Why you don't need to rewrite your course this year
It's a common feeling at the beginning of September amongst many academics to start to feel the pull of rewriting your entire course. I'm here to tell you to resist that temptation.
Whether it's redesigning your entire module based on the feedback from one student or just a feeling of restlessness that you've got that something could work better, I want you to resist this year. Redesigning your course is a huge time suck, and instead, you could be spending the end of the summer working on your research and projects that are important to you.
What's more, our students are overworked and overwhelmed, and do not need more and more from us. They appreciate a minimalist design, a reasonable assessment and a lecturer who's not absolutely knackered. When it comes to course delivery, listen to this: less is more, less is more, less is more.
And if you got a complaining comment last year, then I'm sorry about that, but only change the course based on comments that hit home because you know them to be true. The comments that bother us are often the ones we were worried about anyway.
“When it comes to course delivery, listen to this: less is more, less is more, less is more.”
So, I'm not saying that you don't want to spend any time prepping your materials for September; you do. But here's what I suggest:
Schedule in some time now for when you're going to look at your course. I suggest at the very last minute, the week before term/semester starts.
I would suggest an afternoon. You can schedule an entire day if you like, but I suggest just the Friday afternoon (or morning) before Freshers Week to get all things in order.
For those of you that are in a field like law, where there are literally new laws that need to be in the course materials, adjust as necessary, but be strict about how much time you give yourself. For most of us, there might be some new references that we want to update, but be minimalist with this. Don't try and get everything under the sun in there. It does not matter for most modules.
There are many notable and important initiatives, like decolonising the curriculum, that you may want to include. And that's fine, and we should be thinking about these things for sure. But again, I want you to limit yourself to how much time you're going to allow for this.
The purpose of this blog is just to tell you that you don't need to worry about this yet. Put half a day in your calendar to deal with this at the last possible minute, and then go back to your writing and lovely summer time.
We've started a write everyday challenge this week in the Sisterhood, which started on Monday. It's not too late to join. You can do that here. And start embedding that daily writing practice into your schedule before the chaos of the semester starts.
This writing challenge is for you if:
You want to keep getting a paper out this term/semester
You want your schedule to reflect where your priorities lie, even during teaching time
You want writing to feel joyous, fun and easy not dread, sick and fear
You don't want research to disappear once teaching starts.
Bouchrika, I. (2024). 50 Current Student Stress Statistics: 2024 Data, Analysis & Predictions. Education. https://research.com/education/student-stress-statistics
Emmerton, R. W., Camilleri, C., & Sammut, S. (2024). Continued deterioration in university student mental health: Inevitable decline or skirting around the deeper problems?. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, 15, 100691. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666915323002287
