Where Did My Attention To Detail Go? Oh, Yeah...

	12-12:50	1-1:50	2-2:50	3-3:50	4-4:50
Monday	Class 1, Classroom A		Class 2, Classroom B	Class 3, Classroom C	Class 4, Classroom D
Tuesday	Class 1, Classroom A			Class 3, Classroom C
Wednesday	Class 1, Classroom A		Class 2, Classroom B	Class 3, Classroom C	Class 4, Classroom D
Thursday	Class 2, Classroom B			Class 4, Classroom A
Friday	Class 1, Classroom A		Class 2, Classroom B	Class 3, Classroom C	Class 4, Classroom D

Behold, my teaching schedule for fall semester.  Is it just me, or does this seem particularly diabolical?  The chart I'm posting here, by the way, is an adaptation of one I made for my own personal use at the beginning of the semester in order to keep track of the ridiculous meeting time and classroom changes depending on the day.

I'm not the only one who has trouble with this, either.  One of my students from Class 2 missed a Thursday class and told me later that she had forgotten we had class that day.

In addition to what is readily apparent in the timetable, Class 1, 2, and 4 are different sections of the same course.  Class 3 is a different course.  So, I have the one different course smack dab between two of the same courses three days a week.

Also, because Class 1 meets on MTWF and Classes 2 and 4 meet on MWRF, Class 1 is always one lesson ahead of the other two classes on Wednesday.  So on Wednesdays, I teach three different lesson plans.

Also, as is apparent on the timetable, Classes 2, 3, and 4 are back to back on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  That means no time to clear my head between classes, especially if students come up to me after class to ask questions.  (I don't mind questions about the actual material I covered, but unfortunately, they're not always so relevant.  Grade grubbing for one extra point on a test comes to mind.)

I was pondering all of this today, wondering why I had had so many brain farts over the course of the day, and I came to the sad conclusion that this is likely to be the case all semester, particularly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

On the flip side, those three days have opportunities for exercise.  While all of my classrooms are under one roof, I teach in three different "blocks".  I have to traverse a common area on the ground floor to get between blocks.  I generally avoid the elevators because they are hot, slow, and crowded.  So a typical stair-climbing schedule on MWF looks like this:
1.  Climb to 4th floor office on Block A
2.  Go down four flights of stairs, climb to 5th floor classroom in Block B.
3.  Go down five flights of stairs, return to 4th floor classroom in Block A.
4.  Walk down one flight of stairs to classrooms in Block A.
5.  Walk down three flights of stairs and climb to 5th floor of Block C.
6.  Walk down five flights of stairs, and climb to 4th floor office of Block A.

My brain may be mush by the end of the semester (or perhaps by next week) but maybe I at least have the hope of some level of physical fitness.