The Six Point Worry Plan

Last week in class we worked on our six point lesson plan and were trying to hammer out the details. Which I’m glad we spent time on because I have a hard time putting pen to paper when it comes to planning. I know what I want to do for the lesson but the way we’re supposed to turn in our plan, with the word for word what we’re going to say, that I have difficulty with. The other part is the presentation, it’s not so much getting up in front of people and teaching I have a problem with it’s the limitations of the presentation. I’m not sure how to explain it but I can give an example I know the people teaching music will understand:

Having to teach a lesson on how to play an instrument or understand the gestures (not sure what it’s called but this is what I’ll call it for now) the composers makes. But most people in the class don’t play an instrument and are not musically inclined, like myself. The lesson is also in mid-stream so the “teacher” has to pretend that the “class” has already gone over the info and would understand when in reality we have no clue what is being taught.

            The teacher learns so much about each student and how they learn, their reading comprehension, and strengths and weaknesses, etc. But in this we are attempting to create an artificial class with no history and teaching a lesson that would be in mid-stream.

            The other experience has its own problems, by other I mean planning three lessons that we will be teaching to actual students. The problem here is the limit again of not knowing the students and missing the crucial information. The second is that our presentation of the lesson is limited to something more along the lines of a lecture or the teaching format of the actual teacher. I prefer the flipped classroom to teach but most teachers don’t use this and because of the technology limitations in the class this teaching style cannot be used.

            It is all of this that has me worried and I know I have a knack for being negative or being able to find the bad in everything I just hope I’m over reacting to all of this. I’ll find out after my first presentation so time will tell.

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee!!!

Well… his week has been an interesting one. Recently I’ve come to realize that I really need to work on my attention to detail and keeping on top of class work. I had failed to keep up with my professors’ schedules and didn’t see the due dates for papers and projects were coming up. Because of this I’ve spent the last five or six days running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to finish them. I’ve been downing six or so cups of coffee and it’s now starting to catch up with me and now I’m having a harder time sleeping. Just great. Despite my best efforts in keeping a schedule so I won’t end up in this kind of situation I’m still having problems. Almost every semester that passes it becomes ever more apparent of my short comings in this area. It worries me sometimes how forgetful I am and puts me in a tight situation. I’m not worried because of the problems I’m facing now but because of the implications it will have in my career if I don’t nip it in the bud. When you’re a teacher staying on top of things and getting things done on time can mean the difference between having a job and losing it.

 

While I am glad that this new project we’re working on, Best Practices Handbook, is in groups I can’t help but harbor some negative feelings toward it. Not the project specifically but group projects as a teaching method used in classes. I’ve talked about the benefits of teamwork/group projects before but I do believe that in some ways it hinders the learning for some students. In my experience, since middle school, team/group projects have provided a way out for some students to sit back and watch everyone else in the group do the work (or in some cases the one carries the four). In the ideal group, it exposes the members to other points of view and different ways to solves problems or create a desired product compared to individual projects. I’ve seen that work before and it’s great when that happens but realistically some members will refuse to work yet take credit for others solution or product. After looking at my team members I don’t worry about this kind of thing happening like it did last semester. It will be interesting to work with them since their areas of study are so vastly different than mine.