Two things stick out for me this week: 1.) the variety of questions and skill sets students bring to a class; and 2.) the amount of time it takes to take care of the administrative side of courses.
The variety of questions and skill sets led me to decide to offer an "extra help" session to those who need or really want some extra help with what I tend to think of as the "technical" parts to studying history, writing history, and participating in class. There were questions (or just questioning looks) about how to find scholarly articles and how to cite sources properly using the Chicago style. There were also questions about D2L. Even though D2L truly is a supplement to these courses, I would like students to feel comfortable enough at least to click around D2L to see not only the announcement/news and materials and links I'm putting up there, but also what other students are writing on the discussion boards. There were also questions about how to write an history essay or paper. My first step in responding to this particular need was to make available a paper a former student of mine wrote; we'll see what other steps become necessary. Finally, students seemed confident about knowing what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, but this may be just the most vocal students in class--those who are actually unsure may be a bit shy about asking about plagiarism, so I also included plagiarism as a possible topic for the "extra help" session.
Every semester I am amazed and a little frustrated by how much time is needed to take care of the administrative tasks: making enough photocopies, setting up attendance records and gradebooks (Excel), figuring out if students have added or dropped, and emailing newly added students. I estimate I spent about 2 hours per class just this week on administrative tasks, and I bet that's a low estimate. Administrative tasks always take up less time in weeks subsequent to the add/drop deadline.
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