James Lang, a veteran professor writing for ChronicleVitae has some great advice for making classes less time-consuming to organize. He suggests lots of engaging, pedagogically valuable strategies for in-class assignments that prompt student self-efficacy and allow for flexible, ad-hoc coverage of the course material.
Though as a School we routinely use in-class exercises as teaching tools, we don’t always see them as moments when students internalize their own responsibility for learning. As we brace ourselves for the fall, it’s not a bad idea to remember that we can relax a bit and trust the learning will happen if we just create the right conditions.