New Year, New Semester

We are half way through the "Bookend" series of classes for this MAT cohort - and I've got the feeling that I really have thrown too much at them thus far. They were practically catatonic at the end of class on Friday.

Nonetheless, I feel really lucky so far this semester. A number of things have clicked into place through little or no effort on my part. One example is the Biopoem. I assigned the Biopoem last week and had it due on Friday. As I was planning Friday's class on assessment I realized it would be good to use it in class. [planned the class AFTER I had given the assignment -- not exactly the way things should be done, but after teaching 100 years I can sometimes get away with it] I originally had the Biopoem exercise as the opening activity -- then as I worked my way through the assessment information putting the power point together, I realized it would be perfect to hold off on that exercise and do it when I was giving ideas for getting to know students. Amazing -- an assignment I had given earlier just happened to fall due at exactly the right day. I hope this isn't the end of the serendipitous happenings -- I can use all the help I can get this semester, even if it comes from dumb luck.

I'm thinking now that I'll take a whole class to finish up assessment - and still haven't focused on planning, which absolutely must come before they go into student teaching. Long and short of it is that I may need to wait on vocabulary until after they go out into the field. We'll see just far I get on Monday; that will determine whether I change plans or not. They will be ready to kill me if I do change plans and they've already read the article I assigned . . . Oh well, if they can't be flexible they surely don't need to be in education.