Preparing Lessons and Finding Materials: I Turned “Re-finding Everything Every Year” into a Permanent Resource Folder
I have taught the same professional course for three years, and during the two weeks before class every year, I did the same thing: find cases again, find literature again, and remake slides again.
Only in the third year did I realize that most of what I had found in the previous two years was still there—I just did not know where.
Over these three years, I gradually changed lesson preparation into “build once, only add new material each year,” relying on four actions, all using MuchSci.
Step 1: Fix one entry point for searching and do not change keywords
In the past, my lesson preparation was “search for whatever comes to mind,” and the results were scattered everywhere.
Now, before class starts, I do only one systematic search: in MuchSci’s paper search assistant, I filter by course topic plus “last two years,” look at titles and abstracts first, and keep the ones that can serve as cases.
MuchSci’s library contains 180 million Crossref papers, searchable by title, author, and DOI, and sortable by year and citation count. This is the most useful part for me: I want “recent two years, reasonably cited,” not “the most classic.”
After one search in MuchSci, I usually keep five to eight papers, enough for one course.
Step 2: One “Course Materials Folder,” with directories by lecture
I put all the cases I keep into MuchSci’s file asset library, one directory per lecture:
· Lecture 3_Materials Characterization
· Lecture 5_Failure Analysis
· Lecture 8_Process Parameters
MuchSci’s file asset library supports previewing, renaming, and organizing by directory. When the teaching assistant needs them, I send a share link instead of packing everything into an email.
When the second year of teaching starts, I open this course’s directory in MuchSci and first see what is still usable—what this step saves is the psychological cost of “starting from zero.”
Step 3: Turn “cases I have taught” into searchable notes
Forgetting a case after using it once was an old problem of mine. I would find the same case again in the third year.
Now, after each lecture, I write three lines in MuchSci’s personal knowledge base: what this case covered, where students got stuck, and whether to change it next time.
MuchSci’s personal knowledge base is officially described as “let existing knowledge support new research.” My use is very plain: before class, I ask, “Have I used this case before, and how did it work?” The answer is right there.
Here, MuchSci is not a search tool; it is my lesson-preparation ledger.
Step 4: Let it build the lecture skeleton, and fill in examples myself
Once the materials are ready, I write a paragraph—“this lecture covers three points, which case goes with each point, and where students are likely to make mistakes”—and give it to MuchSci’s Chat + Agent, asking it to produce a first draft of the lecture skeleton.
For the skeleton MuchSci returns, I usually revise three places: delete examples unsuitable for our major’s background, adjust the order to “phenomenon first, principle second,” and add one quick in-class question.
With the skeleton in place, I fill in the content. MuchSci provides the structure; the professional judgment is still mine.
Two weeks become two days
Now my course preparation looks like this: half a day searching, half a day organizing directories, half a day writing notes, and half a day producing the skeleton.
I use the time saved to think about “where students will get stuck in this lecture”—this is more worthwhile than the time I used to spend finding materials.
MuchSci appears four times in this workflow, each handling one thing: find (search), store (file asset library), record (personal knowledge base), and build (Chat + Agent). Once these four are connected, lesson preparation changes from “redo every year” to “add one layer every year.”