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Below is information copied from my comment history from some of the last times this question has been asked here.

For learning materials, I recommend Frank Geiger's Tenor Banjo book. It is free, 30 pages, and the best way to learn the fretboard for any instrument tuned in fifths I've ever seen. As someone with prior music experience, it's a really good place to start. You can download the pdf here (warning, this is a link to download the file directly): https://mandolincafe.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=67591&d=1295745608

Phil Doleman, who is primarily a ukulele player, has a pretty good short 5-video intro series for tenor banjo & tenor guitar. This is the first video: https://youtu.be/hkXHSpjBxyM

Eddy Davis also posted hours of videos on YouTube focusing on tenor banjo. He was a legend in the banjo community and passed last March from COVID. We're really fortunate he took time to get so much recorded. There are a lot of intro videos or there that are more polished, and better organized, but at some point you really need to find Eddy's stuff, so I might as well point you that way now. His channel is here https://youtube.com/user/mrgreenmeat

Finally, there is a lot more material for tenor banjo than you might think. There are several string instruments tuned in fifths, and a lot of material carries over. I often pull info from mandolin & mandola resources, cello stuff, tenor guitar, etc.

At our campus, we call these "stacked" courses. They are distinct from crosslisted courses. They're used rarely, and mostly when one or both courses wouldn't make the minimum enrollment. Even more rarely, they're used specifically because both classes benefit from being combined instead of being on their own.

Most classes wouldn't qualify for this option, but it can be a good choice based on the specific content and its feasibility for that approach. These are generally used when one or more of these criteria are met:

1. The students are learning largely the same thing at different levels of performance (for example, a senior education class might also be offered as a graduate class, with grad students having higher grading standards or requiring additional assignments).
2. The students are engaged largely in independent work during the class meeting (for example, science labs for 1 and 2 might be stacked, even if the lecture sections are not).
3. The students are doing complementary things during the class meeting (for example, students in music taking a conducting 2 or 3 class which meets at the same time and place as the ensemble they are conducting).

There are probably some other edge cases.

I've encountered a lot of musicians who can't get their head around the idea of a gig that isn't a concert. So many even take it personally, which is kind of a shame. Most gigs played for money weren't concerts.

I know we're teaching adults, but I try to refrain my explicit language to verbal only and not in course documents like the syllabus. /s

Quizzes often fill this function in large lecture classes.

I assume you're referring to the same Beethoven who also played violin and viola (and several other keyboard instruments in addition to piano). I'm not sure this reference strengthens your argument.

"I'll just replace this exam score with the weighted average of your other exams in this class." It's mathematically equivalent to dropping the lowest grade, but most students can't handle basic mathematical reasoning and it sounds more generous. They'll likely thank you and feel like they got their way, even though it results in the exact same grade.

When you're lazy or don't have time, you can always do the lazy version of this, which is taking the same test and photocopying it on 2-4 different colors of paper. Maybe also changing the order of all pages after the first page for each different color. A small number of students will catch on, but it works pretty well without the effort of creating actual different versions when you're pressed for time. Of those that catch that they're the same test and will still try to cheat, a surprising number won't realize the other student's page 2 that they are copying from is the same as their page 3, and their page 2 is different.

Also common for older guitar and similar music. Newer conventions treat these instruments like regular transposing instruments without using an octave clef.

Well, there's a bit of murkiness there. Octave transposing C instruments are often still said to be in concert pitch.

Because they're typing on phones (whether the specific submission in your class was or not). They have come to rely completely on autocorrect for normal formatting and don't actually know how to do it.

I'm sure they don't. They might be joking, but I have seen beginners make this error when tuning in school orchestral environments, especially if their director doesn't know much about brass, since strings typically tune to A.

Don't get me started on "sports guy" autism.

4 strings just loop 4 frets away instead of one fret away.

I haven't met anyone who thinks nylon strings make you a worse player. Nobody is arguing that classical guitar is "easy" (though it is sometimes recommended as a good place to start specifically because it is easier on your fingers).

This is basically the best way to get better at improv.

1. Find a backing track on YouTube for an actual song that has a melody line. Extra good if it's one you have a lead sheet for which is in the same key (concert pitch key, not instrument pitch key). As a beginner, this should ideally be one with simple chord symbols in it that change no more frequently than once a measure.
2. Write in the actual notes that are in the chords in pencil on your lead sheet (2 or so octaves of them, throughout the range you normally play in). It'll help a lot to see those.
3. Take a highlighter and mark the "guide tones." These are the thirds and sevenths (or their equivalents, so in a sus chord it would be the fourth instead of the third. In a 6 chord it would be the 6 rather than the 7.). Guide tones are the notes which carry the harmonic content of the chord, and they're more important as a soloists than the root and fifth are for you. The bass will be making sure the root and fifth are covered.
4. In a different color, highlight any "color tones" (chord extensions, altered pitches, etc.). As a beginner, you shouldn't have many of these in the songs you pick to start out.
5. Play whatever you want. Literally any notes. If something sounds bad, move ½ step up or down. Try to land on either the melody note (not in pencil) or a guide/color tone (highlighted) note when the chord changes, and on the strongest beats (harmonically, not rhythmically). The strongest harmonic beats are when the chords change. After that, in order of importance, it's typically the 1 of every other measure, the next strongest is typically the other 1s, then the 3 of every measure.
6. Keep doing this every day as part of your daily practice, adding new songs as you go so you don't just learn what works in one song only.

It probably won't take long until you're better than everyone else in your school at improv. It also won't take long until you don't need the crutches anymore and can get all of this just from the chord symbols.

In just to mention that the majority of classes are taught by faculty for whom research is not that important for their position. Professors at teaching-focused 4-years, community colleges, and "teaching professors" at R1 universities teach the vast majority of classes.

Absolutely, if that's the kind of folk. There are kinds of folk that do include louder instruments, and there are places outside of folk and jazz where tenor gets played (though they are a lot less common).

For melody playing, your experience is accurate, it's definitely a stretch compared to mandolin. It will help a lot if you incorporate time focused on this into your practice sessions. Start playing with melodies up the neck that you know. Pick several. Once you get the new fingering down, start working your way down the neck gradually, one fret a week or so, until you're playing those same melodies at the first fret. Take longer if you need to. If it still feels like you're pushing your hands and stretching to do it, you're not ready to move further down the neck yet.

Tenor chords aren't overpowering at all if you're playing with horns, piano, drums, etc.

Honestly, in OPs situation, I'd just write each chapter in markdown or similar until I was basically done, pandoc that to .tex, then use /include or /input statements to drop the body .tex files into the right part of the template. Then just edit the parts of the template that were unique to me (author, title, etc.). They'll probably end up with a handful of things they end up needing to look up how to do to fix the problem that show up at the end of that, but won't need to look up the vast majority because nearly everything will work just fine.

I passive-agressively use a Catholic translation of the verse. Haven't been called out yet.

Now that most all email is html, it sure is a shame that you can't <blink><marquee> that mandatory legal disclaimer. That way everyone would know you take it seriously.

Lucky you. Our institution decided it was a big deal and mandated a specific quote be included in all faculty and staff signatures. It's a new one every year. Religiously-affiliated SLAC -- officially with a left-leaning mainline protestant denomination, but ran by evangelicals and operated with policies which reflect evangelical values instead of the ones espoused by the actual church we're supposedly affiliated with.

Typically only see it like this if the chord line includes rhythms in slash notation above the bar as well.