As college instructors know, winter break typically runs for mid-December to early or mid-January, which means we basically get a month off from teaching, which sounds amazing! However, when teaching online you also have a lot of work to take care of during your ‘break,’ unless you plan accordingly (which is where this blog post…
When my mom friends told me taking care of a newborn would be time consuming, I didn’t realize how much of an understatement that was- that it would take up about 12 hours in a 24 hour day (when you do just the basics- feeding, changing, burping, getting them to bed, dealing with a gassy…
When I tell people that I work from home, a surprising number of people respond with ‘I could never work from home, I’d just eat all day.’ However, I actually find that (1) when you’re focused on working, you’re not usually mindlessly rummaging around the kitchen, so you’re fine. And (2), it’s easier to…
There are plenty of things I could work on in my personal and professional life. However, I pride myself on having finally mastered the surprisingly difficult task of working from home (I might regret saying that as soon as Baby joins us in a few months here..). For the most part, I’m organized, efficient, and…
Tim Ferriss has talked about how to cut hours from our busy schedules in The Four Hour Work Week, and I took some helpful suggestions to heart after listening to the audio book. However, I’m sure many people, like me, were still left thinking “I don’t know that I could apply this to my job/life.”…
Teaching as an online instructor at a variety of colleges has its advantages- one is that I get to see how different deans, department chairs, etc. run their departments, and most importantly, I can see where there might be some overlap in grading requirements among the schools without too much guesswork on my part. Recently,…
I recently had a former student ask me how I stay motivated to work from home or coffee shops. I’m currently working from my laptop at the Panera down the street, so I thought now would be a good time to list 4 tips that are helping me stay focused at the moment: Focus on…
During the past few years that I’ve taught online, it’s been a lot of trial and error to figure out what schools and supervisors expect from online adjuncts. Generally, we get tossed into the online classroom without much guidance (and regardless of how long you’ve been doing this, different schools place value on different areas/assignments…
I don’t do this regularly (although I used to), but if you find yourself in a less than fantastic mood, I highly recommend this 10-15 minute exercise to get you out of your funk. Not to mention, it also helps you get more accomplished during your day (according to podcasters, authors, and famous entrepreneurs who…
I went back to the classroom yesterday for the first time in a very very long time (for me, that means it’s been almost a year of fully online teaching). Oh, how I had missed every part of it. Printing out my class rosters, putting on actual clothes and makeup to leave the house, the…