Mid-year Course Corrections

Happy New Year to everyone.

You're all back, feeling a variety of post-holiday feelings. Some are rested; some are tense; some are ready to go; some are panicked.

Do not pass this opportunity, no matter what you feel, to project feelings of hope and confidence to your students. Give them the feeling that you intend for this to be a productive semester.

Treat today like a major course correction on a long rocket voyage.

Think about it this way: If you are in charge of calculating the course for a payload carrying rocket, you know that, at the beginning of a voyage, a few millimeters off course may not seem like much, but will end up missing the target by thousands of miles over a lengthy voyage. You should assume that you will need frequent course corrections at the beginning because the lift off alone will have disrupted your trajectory. (You will need fewer course corrections later if you planned everything very well at beginning, but you will still need corrections.) At the great midpoint of the voyage, you've had some time to re-calibrate, and you should be ready for the corrections that may be required. Assume that corrections are necessary.

If you continue on exactly the course you were on before, you will end up with exactly the same conditions, but those conditions will worsen throughout the semester unless you correct them. Failure to make corrections now, will create conditions that will require you to have to do major changes later, and may cause the voyage to fail. If you were the least bit off course last semester, you will be light-years away from where you need to be by next June.

Some of what you're looking at, of course, is student behavior. If, last December, you were struggling with problems with student behavior, you may find today that it's briefly not too bad. (They've "recalibrated.") Let them know you mean business while they're "recalibrated," and you will save yourself trouble down the road.

If you were spending more time on discipline than instruction last month, you might take advantage in this brief lull to get them into an instructional mode more easily. Later, you will have to nudge them back into instruction, rather than force them back.

Best of luck in all your course corrections.

Jeff Combe