There are no weekends in semester at sea. I think I mentioned this in passing but it is now already becoming my teaching reality, although at first I only emphasized it to students as a learning reality.
When we are on board all days are normal teaching days. Even if it is nearly10 days in a row, as when we cross the Atlantic Ocean. When we are in port, all days are visiting days. There is little opportunity for studying or preppping because the time is taken with seeing and doing. And it is INTENSE! I am going to try to fit the entire island of Dominica, it's rich culture and lifestyle, foods, I am a foodie!, music, people, language, into about 35 horus. How to do that? Certainly not by studying and prepping. So time management has taken a whole new meaning, even for me, let alone for the students. One advantage of poor internet connections and no real TV, just closed circuit with lots of documentaries repeating over and over again on 2 or 3 channels. A few commercial films that have a course-related theme also cycle through. But with only 2 or 3 channels, once you've seen that film, you are done for the day. Of course, we also lose an hour about every 2-3 days as we travel east, so that in reality we have to manage less time on average per day. This is a real challenge. In addition, even though I have not suffered from motion sickness at all, I am still more tired than usual as my body makes constant minuscule adjustments to posture. Standing to teach...uh, I mean dancing to teach is a challenge already and we have not hit any rough waters at all yet. Despite this I have slowly adapted myself to backing up to the podium to stand relatively still. So teaching without weekends is a time management challenge and one I have not yet mastered. I think I will have to force myself into a routine of some kind. So far I have managed to "schedule" an office hour each day that we are in port. That seems like a HUGE accomplishment but already yesterday I forgot to go to my self-designated space that I told students I would keep. Sigh. It was so easy to forget because it is not a usual place, just a table in the main dining room that I have designated as a place I will be for an hour a day. But that hour varies across days as I try to adapt to my own teaching schedule and the Global Studies course, which I want to audit. That course is mandatory for all students and because there is no single space large enough, it repeats on alternate days so half the students do on A days and half go on B days. So, to get to the point, I completely forgot to keep my B day office hour yesterday. Maybe once I get that habit, I can start on some others :) That's it for today. I had better get this sent before the students wake up and use up the bandwidth. Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 tay...@sandiego.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=15589 or send a blank email to leave-15589-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
