Dr. Melissa Read

Great point Luis. A great way to learn how to manage stress is to look to others who are in the same situation and ask "How are they managing stress?" If we study enough people, we find a few who are great role models as well as others that show us what not to do.

That sounds like a challenge George. With no set tasks or schedule, you probably have to work a lot harder to make sure you stay on track.

Thanks for sharing Keith! What a unique coping mechanism!

Excellent idea Julie! Yes, taking care of higher priority tasks first will likely help you accomplish more and experience less stress in the process.

That sounds like a difficult situation Andrea. Every new instructor experiences a learning curve for the first year or so. The good news is that you have so many years of subject matter experience. When you finally get comfortable with teaching, you will have so much to offer your students. There are many instructors who begin teaching with much less experience. Once they get past the learning curve of teaching, they only have so much subject matter expertise to offer. And that's a challenge that's much harder to get past.

These are important points Keith. Setting expectations ahead of time can be a great solution. But sometimes, it's hard to communicate to administrators just how busy we are.

This is a common problem William. One solution is to ask the higher-level students to work with the lower level students to teach some of the basic concepts. This can benefit both groups. The higher level students get experience teaching, and gain a deeper understanding of the course material by presenting it in their own way. The lower level students get to hear about course material from their peers, who can sometimes be better at speaking their language and getting through to them than we can.

Many people do this Luis. One of the challenges though is that people then have to go back and do rework later. It's a big time saver to do tasks once and do them right.

Great points Bruce. Even if your school administration has a standard exam, it doesn't hurt to ask if you can make some modifications for faster grading.

One tip that I can share is to schedule your "me time" - to actually write it on your calendar and take it as seriously as all of your other calendar events.