Mostly Biology stuff today

So... today I spent time trying to figure out how I can use MasteryPaths in my online Biology course in Canvas.  It is a pretty complicated thing and I am still trying to figure out what assignments students should complete if they don't pass their unit exams.  It seems like if they score 80 or higher having them reflect on their experience in preparation for the next exam and a choice about submitting the CIQ assignment makes sense.  I want the students who score between 60 and 80 to be assigned the CIQ and a practice quiz that pulls questions from each chapter for more practice - but it might make sense to create some sort of study guide assignment that they need to complete in order to get their second attempt on the exam.  Then perhaps assigning an additional quiz would be for students who get lower than a 60.  I will think about it some more and decide tomorrow.

I also worked on my course to get it ready for Spring.  It included going through everything to see what needs to be updated as well as looking through my evaluations from the last semester.  It was around 62% response rate, which is good and the majority were very positive.  It is amazing that one disagree bothers me.  I need to let it go, but it is hard.  I have also decided based on feedback that I have received to do a couple things this term.  Adding the discussions as assignments rather than extra credit, but giving out points for posting by the end of the first week and replying the first time by the end of the second week in hopes to encourage more interaction.  I haven't used discussions in a long time because I got burned out early on in my teaching because no one ever participated until the last minute, which made it an assignment not a discussion.  Lastly I am going to tweak several of my labs to change them over to quizzes, but tweak them to combine the procedure sheets with the lab report in the quiz.  So basically teaching what to do while students work through the quiz.  We will see if that makes a difference in how they do especially on lab 10 because students in the last term really struggled and didn't give themselves enough time to learn the material.

Quick comment about my progress towards my goals that I posted about yesterday.

1. I did weigh in and lost about a half pound.  I exercised again (2 miles on the treadmill ran a quarter mile further then the day before) and I did okay on my diet.  Will work harder at it for tomorrow.  I did already pack my lunches for the week so that should help.
2. I spent time in my bible, but I need to actually have some quiet time where I think about the scripture.  Just reading it isn't enough.
3. Only read one chapter from one book today; will spend some time this evening as I get ready for bed to knock out some more, but I am definitely on my way to reaching the goal of reading at least one non-fiction book a month this year.
4. I didn't work on the podcast today; will need to spend some time tomorrow planning for the first post.  I have been trying to decide if I should be posting to YouTube on a regular basis and then use those pieces to combine as the monthly podcast or if I should just release a monthly show and then take pieces from that an upload the clips to YouTube after or at all.  I need to spend some time creating accounts and getting the tech part out of the way so that I can get started on writing the first episode.  I don't want to just wing it.

I think that is it for the day, my goal was to type and fill one page and it looks like I made it for today.  Until tomorrow.