WHOOOOOOO

I did it. Got the exam (well, a reasonable first draft*) written.

So I'm going to heat up some soup. (Thank goodness for leftovers on days like this), have some dinner, do some knitting, and I think take a nice warm bath before bed. And maybe even read some on "The Pickwick Papers" (the ongoing hugacious novel I'm reading. I always have to have at least one hugacious novel going) while I'm in the bath.

(Yes, it's an inexpensive paperback copy, and no, I've never dropped a book I was reading in the bath).

(*The way I do exams is this: I have my list of topics and I often start by assigning point values to each topic - as in, "How much do I think this is worth, how important is this to their knowledge." Then I write questions up to those point values. As this is a non-majors class, a lot of the questions are multiple choice and are not that complex. I always write out my tests longhand first and then revise them as I type them in - I won't need to type this one right away as the exam's next Thursday, but having a good rough draft of the exam raises my comfort level considerably. I probably will glance at the "test bank" that we all get with the textbook, but I don't often use it, because I find some of the questions are frankly not that well worded, and a lot of them go into detail I don't have time to touch on. Sometimes I do see a question better than what I came up with for a topic and then I substitute that.

I know there are some profs who just use the test bank straight - and just use the canned Powerpoints that come on the CD-ROM that come with the textbook, and they say that they do it to save themselves time...but I just can't. The material is rarely presented the way I teach; it's often stilted and kind of dull. So I have to spend the time on prepping stuff. But I suppose on the other hand - if you care about teaching and the craft of such, you kind of have to do that, you have to bite the bullet and generate your own "content"...because I think I teach better when I'm using material worded the way I word it, and with examples and case studies I personally find compelling, even if they're not in the textbook. I admit I leaned a bit on the slides from the canned Powerpoint this week (I was in a hurry when making up the presentation), and I could feel it, that I wasn't on my top form. Oh well. I can come in Saturday and hopefully prep another week's or so worth of lectures, and just be more disciplined about keeping ahead of the class.)