Week 13

Between senioritis and the approaching Easter break, this week was a challenge in a few ways, but it was also a lot of fun in other ways.  Being that my co-op went to the national NBEA conference in Chicago, I covered all classes from Tuesday through Thursday.  The combination of my co-op being gone, with the other factors mentioned above, caused the students to be rather excitable, or else the other extreme; entirely non-energetic and unmotivated. In the following situations I have found both what I learned the most from, and what I would change if I had it to do over again.

In addition to the factors of Easter break approaching and senioritis setting in, I occasionally get hyper.  On Wednesday I was hyper about 90% of the time from about 6:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M.; don't ask me why, I don't know.  This was a learning point for me this week.  At the start of my first personal finance class I was acting rather energetic and the students could tell.  When one of them asked me what I was so happy about, I said "I don't know, I'm just hyper." That's all it took for the whole class to follow suit.  This being the case, one of the things I would do differently this week would be to not so blatantly let on when I am feeling overly energetic.  Although I could contain myself, and it was working to my advantage as far as keeping the attention of my class, making the material interesting, and having fun, the students were not as apt at keeping their energy under control.

Another learning point came on Thursday with my advanced applications class.  I am still getting the knack for teaching through "guided practice" and this is proving to be challenging with a diverse class.  Some students don't pay attention, then panic when they realize they are behind, some students know the material very well, and work ahead, and others are somewhere in between.  Keeping everyone on the same page is a challenge, especially when working with programs like Dreamweaver and Fireworks.  If I could do this over again, I would pace myself a little more, spend more time on each individual step, and tolerate less talking and interruption from the students. Being that this class is already one that is wound up the majority of the time, it was difficult to feel like I had a successful lesson with all of the nonsense going on,  (not to mention the fact that it was the last day before Easter break, and these students could hardly sit still for 5 minutes).

All in all, another good week, and with what I learned from the above situations, I feel more prepared to improve the next time around. Hope everyone else is doing well, and remember (drum roll please,) 55 days down, 11 to go!