Dynamic Calendar

Last week was insane and I did not have a chance to post at all. This week I hope to make up for it with 2 posts a day. Today's post was motivated by an email from a student who will be gone for a week during summer quarter and wonders if she should take the Global Studies class.  That motivated me to get out my Dynamic Calendar.  


My dynamic calendar was created by my friend James Peyton, economics faculty at Highline.  He showed it to me at least 10 years ago and it's been working for me ever since.  I like having a one page download for students to see the whole class schedule. Though my class basically follows the same pattern every quarter, I was always having to tediously  change every date for each new quarter. This calendar is an excel spreadsheet. I change the first two dates in the calendar and all of the rest of the dates automatically update to this quarter. Woo hoo!


Just a note about how I schedule my quarters. Following the model of WAOL and the advice of a wise Highline colleague, Diana Lee, I start my weeks on Wednesdays and have work due on Tuesdays at midnight. This has several advantages. First, work is not due on weekends. We know students wait until the last minute and then have questions. I don't want to answer those questions on the weekends. So, I have work due during the week when I am happy to answer questions.  Also, this schedule makes it easy for the students who want to work primarily on weekends or primarily during the week to both be happy.  


Additionally, I use the first two days of the quarter for orientation, to get the students up to speed, doing introductions, etc.  By Wednesday of the first week, we're ready to roll with real work, as opposed to sacrificing the whole first week for that kind of activity, as I've seen people do. I've suggested this model to lots of people and everyone who tries it is really happy - you should give it a shot.


Here is the link to my draft schedule for Summer 2012 and here is a link to a basically blank dynamic schedule that you can adapt for your own use. It is set up for the 8 week summer quarter, but here is one for a 10 week quarter.


Resources
8 Week Dynamic Calendar Template
10 week Dynamic Calendar Template