The Pretty Pencil Case Principle: Instructor Edition

<p>In this episode of Agile Ed, we turn the Pretty Pencil Case Principle around on ourselves.</p><p><br></p><p>As a new semester approaches, it’s easy for instructors to fall into the same trap as students with their fresh notebooks and brand-new school supplies: this time, everything is going to be perfect. The syllabus will anticipate every question. The course calendar will be flawless. Every activity will be meaningful, every deadline intentional, and somehow we’ll manage all of it without creating an impossible amount of work for ourselves.</p><p><br></p><p>Starting with an 18-page syllabus, we unpack information overload, “Frankenstein” course outlines, duplicated deadlines, first-year students learning how to navigate university, and the tension between being comprehensive and actually being useful. We also get into the messier work of course redesign: giving each other feedback, letting go of things we’ve already carefully planned, making space in the semester, and asking whether all that extra effort is actually helping our students—or us.</p><p>Along the way, we rethink the end of the semester, experiment with grade negotiations and scalable oral defences, and remind ourselves that sustainable teaching means designing for the humans who have to teach the course, too.</p><p><br></p><p>Because instructors get excited about pretty pencil cases in September, too.</p>