Prof. Kristin Stephens-Martinez

As the year draws to a close, it's that time of year to start thinking about new year resolutions. So I thought I'd write a quick post on what I'm currently contemplating about what I plan to do in hopes that it'll help others by raising awareness of an example of how to think of this. [Also posted on  medium .] First, I just discovered The Theme System  through a recent CGP Grey video . He created it with Myke Hurley , and they discuss it on their podcast Cortex , which I also just started listening to. My new year resolutions have been really stagnant the past few years, where I recycle them and mostly succeed at them. And yes, I know most research says people fail at new year resolutions, but I'm on the opposite side in the sense I pick ones that I know I can achieve. However, I've been reusing them the last few years out of fear if I don't make them my resolutions, I won't do them, and I want those things in my life. The Theme System , in short, is

This is also posted on medium . This is the last post of a 5 blog post series on how I organize the teaching staff for my 200+ student class. This post discusses how I run my weekly meeting with my head staff. The head staff is a subgroup of my teaching staff that helps me organize all the others. In this post, I discuss how I split the meeting into two phases to allow some head staff to leave when talking about topics that are not relevant to their responsibilities. I also include a discussion on what I do between meetings because that is just as important as what happens during. The other posts in this series are as follows (I’ll update with links as I post): Overview Teaching staff roles How I communicate with my teaching staff How I track the to-do list How I run the head staff meetings (You are here) Terminology Rather than require you to read my teaching staff roles post , here is a quick refresher: Teaching Associate (TA+)  — A full-time department staff member (not a student) a

This is also  posted on medium . This is post #4 of a 5 post series on how I organize the teaching staff for my 200+ student class. This post discusses how I track all the class’s tasks. I start with an overview of Trello , the tool I use to track tasks. Next is a discussion on my overall task management approach. I then move on to how I use Trello to structure the task lists, common and recurring tasks, and a task’s life cycle. Finally, I close with the advantages I see for having an externalized task list. The other posts in this series are as follows (I’ll update with links as I post): Overview Teaching staff roles How I communicate with my teaching staff How I track the to-do list (You are here) How I run the head staff meetings Terminology Rather than require you to read my teaching staff roles post , here is a quick refresher: Teaching Associate (TA+)  — A full-time department staff member (not a student) assigned to my class. She serves as my right-hand person with many and var

This is also  posted on medium . This is post #3 of a 5 post series on how I organize the teaching staff for my 200+ student class. This post discusses how I communicate with my teaching staff. I first go over how the semester starts because part of communication is setting the tone for the semester. Then I spend the rest of the post discussing how I center all of my communication in Slack , a chat tool that enables organizing conversations through channels. I discuss who is in which channel, how I use Slack integrations, my Slack philosophy, and Slack etiquette. The other posts in this series are as follows (I’ll update with links as I post): Overview Teaching staff roles How I communicate with my teaching staff (You are here) How I track the to-do list How I run the head staff meetings Terminology Rather than require you to read my teaching staff roles post , here is a quick refresher: Teaching Associate (TA+) — A full-time department staff member (not a student) assigned to my class

This is also posted on medium . This is post #2 of a 5 post series on how I organize the teaching staff for my 200+ student class. I have seven different roles in my teaching staff organized into a three-layered hierarchy. This post drills down into each teaching staff’s role by outlining their tasks and responsibilities. I close with some general thoughts. The other posts in this series are as follows (I’ll update with links as I post): Overview Teaching staff roles (You are here) How I communicate with my teaching staff How I track the to-do list How I run the head staff meetings Here’s the organization chart from the overview post again as a reminder of all the TA roles. My TA+ is a full-time staff member of the department (not a student) assigned to my class. The TAs are graduate students. UTAs are undergraduate students. Most UTAs teach a lab in pairs with about 25 students per lab. One section of the course includes one lab and two lectures per week. If I have multiple lecture se

This is also posted on medium . This is post #1 of 5 on how I organize and structure the teaching staff for my introductory computer science (CS1) class, CS101 "Introduction to Computer Science." This class has over 200 students each semester, with the fall semesters typically having 30-50 more students than the spring semesters. This post will be information on my background, context, teaching staff structure with a handy graphic, and organization generally. Future posts will contain more details on teaching assistant (TA) roles and duties, how we communicate, how we track tasks, and how I run my meetings. The other posts in this series are as follows (I’ll update with links as I post): Overview (You are here) Teaching staff roles How I communicate with my teaching staff How I track the to-do list How I run the head staff meetings Background I learned a lot about how to organize TAs when I was in grad school at UC Berkeley. I was a teaching assistant at UC Berkeley's CS1

Over one week, I went to two overlapping virtual conferences, ICER and Learning@Scale (L@S). Both usually are in person but were virtual due to Covid-19. Here is my reflection on the experience for the sake of those planning a virtual conference, those attending a virtual conference, and myself. First off, the biggest pro to the virtual conferences is I got to attend! If Covid-19 had not forced the conferences to go online, I would not have attended either. ICER's locations go back and forth between in and not in North America. This year was a non-North America year and would have been in New Zealand. After I had my first child and an overseas trip away from him, I decided that while my kids were small, I wouldn't travel outside North America without them unless I had a solid reason. We also recently added another child to the family. So traveling that far with a 3-year-old and a 4-month-old was daunting and unaffordable. L@S was originally going to be in Atlanta, Georgia, in