People whine about Mondays, but Tuesdays and Thursdays are rough ones in MY business. That's because labs are scheduled for those days. At a small college, the profs teach the labs. That's a selling point for us, and I am utterly convinced it IS much better for student learning that having first year grad students teach labs.
But it requires TIME. Here's an example.
I spend each week 50 minutes times 4 in lecture = 200 minutes.
In teaching labs, I spend 2 hours times 5 sections = 600 minutes
I also spend about 60 minutes in journal club with my research students
and about 5 hours (300 minutes) in the lab with them (until they become more independent)
a total of
1160 minutes / 60 =19.3 contact hours/ week.
17% of my contact hours lecturing
52% in teaching labs
and THIS semester,
31% in my research lab
Hmm, interesting, glad I had this blog to make me do that. Most semesters I have less research hours.
Ok, today's schedule:
8:30-10:00 scheduled to prep for lab. Didn't make that today, arrived at 9:30. That was too little time, I was under prepared. Must force myself to finish by 9:45-10:00 for pumping. Didn't today.
10:00-12:00 Lab section 1
12:10-12:25, pump in my office and curse at my colleagues scheduling a meeting over lunch, even after I tell them that I will be late or leave early.
12:30-12:59 Attend half of a very important meeting. Miss out on important things that determine the quality of a program I am somewhat in charge of. Gobble lunch during.
1:05-3:00 Arrive late for lab section 2, hurriedly re-prep and lecture simultaneously. Do a bad job at both.
3:00-5:00 miss another pumping. Get research students going on their next procedure which they are really green at.
5:00-5:30 Run home and nurse the baby (hub happened to be home and spare me the rush to get her picked up
5:30- 6:45 Boy to music class, he LOVES music class. I will suffer greatly if we ever skip it.
6:45- Dinner, Boy bedtime, Girl bedtime (she's crying right now, must attend...)
Thursdays are worse; three lab sections and an important meeting over lunch.
I teach at a community college, and our labs are any day but Monday. If we were restricted to T/Th, I don't think we'd fit them all in. We also teach our own labs.
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