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As faculty, we are not generally in the habit of taking time to pause and appreciate our accomplishments. There is always the next class meeting to plan, the next set of grading to finish, the next book order to submit. And those are only the things on the “classes” section of our to-do lists.
So let me take a post-fall break minute to say congratulations and well done on making it halfway through the fall semester! On connecting with your students, planning out your courses, adjusting and improvising along the way, pursuing your learning goals, doing your grading, all while navigating the opportunities and challenges of AI and the general uncertainties of 2025.
Effective teaching is not perfect. It requires constantly improvising and adapting to the moment and the needs of the students in front of us. To do this well, we need to regularly check in with ourselves as well as our students to confirm that we’re all headed in the right direction and will make it there by the end of the semester.
To that end, I encourage you to consider the variety of ways that you can collect mid-semester reflections and feedback from your students. But just as importantly, stop for a few minutes and ask yourself these questions, based on your own observations and experience of your classrooms:
- What are 3 key things I’m trying to achieve in my [you choose] class this semester?
- What is one thing that is working (even if it’s not perfect) and that I want to continue?
- What is one thing that I want to change that will improve the semester?
For more variety, the NIU Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning offers a set of thoughtful questions to prompt both students and faculty to reflect on what’s happening in our courses.
These questions may seem small, but they are a useful way to focus on what is both important and manageable. It is important to recognize what is working with a particular group of students and what is bringing us satisfaction and joy at midterm time. It is equally important to recognize where we can make manageable adjustments, not in pursuit of perfection, but for the sake of ourselves, our students, and the learning communities we are building in our classrooms.