Finale

Well it's been a journey. It was a stressful one. Not because of the fieldwork. In fact that was quite easy and really should be the entire basis of this class. No, it was everything else. But here I am, having aged five years in one but I am complete.


I learned a lot from this class. I should mention right now when I say class I mean fieldwork, as I learned nothing but the true meaning of pain from everything else. I learned classroom management and how to improvise. The mock congress turned out wonderfully and I can not wait to use it again. Even the ice breaker went well.

I think that having such a great group of student certainly helped. It's important to temper one's successes with the knowledge they are very rarely yours alone. On that note I would like to especially thank my partner, Mr. Awe, for his hard work and dedication.

It's been a hard road, but finally I have finished my methods classes. Once the ePortolio is done, then I can finally rest. It feels like I haven't sleept for five years. This must be what George Washington felt like after he finished his public career.

Artifact Bag

Today I shared my artifact bag. I had three items in a bag. They were a pen, a tricorn hat, and a copy of the United States constitution. The "students" (read: My classmates) had to guess what the topic we were covering was based on the artifacts. I found the whole exercise to be lacking, personally. I don't know, maybe I just didn't do it well, but it felt pointless. I think there are better and more engaging ways to introduce a topic.

Mock Interveiws

Today I participated in mock interviews where three of my peers played the part of  principals looking for perspective teachers. Each principal represented a type of lesson; one was direct instruction, one inquiry base learning, and one cooperative learning.

I started with the cooperative learning principal. It was a nice warm up. I did very well in the interview. Then I met with the direct lesson principal. This also seemed to go well. Finally I met with inquiry learning principal. This was the one I was most nervous about, but I think I did well. The answers just came tumbling out of me.

Finally, after much debate, the principals announced their picks. I was picked by the cooperative learning principal to be the new I.T. person at their school. Later I learned form a friend I was among the top three candidates for all of them. Overall it was an enjoyable experience.

Inaccurate Headlines

Read the headline of this article.

Now, you probably thought this was a case about whether a girl could use her assistant dog in school or not. To those of you with even a passing knowledge of disability law in the United States, that may strike you as odd. The reason for that is, this was not a case over whether the girl could use her dog, but whether her family could sue a school for not letting her use it. The headline is written in a way, however, that makes the case seem bigger, and more inflammatory.

The best headline is, in fact, the one at the lowest lexile level. It reads, "Fluffy white dog waiting outside court is the topic of conversation inside". Even that is a poor headline as it is too vague. It created a lot of confusion when I presented it to the class. I bring this up because that is exactly what happened when I used it for a current event lesson in class.