The start of a new semester can be an exciting and stressful time. There is a sense of renewed hope and promise that can be felt in new beginnings like the start of the semester brings with it. Whether you are starting your first semester as an instructor or starting your fifth year, tenth year, or twentieth year as an instructor, we hope that your summer has provided you with time for reflection and rejuvenation. The Center for eLearning Initiatives has chosen the quotes below for how they capture the important work you do as an instructor at Penn State – Behrend. You can download these posters to post in your office or other work spaces. While the hours may be long (and still may not feel long enough to accomplish all that you do), the impact you make as educators is more profound than you may recognize while tackling your day-to-day work.
With new beginnings, like the start of a new year or the start of a new semester, this time can mark an important transition and an opportunity to try to establish new habits. The following are some resources we’ve compiled to help you start the new semester with clear focus and also possibly with some new habits.
Mindset
In her article, “Getting into the Mindset of a New Semester,” faculty author Martha Schaffer suggests three steps for how to get into the mindset of a new semester. These are:
- Reconcile last semester’s (or the summer’s) successes and failures.
- Reconsider goals.
- Identify next step challenges.
These are three important steps for getting into the right mindset, particularly the advice of reconsidering goals. Why wait for New Year’s to make new resolutions? The start of a new semester is a great opportunity to take time to reflect, reset your goals, and identify how you will take steps to reach those goals. We encourage you to think about setting both professional and personal goals.
Goals
For professional goals, you want to identify not only the goal but the steps you will take to achieve that goal. Break your goal into smaller chunks and plan specific time in your day, week, and month to focus on that goal. There are many free goal tracking resources available across the internet, but Passion Planner has many that you might find useful and can download.
The same idea can be applied to personal goals. We know how stressful the start of a new semester can be, so we would like to encourage self-care (in whatever form that may take for you). As seen with professional goals, when setting your personal goal, break it into smaller chunks and set aside time each day, week, and month to focus on that goal. Maybe you want to get more physical activity by taking more steps each day or by trying meditation. This website has 20 guided meditation videos. If you try one per day for 20 days, you will likely have developed a new habit! Or set aside 20 minutes in your day for a quick walk around campus by creating a recurring calendar reminder in Outlook. You should try to be as protective of the time you set aside for personal goals as you are for your professional goals. Don’t let other items creep into this time that you’ve set aside for your personal goal.
Whether it is trying to achieve your professional or personal goals, we suggest following Jerry Seinfeld’s advice of “not breaking the chain.” He originally gave this advice to budding comedians. He suggested that they spend time crafting new material every day and to not break the chain. We suggest you apply this philosophy to your personal and professional goals – work towards your goals everyday. No matter if that means meditating for 15 minutes or working on writing a journal article for an hour a day.
With these tips about the right mindset and working toward your goals, we hope your new semester gets off to a great start!
Resources
Mathers, C. (2019, December 29). Don’t break the chain: Jerry Seinfeld’s advice on sticking to a habit. Retrieved August 4, 2022, from https://www.developgoodhabits.com/chain/.
Sanders, S. (2021, March 26). 20 terrific guided meditations for teachers. We Are Teachers. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https://www.weareteachers.com/teacher-guided-meditations/
Schaffer, M. (2020, January 9). Faculty essay: Getting into the mindset of a new semester. Case Western Reserve University. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https://case.edu/studentsuccess/news-events/know/faculty-essay-getting-mindset-new-semester
