I'm Thinking About the Final Already

I know that my students don't plan that far in advance, but finals start in about a month.

For the giant calculus class I'm starting to write multiple choice questions. For a class like that, really the only issues for me to consider about the final are how to avoid cheating (change the order of the MC questions and the numbers in the long-answer), how to make that many copies before the copier breaks, and how to get it graded efficiently.

It's my small classes that have more interesting questions about finals. The university and the department have all sorts of rules about final exams and the use of the final exam period. I know that they're not serious about all of them, as the online grade submission system will accept grades on the last day of classes. If all the rules were enforced, you couldn't know grades on the last day of classes. I'm giving exams because that's what's done in the math department, and I don't want to rock the boat. But I imagine other possibilities that might be within the letter of the law. Like a final exam that is worth 0.01% of the grade.

My plan for this week is to finish creating all the documents that I need to for the rest of the semester. The last homework assignment sheets. The last midterm. The review sheets. The final. Once I do that, I can relax and just show up and teach.