Published as part of QILT News & Notes Summer 2026

Written by Sara Rzeszutek

It’s well worth your effort to make adjustments now that will serve you later on.

The end of the semester is always frenzied. The spring semester often feels even more so, when the final push to get courses wrapped up collides with efforts to close out committee work and other service obligations before summer begins, and all of THAT bumps up against last-minute planning for summer research, writing, travel, family commitments, and hopefully, opportunities to breathe a little bit. And for faculty who teach throughout the calendar year, time to breathe is just about nonexistent.

Students feel this pressure too: they’re scrambling to finish up, study for finals, address any missing work that they might be able to submit, fill out course surveys, finalize paperwork for graduation requirements and summer internships, pack up dorm rooms, prepare to say goodbye for the summer or to move onto the next phase of their lives, and so on.

Combine student and faculty end-of-the-year energy, and the intensity is palpable. It’s demanding, exhausting, exciting, and emotional all around. If it feels like there’s not enough time in a day, it’s probably because there isn’t.

There’s no use in pretending that there’s a solution for this reality: there’s no teaching trick or time-management strategy that offers a panacea for all that hits us in May. But there are opportunities to reflect while the stress is still a little bit fresh and strategies for making decisions now about the things that burden you, rather than trying to adjust in August, when you’re rested and full of hope and enthusiasm. You’ll thank yourself when the stress mounts again.

Assess the Stress

So, before you completely switch yourself into a different mode for the summer, consider the following ways you might be kind to your future self.

Start by doing an honest workload inventory by asking yourself the following questions:

• What were the most time-consuming teaching activities during the semester?
• What were the most tedious?
• Did your students benefit from your investment in these activities?
• Can you tell that your students achieved course learning outcomes by engaging in activities that caused you time and stress?
• Did you or your students experience joy or curiosity from engaging in these activities?
• Are the activities that caused you time and stress essential for student learning in the way they are currently designed?

From Workload Inventory to Teaching Strategies

If you’re not happy with your answer to some of these questions, it’s a good opportunity to make some changes. These questions are intended to help you reflect on what felt worthwhile and meaningful and what didn’t. If there are things you do in your courses that don’t deliver benefits that feel like they merit the costs to your own wellbeing, it’s well worth your effort to make adjustments now that will serve you later on.

• Refresh the syllabi for your future courses accordingly now, while the end-of-the-semester feelings are fresh:
• Consider shifting low-stakes graded assignments to low-stakes complete/incomplete assignments.
• Remember that your workload and the workload students undertake in your course are related, and that more work doesn’t necessarily translate into more learning. Less can be more in the classroom, and it will make you happier too.
• Think about aspects of your course calendar that create stressful work backlogs: do you have major assessments for all your courses happening during the same week? Try to stagger them so that you can pace your grading?
• Scaffolding larger assignments can help break grading down into more manageable chunks, and it also helps provide students feedback along the way, making their work progressively stronger over the semester.
• If you’re stressed and annoyed grading the same generic assignments over and over again, wondering if they’re AI, and feeling like they’re not working for you anymore, multimodal assignments add variety and make grading more interesting. Giving students options increases their interest, taps into their strengths and creativity, and makes learning more joyful for them. You’ll feel that shift too!

• Review each of your assignments and apply a Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) approach. Doing so is kind to your future self in multiple ways:
• It will help you take a close look at your assignments and make sure that they are truly aligned with learning outcomes and are necessary for student learning, offering opportunities to eliminate things that don’t align.
• It will help you incorporate a stronger rationale for the assignments, which will increase student buy-in, making grading more pleasant.
• It will help you clarify procedures and criteria, minimizing student questions about aspects of the work and confusion about why they got the grades they did.

• Think about ways you can center joy in your teaching, and plan specific ways to incorporate them. If you’re able keep joy in the equation, the stress feels more worthwhile.
• Commit to taking at least one thing that creates stress and exhaustion off your plate in every class and commit to reallocating that time to an activity that brings you real peace. And then thank your future self for your kindness.

While the end of the year will always be busy, small strategies can make a big impact. For additional support, or to brainstorm about your specific courses, make a teaching strategies consultation.

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