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In the weeks since my half-semester course at Rockville wrapped up, I've been able to maintain a connection to that campus by substituting for absent instructors. The easiest such assignments to get are mid-morning MWF classes. At that time almost none of the adjunct faculty is available to substitute, as I learned when trying to get my second-to-last Wednesday class covered during my week of jury duty.
Today at 10:00 I found myself back in Science West, covering a section of basic algebra for Professor Chon. I hadn't supervised such a class since the college switched to using ALEKS for computer-based lessons. Based on the first impressions of instructors on my home campus, ALEKS takes a very granular approach to assessing mathematical skills, never requiring students to keep a large number of concepts in mind for any set of problems. I wandered the classroom this morning and saw the ALEKS assessment philosophy for myself, only occasionally having to talk through a particular concept with one of the students. For the most part they worked independently, completely absorbed in the task at hand.
At the end of the class, I delivered the filled-out attendance sheet to Prof. Chon's mailbox and then went upstairs to grab my swimming gear for a final trip to the pool. My fall semester swimming routine started back in mid-September and persisted at least once every other week until today. During my first week using the Rockville pool I remember leaving the facility and holding a hallway conversation with fellow swimmer Brian, whose remarks on Hunter Biden's role at Burisma served as my first exposure to the scandal that evolved into the current impeachment inquiry. As the fall swimming season comes to a close after weeks of unrelenting impeachment news, this hallway encounter brings back happy memories of a less hurried time.
In weeks past I would have gone straight from the swimming pool back to my office in SC 359, especially on days when the outdoor temperature would only permit a brief walk across campus wearing the few layers that the PE building lockers can accommodate. Today I set that consideration aside and went to the library right after my swim. I picked out a few books for a friend who had just applied to a reporting job with InsideHigherEd. It had been several semesters since I passed through that section of the stacks and discovered a book on rethinking American community colleges, but the memory of that chance discovery was the first thought that came to mind when my friend mentioned the desire to do his homework in case he got called for an interview. I checked out three titles at the circulation desk, and then went across the bridge connecting Macklin Tower to Science West. The inclusion of this bridge in the construction of Science West means that even on a chillier day, the short dash from one building to the next is bearable without an overcoat.
In my SC office I said a few words of goodbye to my office-mate, whom I might not see again until next semester. I repacked my bags to make room for the library books and then set out by bike on the homeward trip. The afternoon and evening would prove just as eventful as the morning and mid-day.
A quick late lunch upon arrival at home was the first order of business. It would have to provide enough energy for at least seven hours; I foresaw no opportunity to squeeze in another meal in between my 5pm dentist appointment and my substitute teaching gig from 6:30 to 8:45. I dropped off the library books with my friend right after the dentist appointment. Normally such a visit would be the setting for a prolonged chat and a small shared meal, but time was short this evening, and I didn't want to mess up the dental cleaning so soon after paying top dollar for this service. I allowed myself a 20-minute stay in his apartment to catch up on news and skim through the library books I had checked out, all while rehearsing in the back of my mind the substitute lecture I had to give tonight.
The calculus class this evening was scheduled to learn about tests for convergence of series. At the house this afternoon I extracted some relevant pages from a looseleaf edition of the Briggs calculus textbook, stuffing them into a folder for reference during tonight's lecture. Aside from these pages and the corresponding section in the Stewart e-book, I had no written lecture notes; the mental rehearsal of examples and commentary would have to suffice. Fortunately my recent work writing out solutions for the Briggs textbook made it easy to anticipate which results would need greater emphasis for this class, so the lecture went smoothly and reached at least one example illustrating the Limit Comparison Test.
With the dismissal of the calculus students, my work for the evening is still not done; I have two exams to give tomorrow, and only one of them is actually in a state fit for printing. The statistics exam will have to be composed in the late hours this evening, after I return home and enjoy a well-earned dinner. The backlog of statistics homework papers, which still need to be marked with individual feedback, will have to wait until tomorrow when the students are actually taking the exam.