Ah! The (working) weekend

Reflections on the last two classes, written on Saturday morning.

Thursday's class was disappointing for me - mainly because we didn't accomplish what I had wanted to -- I scheduled the computer lab, and everyone had a chance to "drive" Blackboard, or at least parts of it. But because of difficulties with the chat [and because I didn't just give up on it when I should have and move on] we wasted a bit of time. Now, I discover - two days later - that we were the class to uncover the fact that due to the new updated to Blackboard, the Chat was actually not working at all. Great. I just love being on the cutting edge of technology - not. In any case, I got a message this morning that it is fixed. Haven't tried it with my dialup connection yet, but I will. Seems like we have a lot of loose ends [criteria for the YALIT assignment, learning how to use the chat tool, modules for the rest of the semester] to tie up. Makes me tired just to think about all of this.

Friday, I was pleased with being able to get a bit ahead of my plans - I actually had time to teach a sample lesson and unpack the experience. I'm hoping that by doing this a couple of more times, I can frame the remainder of the semester for this class. The theory activities were OK, but felt sort of flat to me - maybe it was because it was Friday afternoon and nobody really wanted to be in the classroom. Since I think the theory part didn't quite connectwith them, I'll have to make a focused effort to make the connections between the theories and the lessons I'm going to teach. In fact, I'll need to carefully select those lessons so that I can show connections to all four of the theories as well as have students experience specific strategies I want them to be able to use when they begin their Internship. I'm hoping I can drive home the connection between theory and practice in the next couple of classes. If I don't feel like I've accomplished that task, I'll be sure to build in some activities in the modules that will help to make that connection.

I really hate to think about not seeing these students again after next Wednesday. Oh, that's another thing we need to establish - a schedule of face to face meetings after they go out into their Internship. Oh well, looks like a full, working weekend from here!