This is time of the year, when I start thinking deeply about how my classes are going to run in the fall. If you follow this blog, you might know that I think most of the time we are over planning our classes – but still a good plan is always helpful. The nation seems to be one a tipping point, so we might want to make sure we cover our basis.

Fall 2024 is about to get in your way. Consider these points:

• The presidential race is absolutely bonkers.
  • The former president and presidential candidate has been shot.
  • The current president who was running for election has just stepped down because he’s too old.
  • Can you even imagine the outrage that I presidental debate between Trump and Harris will cause? (https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/09/politics/donald-trump-looming-hillary-clinton-presidential-debate/index.html)
  • Beyond this I am speachless. While I think the most accurate prediction is that nothing major will happen whoever wins the elections, there is so much potential energy out there. Anything could happen.
• Last semester ended with classes online and no final exams at a number of major schools because of protests over the war in the middle east. The Israel Palestine war is still ongoing and nothing seems unchanged.
• Major and worsing wealth inequality!
• Climate change
• Poltical Division
• The stock market is so very high. In general, this is a good thing, but there’s a lot of potential there for trouble if things take a bad turn …

What am I missing? I am sure I missing some big ones in there.

Protesters and political strife seem like they’re going to be a big deal come November this year. And it’s gonna be warm enough for the students to be out there protesting because well climate change.

So that leaves us with some questions. Do you build up your emergency store of rations and get your generator hooked up to the house? Do you get out your sneakers buy large posters to go to the protests to advocate for your case? Do you find an empty place in the country and sit on a bench next to a lake and zone out to avoid the catastrophe? As usual, we will get through out. And the general oxymoron is it will be both worse than we imagined and not as bad.

Here’s what I’m thinking today! I am preparing my class for the next semester and in doing so I’m thinking that I need to build in a lot of flexibility. There are a good chance that there are going to be days where we are going to have to be doing remote learning. (e.g., Columbia went remote last semester.) While I hate remote working. Its time to be ready to transition and implement cool things when the time comes.

There have been a lot of advances in online education since 2020. I am not suggesting you go through and implement them in any of your classes this semester. However, what I am suggesting is that you review these briefly just to so you know what’s cool and available. In 2020, we just days to become online educators. We might find ourself there again. Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to get done. Having a knowledge of whats available it could make you successful if you class suddenly has to go online because the university is closed because of protests, or worse.

The summer I explored a really cool tool for teaching online called perusall. It was the second time I used it in class and there are some ups and downs with it – but I like it. Basically it’s a tool that allows students to read their textbook in teams and to apply comments to one another while they’re reading. Its a new toolish tool, and there are a lot of unexpected ways it could be used in your classroom in a pinch. (What about classwide peer-review of a student’s project?)

Predicting the future is impossible especially in exterme times such as these. We have no idea what will happen. But we might want to take some time and prepare for exterme events.