiting too!)
11-12 3rd yr Glaciers Lecture (Peer-observed by a colleague)
12-1 1st yr Tutorial
1-2 Attend research seminar (Didn't go in the end... was seeing a colleague about an exam paper and then helping a student with his essay research)
2-3 2nd yr Tutorial
3-4 2nd yr Tutorial

8pm - I' dealing with the day's e-mails: a combination of petty administration and helping students... Thinking about better ways of teaching, given the blank uncomprehending faces that stared back at me in some of today's sessions.

Summary of today:
Scheduled teaching: 5 hours
Meeting with students needing help 1.5 hours
General office housekeeping and admin: 1 hour
Helping colleagues, including mentoring junior staff: 1 hour
Research and writing: 0.25 hours (!)

Monday, 12 November 2007

12th November 2007

8am: Dealt with several e-mails from students with queries, and made appointments to meet with some of them later in the day. Set up this FEC Blog.

8.30: Preparing materials for 9am tutorial

9.00: 1st-year tutorial class

10.00: Attended start of 1st-year lecture class to present prizes to 2 students.

10.10: Updating my online access to the Authors' Licensing and Copyright Society, dealing with information from other departments about forthcoming teaching commitments, and further requests from students.

10.30-11.00: Checking materials for tomorrow's classes.

11.00-1200: Visits from students with assorted academic questions.

12.00: Working on new paper that I'm writing with Simon for Progress in Physical Geography. I hope to get this submitted by the end of this month, so "working on PIPG paper" should feature prominently in the November FEC Diaries!

12.15-12.40: Student visitors with academic queries/problems

12.40-1.20: Working on PIPG paper

1.20-1.30: Helping a student
.................................................

6pm-8pm: Thinking and learning. One part of my job comes under the general heading of "scholarship". That includes a variety of activities where I'm studying or researching my subject area not for a specific piece of teaching and not for a specific ongoing research project but as part of the constant process of keeping up with the discipline or exploring possible new directions for teaching and research. It's time where I learn things and think about things. It includes getting information and inspiration from readings or other sources, and playing around with the ideas and information I come up with. So when I put "Thinking and learning", it probably means I've been reading about something with a connection to Geography in a way that could be counted as work if I had to charge by the hour but could equally be counted as personal or professional academic development. In FEC terms it comes under the blanket term "scholarship"... so next time I write "2 hours scholarship" you'll know what I mean!

8.00-8.30: dealing with a few more e-mail and WebCT teaching-related tasks, and setting up some meetings for assorted administrative tasks over the next week or two.

Looking back at the day, it turns out (as usual) that I remember doing things that I didn't record - mainly conversations with colleagues about day-to-day admin and teaching issues today. On balance, it's been a rather unsatisfactory day: I didn't spend as much time as I wanted on my current Big Job of writing the PIPG paper - partly because the afternoon was taken out my a non-work commitment and by evening I was too tired to get down to it... oh well, try again tomorrow!

Summary for the day:
Teaching formal contact - 1 hour
Student individual meetings - 1.5 hours
Teaching preparation - 1 hour
Research and writing - 1 hour
Scholarship - 2 hours
General admin - 0.5 hours
TOTAL formal work - 7 hours

Four FEC Diary Weeks

For a few weeks each year the University gets all staff to report on how their time is broken down between different tasks. The next four weeks are "Full Economic Costing Diary" weeks. I always struggle to remember, when I fill in the form at the end of the week, exactly exactly how I spent all my time, but to help me do that this time around, of course, I have this blog. So, expect a more than usually thorough account of what I'm up to for the next few weeks. The trouble is, of course, I always get so busy I don't have time to keep a note of it all. Still... we'll see.

Monday, 5 November 2007

"Reading week"

The first 6 weeks of the autumn semester are among of the busiest times of year for me, which explains why I haven't been finding many moments to update this blog lately! In response to what was becoming an unbearable workload a few years ago we introduced a "reading week" in week 7 which gives the students a chance to catch up on their reading, and gives us a chance not only to catch up on marking and other teaching-related tasks but also to keep up with some of the other activities that we can't find time for during the busy teaching periods. So, today being the first day of the reading week, here's my list!

Tasks for the week include:

Respond to requests from Bath Spa University, where I am the "External Examiner" in Physical Geography, for feedback on their recent course developments, exam papers, etc.

Respond to a request from the Quality Assurance Office at Keele for commentary on the final report of an Internal Quality Audit of the School of Economics and Management at Keele, which I chaired earlier in the year.

Respond to a request from the Geographical Association for information about any corrections that need to be made to the text of my book "Glaciers and Glacial Landscapes", as they are planning to do a new printing of the book. (I take this to be good news, as it must mean that they have sold out of the first printing but are still selling copies!)

Get on with writing a paper that the editor of "Progress in Physical Geography" has asked that I submit before the end of November. I've been held up throughout the last couple of months by teaching-related work, and I need to spend a lot of time on this paper to get it into shape.

Attend the Keele Geography exam-board meeting where we confirm all the exam questions for the January exams.

Attend the Keele Geography Courses Management Committee where we organise the running of the courses.

Receive (I hope) and start to study the "self evaluation portfolio" that is being produced by the School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy as part of the Keele Internal Quality Audit that I will be chairing later this month.

Meet with assorted students about their coursework, dissertations, personal difficulties, etc.

Mark 14 1st-year tutorial essays

Mark 40 2nd-year tutorial tests

Prepare teaching materials for week 8

Reorganise and update "Subglacial etc..." research group web pages

Try to get down to finishing off an experiment that is currently running in the Low Temperature Lab.

Try actually to do some reading!