There is this annual ritual in the academy known as faculty activity reports. An FAR is a personal activity report covering the traditional spheres of teaching, research, and service along with anything else you are assigned to do. Sometimes known as “the brag sheet.” Mostly pretty dull stuff, things to be listed and counted. So, being a storyteller, I have an inclination to incorporate bits of contextual narrative, things I don’t expect anyone ever to read, but I set down as historical record. Hey, you asked for a report! Here are a couple extracts from mine.
Notes on current directions in teaching. The process of flipping courses (converting in-class-lecture courses to online lecture, with classroom transactions devoted to readings, review, exercises, and discussion) is largely completed. This now has led to a further restructuring involving the physical orientation of classroom proceedings as the basis of workshop-style proceedings suited to the common learning and work styles of a GenZ clientele. Parcel to this restructuring is the incorporation of pencil-and-paper writing and testing, in-class, to combat the erosion of integrity by generative artificial intelligence; or, to put it more positively, to tap the research-proven enhancements to learning and retention stimulated by handwriting. Finally, post-COVID, I am reinstituting service learning requirements that engage the talents and energy of students in public-service work off-campus.
Note as to research activity: with the restoration of full physical health for the first time in five years, I am experiencing a significant improvement in productivity–and not only in quantity. Realizing this potential, I have commenced feeding it through a more self-conscious allocation of prime time to writing and through a reorganization of the research-and-writing nexus. Key to this is the handwritten journal as the locus for note-taking, reflection, and pre-writing. All this gives me optimism about sustaining my scholarly output (footnotes and all) as well as my (equally serious) venture into literary nonfiction.
And then I put in the lists, too.
Oh, and prompts from WordPress notwithstanding, nothing in this blog ever has been or will be generated by artificial intelligence. It’s the real thing or nothing.