If you've ever caught yourself grading discussion posts while only half-reading them, you're not a bad teacher. You're likely a busy one and feeling a little trapped working within a format that is often built for compliance instead of thinking. The good news is that discussion boards can actually do what they're supposed to do without eating your grading time or turning into a box-checking exercise for anyone involved.

As fall semester ramps up and planning for next year creeps onto the calendar, I want to talk about a skill that gets far less attention in faculty development than time management or productivity hacks: the skill of doing less, on purpose. At the very least, I hope this post provides a new point of view you may not have considered. Maybe it will give you some permission to explore the idea that doing less can still be enough.

A 2022 article published in Medical Education Online titled "When Students' Words Hurt: 12 Tips for Helping Faculty Receive and Respond Constructively to Student Evaluations of Teaching" by Cornes and colleagues offers evidence-based guidance for exactly this moment. I'm breaking down their key recommendations here through the lens of NP faculty life, because this research is too good not to keep sharing.