Load Balancing

Entry 466 for Friday July 23, 2021

The core questions:

Credit goes to Ben and readers of his blog for these “Four Questions” and the five stretch questions.

1. What did you do today? Coffee in the morning with Lawrie and Miguel; system maintenance; released “Let’s Play” video of my NHL21 play-through; agreed to teach a group of TC1033 in period 3 next semester; followed the NHL Entry Draft.
2. What did you enjoy? It was so nice to see Lawrie again, it had been a few months since his last visit.
3. What did you find difficult? I was looking at my workload to start the semester which is rather unbalanced. Our semester is now broken into three 5-week periods(P1,P2,P3), each followed by 3 1-week sessions (S1,S2,S18). Note that last period is “S18” for “Semana-18” (Week 18). Load calculations are 1 “unit” (UdC) for 40 working/load hours which typically is a 5-week course with 4 hours teaching and 4 hours prep each week, another option is a full week session making 1 unit. Our annual teaching load is 28 UdC, which is usually met with 2 semesters of 14 UdC but we are flexible in how we meet that annual target during the two 16-week semesters or 5-week winter or summer sessions. I also have a 7 UdC unload for my role as dirctor of the Masters in Cybersecurity (MCY) which should bring my typical semester load to 10.5. This semester’s plan for periods (P1/P2/P3) is 6/6/1 and another 1 unit to teach a group of “S18”. That is 3.5 UdC over ‘normal’ but the real hit is that is a 50% overload in each of the two first periods. I will be busy.
4. What has changed? I added another course of 1 UdC but it won’t overload me more. I will teach a national group of TC1033 in the 3rd period and have that as extra payment instead of part of my calculated load. I still end up with a light load in that third period and it is the same course as the other group I am teaching in that period.

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Today’s Reading/Listening

Mostly watching the draft previews and live coverage today.

Video Released