Peak Fall 2020: Sending an apology to my students in case the person I ejected from a family Zoom gathering as soon as I realized it wasn’t a sibling (but before I could fully process the face) was one of them looking for help on a Sunday night.

Having my students post a weekly report on what they did that relates to each course objective. When it works, it’s the best kind of assessment—it assumes that there’s learning always happening and that we just need to notice it.

One of the biggest things that the pandemic is teaching me is how much of good pedagogy is just treating your students like human beings (and how much of bad pedagogy is not doing so). Knew this before, but this semester is really driving it home.

Sick family member, so I moved my blended class to 100% asynchronous online this week. Almost definitely not COVID, but it’s a slower week in class, and this seems like the kind of semester to be overly cautious.

Rewriting a syllabus + recurrence of a particular, ongoing personal anxiety + general pandemic stuff = some high levels of pre-semester stress today.