Preparing for the first round

Well it is week four of the school year and you know what that means....times for tests and evaluations! Yeah! I have my first exam in my General Psych class on Friday and I am trying a new format. I have a mixture of different types of test items (multiple-choice, matching, short answer, and short essay). I do this because of 1) a smaller number of students (35 vs. 220) and 2) because I hope to be able to test more effectively. Hopefully this goes well and there is not too much trouble with time limits (There is a class in right after mine in the room). The students did get a pool of 8 possible essays out of which 2 will be selected to be on the exam so hopefully they will have already answered the question and will not need to devote too much time to writing and organizing during the test itself.

I also get to be observed by my department chair on Wednesday for my 4-week new faculty evaluation. All should go well and I'm not too worried. I just hope that I don't get nervous just because he's in the room. I don't think I will, but then I never know. This is not meant to be really evaluative in the sense that my job is on the line, it's more or less just to keep an eye on new faculty and give them some feedback early on in the semester.

Otherwise nothing really new to report. I am just trying to keep up with course work and improving my classes at this point in time. I hope sometime soon to continue on some of my research projects (like writing up a ms and entering some very old data that I've neglected for the past year).