Now is NOT the time to Procrastinate...

As I type, it is currently 11:25 pm and I have literally just turned in my interview write-ups. "/

Here's the story behind that:

I literally sent those interview questions out in early March. It is never my goal to procrastinate, btw. So I sent them out in early March- with the due date and all attached. I received the first interview response like 2 weeks ago and the entire time I told myself to go ahead and complete the write-up. Did I listen to myself? Of course, I didn't; nobody listens to me! However, to be fair, I had a ton of work to do and I kept thinking to myself that it could wait. Well long story short, I guess I waited too long. Also, with Easter break being last week, I really didn't want to do anything and I kept saying it could wait. Well, again, I don't ever listen to myself because I definitely remember telling myself to work on it over break (and I even got like half of a paragraph done that I eventually erased later on, but that's beside the point).

Guys, I encourage you to NOT be like me, and actually get your work done in a timely and fashionable manner so you're not having low-key panic attacks in your dorm room at 11:30 trying to calm yourself by quoting scriptures and listening to Gospel music as you frantically try to type a blog and get it turned in by 11:59. That is not demonstrating NCTCS 4a. I can't demonstrate this with my students if I can't demonstrate it with myself.

That is all.

Goodnight.

iTeach

Today in class we started teaching our lesson plans. I realized as I presented mine, just how well it sounded on paper versus how well it sounded when I taught it. I almost felt bad about mine, because I felt like I forgot everything as soon as I began, but then I remembered that we were only allotted 20 minutes, so I decided against beating myself up. Before, I couldn't see the point of presenting our lessons in class besides to make a fool out of ourselves, but now I'm starting to become grateful for these moments. It gives us a chance to practice and practice and practice before we are thrown out into the real world. I have to teach the introduction to a lesson tomorrow to high school ELL's and I'm pretty nervous, but I can say that I'm becoming more confident in my abilities after doing mini lessons in most of my EDUC classes. It's a great method that allows teacher candidates to practice NCTCS #5: reflect on your practice. Doing these mini lessons allow me to sit back and say, "okay, I probably should change/tweak this; maybe I could change this and do it this way instead" and also it shows me where my strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to talking in front of a class.

And, We're Back!

Today in class, we made info-graphics, which are really cool btw, and I enjoyed it. It was really refreshing to have a class where we just reflected, and we didn't have to learn anything new. I think that if I put anymore into my brain, it might just explode. But oh well. 

I've never had a class, where we stopped in the middle of the semester to self-evaluate where we are personally. If I did, I either don't remember or I didn't take it seriously. I like how Dr. Clark substituted the info-graphic for a standard pencil and paper write-up. It made the project more interesting and I was more willing to take it seriously! I don't mean to sound harsh when saying that, but with a boat-load of work to do, I'm at a place where anything that's not meaningful or important, probably won't get done. 

The info-graphic is centered around NCTCS #5 as a whole: teachers reflect on their practice. The cool thing about this is that while we're reflecting on our progress and linking it to how it can help us with future teaching, Dr. Clark can also use our information to reflect on herself and her class. She can use our reflections to determine what she needs to go back over, what she needs to focus on in the near future, is her pacing accurate to continue throughout the semester, etc. It's amazing how much you can get out of one simple assignment!

In Desperate Need of an Actual Spring Break

I am swamped with work and all I want to do is run away from it all. I cannot express how relieved I am that the lesson plan got pushed back again! I have so much to do this week alone that it's already spilling over into Spring Break :(. Who wants to do work over spring break? Not I.

Needless to say based off of today's reaction that I didn't watch the Teachscape videos. It's not so much that I forgot to, as much as it was that I pushed them off because of other things that were due. There just wasn't enough time last week. I had huge midterm projects and 1 huge midterm that just about made me cry. I don't see how people stay up studying all night, because I tried it Friday and Saturday and let's just say that I am not about that life.

Anyway, I'm planning to watch the videos today because I don't like being behind at all and I wasn't very happy with myself today. Unfortunately, it's safe to say that I did not meet standard 3 since I didn't know what cooperative learning was in order to teach it. The only thing to do now is to move forward and not let it happen again.