Happy New Year

  Happy New Year All! Hope everyone is off to a great start for this new year! So far mine has been jam packed and started off as a sprint. Let's see. Since I last posted, I started and completed my Middle School Experience. As part of the MAT Program, if you are placed in a high school for your internship, you have to complete 20 days in a Middle School and if you are placed in a Middle School, you must complete an alternate experience of 20 days in a high school. I had the opportunity as I mentioned before to work in a Physical Science class with 8th graders at Doyle Middle School for the end of November, month of December and beginning of January for 2 periods in the afternoon. This was definitely quite a change from my High School experience, it is amazing how much students can change in two years. I loved the cooperating teacher I worked with in the Middle School. He was great to observe and work with and had a great rapport with the students and provided me with a lot of information and insight. It took me a couple of weeks to get comfortable with the students and for them to get comfortable enough to work with me. The material being covered required some extra effort on my part as we covered acids and bases, organic chemistry and something I am definitely not familiar with, nuclear chemistry. It was a great experience and I am grateful at having had the opportunity.
  The winter term is now in full swing, this term I am taking three classes, two of which meet at night during the week. The third class, is the MAT Project, which is for this entire term. Each student who is working on the MAT Project is assigned to an advisor, that they work with throughout the brainstorming, research and implementation process. My advisor has been great so far. We even met on New Year's Eve day to discuss a possible topic, which I was grateful for, because I was having a hard time working out my topic. I am still working out where my project is leading. What I can tell you is I am going to start by analyzing student usage of a computers at home and hopefully end up creating a website/blog for my students, to provide additional information on units we are covering, provide opportunities for them to comment on posts that I write and also provide a location where students can communicate with other students, myself and parents. We only have 10 weeks to complete this project which consists of research, some implementation in our classroom and then analysis of what we have done and want to do in the future.
  The other two classes I am taking this term are Biological Instrumentation and a seminar course. The seminar course is focused on assessment, the meaning of testing and development of our portfolios for job interviews. So far this class has been a bit overwhelming, with a lot of work so far. The good thing is, is all of this work is to help us create the best portfolio possible to best represent ourselves in our (hopefully) many job interviews come this spring and summer. The Biological Instrumentation course is actually held at a local middle school and is being taught by two middle school teachers, one of which taught this summer during the summer program at Union. They are both great and I look forward to learning from them. This class is extremely class intensive with less outside class work, which is a welcomed relief. This class exposes us to the different types of technology we may encounter in our future jobs to show us how to maximize their capabilities and to enhance student learning.
  Just so you don't think we don't have any time for fun, last month I traveled to NYC to see my roommate from college and to see the tree at Rockefeller Center and have dinner at Serendipity, which was great! Also, another fun thing coming up, is the Graduate College is hosting a semi-formal for it's students to get together and celebrate. It is being held Friday at a local restaurant, so it should be a great time had by all. Not sure yet if I will be able to attend, but I know a lot of my fellow classmates are planning on attending and are very excited.
  That is it for now, but I promise to continue posting again and keep you updated on all of the happenings. If you have any comments, questions, concerns or something you want to know more about, please comment and I would be glad to help!

Below I am attaching a photo from the city.