Although the weather continues to be hot here in Washington D.C., summer has come to an end for the students and workers of Howard University. I attended the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting just as school was beginning. This conference is spectacularly ill-timed to take place right before or during many schools’ first week of classes every year. I cancelled  my first day of classes and taught two days later after getting off a red-eye from the West Coast at 6am.

Regardless of  how you spend the last few days of summer, you may feel overwhelmed by the administrative details associated with resuming classes and committee work each fall. Because I think there are few life-problems that a good list can’t help address, I created a Back to School Checklist this year to help me remember some of the details that need to get taken care of for a smooth start. Feel free to adapt it for your own purposes as you like, I know I’ll be adding things as I remember them. And if you’re really list-crazy, take a look at the fun ones available at Knock-Knock (I find their “Pack This!” list particularly helpful). Or check out Atul Gawande’s book The Checklist Manifesto – if nothing else, it’ll make you glad you don’t have to worry about whether you left a pair of scissors inside the last person you did surgery on before sewing them up.

Back to School Checklist

Classes

• Confirm class time and space
• Check audio-visual supplies: screen, projector, speakers
• Finalize Syllabus
  • Update readings
  • Add new dates for each class meeting that correspond to this calendar year
  • Look at campus academic calendar and add dates to syllabus as needed (campus closed, last day to drop, etc)
  • Update assignments
  • Schedule guest-speakers
  • Schedule office-hours
• Create course website (Blackboard, etc)
  • Make sure that enrolled students are in the system
  • Add syllabus
  • Upload readings
  • Set up places for students to turn in work for each assignment
  • Set up gradebook
  • “Publish” site so it is visible to students
• Create attendance sheet
• Create sign-up sheets (for example, if students will each facilitate a day of classroom discussion)
• Order required books at campus bookstore
• Put required books on reserve at campus library
• Add chalk, eraser, or whiteboard pens to teaching bag as needed
• Add paper and pens for big nametags on desk as needed
• Prepare lesson plan and slides for first day of class. Make time to:
  • Do names and/or ice-breaker
  • Introduce self
  • Introduce class – with hook!
  • Review syllabus – use screenshots of book covers when possible
  • Sign up for assignments that are date-specific
  • Take attendance
  • Collect information of students hoping to get in to class

Research Assistants

• Get students signed up for independent study classes as appropriate
• Create proxy library accounts that let students check out books to my library account
• Schedule first team meeting with students
• Reserve room for team meeting
• Prepare for first meeting
  • Review and organize prior student work
  • Prepare list of projects and tasks to be divvied up amongst group. Decide how many people are needed for each project
  • Create agenda
  • Create sharable to-do lists and timesheets
  • Update IRB “how to” document that details what students need to give me in order to be approved by the IRB as research assistants
  • Update all other “how-to” documents as needed to support student tasks
  • Select and upload introductory readings to help frame research tasks
  • Add students to Google Drive folder that houses group files
• At first meeting
  • Introductions
  • Background on research projects and descriptions of tasks
  • Divide up tasks
  • Describe optional events happening this semester that students can participate in as part of their weekly hours to supplement their learning
  • Share contact information
  • Assign background reading
  • Give overview of the IRB and the describe the documents students need to provide to be approved by IRB as research assistants
  • Get familiar with the documents in the shared folder on Google Drive
  • Review project communications and tracking (to-do list, hours sheet)
  • Schedule training for students with librarian on how to find scholarly articles
  • Pick weekly meeting time
  • Schedule meeting between each project group and myself to provide training about how to get started with their task

Other

• Add campus calendar dates to personal calendar (due dates for grades, last day of classes, etc)
• Add dates on department calendar to personal calendar (faculty meetings, report due dates, etc)
• Make work plan for year/semester
• Post office hours on door
• Return or renew library books
• Clean office!