Is there an easy way to do this?
It happens every year and it is always a headache.
We have six years of herbal medicine students studying for an Advanced Diploma, and we need to make sure that each of the six years gets their allocated four seminar days per module. Each year has six modules so altogether we have to plan 144 separate teaching days, making sure the individual tutors are available those dates.
This may sound straightforward, my friend, yet it is anything but…
The first hurdle is setting the dates. Organising a group of tutors sometimes feels like herding sheep that are wandering off in different directions. They are asked very early on to give us dates for the coming year that they know they cannot teach. We thought this was a simple request. A recurring snag seems to be after we have set the dates in stone and sent them out to all tutors, one or two will let us know they are very sorry but they forgot to tell us dates they couldn’t manage and then throw a spanner in the works.
Once the dates have been set, we have to allocate dates and tutors to those dates. An imaginative way of describing this is as one of those Chinese three-dimensional puzzles. Once you have sorted one end you find the other end has got stuck, and you must untangle the middle before you can proceed with the first bit. Then it all comes undone.
We sellotape flip chart paper together and draw six columns along the top representing the years, and a long line of dates down the left hand side to represent when these years will be taught. Each year has a small square of coloured card, and we write the subject and tutor initials on each card. The main problem is not allocating a tutor to teach two year groups on the same day. We always manage to do this at least once.
Several times we have got to the end of a tricky bit and think we have sorted out a problem, then turn around and find we have overlooked some little bits of card that were hiding under a sheet of paper.
In Universities I believe there is a special department that deals with this. However, we are a very small school, and there are only three of us who work on this problem and it takes us ages. I suppose I ought to be grateful as until recently there were just two of us doing it, so we have had an increase in man power at least.
What we dream about is a computer program that would take all our modules, and tutors and dates and organise them, so we would then just have to press a button and a print out would emerge that would be organisationally perfect.
If anybody knows of such a programme, app or tool please let us know before next academic year.
