I think I've just experienced how a lot of my students must feel "normally", but it's been magnified due to lockdown. How do I know when to do my homework? And how much should I do? I've got a lesson timetable, so why can't I work out when to do my homework?
I'm a natural introvert. I can come across as an extroverted teacher, but in my home life I'm definitely an introvert. So lockdown is my ideal scenario - quiet, calm, no social interaction. However, lockdown has removed any sense of a "natural timetable". Normally I'd have "visible windows" in my day, among commuting and just office life, into which I would be forced to slot my homework. So I'd probably get some done.
This has made me reflect on the importance of a timetable in general for remote learning. If there is a sector-wide move to asynchronous teaching (which I hope there is NOT), it will rely upon students making their own timetables; working out lots of cleverly organised slots in the week in which to do their pre-learning, their learning, their homework... if I can't manage it, how are our students going to cope? Particularly thinking about our first year students who are transitioning to a much more independent way of learning.
So, whatever framework we'll be using for teaching and learning, I am going to make every effort to push for creating a timetable of "everything" in the learning journey; that is, pre-learning for flipped classroom, live learning, post-sessional learning... in this way, I think it will make our students more productive and they will cope much better.
Have I made my own timetable yet? I'm working on it... just got to find time...
