The week before lectures begin is easily my busiest week of the year. I have a kabillion things to do (that's a real value, right?).
I have all of the content for my courses that needs to be loaded onto Blackboard, the course management software that we use at UofT, but it needs to be perfect before I do. The last thing I want is to notice a typo on a document, have to edit the document, save as pdf, and re-upload to Blackboard. Instead, I hold everything back until I'm sure it's in the best condition possible, and then I try to let go of any of the little typos. Because no matter how hard you look, there are always tyops.
But committing to a decision on things like exams scheduling, assignment weight, and the overall course calendar of events is nerve-wracking. What if I accidentally schedule a term test for the same week I'm expected to present at a conference? Or the week before my final exams are due in to the Faculty of Arts & Science? Where will I find the time to create a really great final exam, when I'm preparing an answer key for the term test & training the TAs on how to use it?
My first semester at UofT, I accidentally scheduled all three of my courses to have a term test in the same week. That meant that the week before, when I was still preparing & delivering lectures, I also was creating 3 exams that needed to be to the Photocopy Centre before Friday. And the next week, I was madly writing the answer keys for the TAs just as fast as I could to make sure the TAs had them before the exams were actually done. And then I spent the rest of the week and the entire weekend writing 9 hours of new lecture material for the following week (which takes about 5-12hrs to prep per hour of lecture, depending on the topic). It was something of a nightmare. Of course, I had less than a month to prepare for 3 courses, over 1000 students and 14 TAs that semester, so I still marvel at how I survived that semester.
I'm really trying to make two points: (1) In writing the syllabus, there are a lot of variables to consider. If you see something on a syllabus that you think doesn't make sense or seems unfair (for example, a term test the day after Thanksgiving), try to put yourself in your instructor's shoes. Suddenly, the decision might make sense; and (2) this is why my Blackboard pages aren't available yet. I want to make the content perfect and anticipate all possible dangers before I release the Blackboard pages into the world. Please be patient ;)
