Break Week

Thank goodness for Break week. I spent the majority of break week trying to play catch up from being sick and from the fast pace of the semester. I definitely did work, but did not check off nearly as many items off my checklist as I had hoped. Part of what I am playing catch up on in my Portfolio. As I had mentioned earlier in the year, as part of the Seminar class we are taking this term, we are creating a portfolio that we will bring with us on our job interviews. This includes our teaching philisophy, our community contributions, exemplarary lesson plans, a test we have given that we spend time reviewing and assessing, our resume and many other items. I actually was introduced to two MAT Alumni yesterday, one who teaches in NJ and the other in East Greenbush, who both said though the portfolio takes some time to do, it is worth it and they both used it in their interviews. They said it was great to be talking about something that you did and be able to pull out your portfolio and refer to it, it really provided the supporting evidence. It was nice to hear this from alumni. Though we have been told this often by our professors here at UGC, it is also nice to have them reinforced by those that are going through what we are. I am also the type of person that as long as I know all of the hard work will pay off, I am okay with chuggin along and making sure it represents me to the best of my ability.
  Let's see, today was my first day back to my internship. I think both myself and my students were not quite ready to be back. Returning after break is always the hardest, but I did my best to help them get back into the swing of things. Today was the first day of a busy week. I am having my supervisor observe me this week and we are also doing our three way meeting. This is when myself, my mentor and supervisor get together to discuss my progress this term, determine where my strengths and weaknesses are, what I want to accomplish from here forward and then discuss what I think my grade should be.... though I don't get my grade until grades come out. So hopefully all of that will go well and I will continue to do well with the program. This week we also start the fetal pig dissection. I am overall looking forward to this, though the smell I may be able to do without. Some of my students are really excited to be able to do the dissection, while I have few that are more skeptical. I had one student say "well then I am not coming." It should certainly be an interesting couple of weeks. I think I am going to go out and stock up on my antibacterial hand gel and some hand lotion.
  The end of the winter term is rapidly coming to an end which I am glad for, except for the MAT that means my MAT project is due. I have a lot more to do before I reach that point, but I guess something to look forward to. Once March 15th hits my MAT project will be complete and I will be looking ahead to my last officia term of Grad. School, which is exciting and scary all at once. I am glad that all of the hard graduate work will be complete, but then will be the task of finding a job. I had a Mock Interview at the Career Center at Union last week. I am really grateful I took advantage of this opportunity. They provided me valuable insight on how I can better sell myself, by really just making sure to highlight the important things I have to offer. He suggested if I had a hard time highlighting my strengths or how I would describe myself, to ask those that work with me, such as my supervisor, my mentor, my previous boss and those that work with me. They will be able to provide be some insight about me and my work ethic that I might not recognize, which I think is a great point. I was also provided some guidelines on my resume and other pointers that might better convey who I am and what I have to offer, so overall great experience.
  Okay that is it for now. I will keep you posted.

Any comments, questions, concerns, please let me know!

Parent Conferences and Week before break

  Hi All, hope everyone is staying warm on these blustery cold days. Last week as I had mentioned, parent-teacher conferences were held Thursday evening and Friday afternoon. Overall I was fairly pleased with the turn-out. I would have liked to see a few more parents, I had three Thursday and one Friday, but I will take what I can and do what I can to help the students. My mentor was able to see a lot of his parents families, so he was really excited to have that opportunity. It is just a great opportunity to check in with the family, update them on their students progress, what they might be able to work on and also sometimes find out a little more information we might not know. These meetings can often be quite enlightening, especially when the student attends with the parent/guardian and you are able to see their interactions as well. The families I was able to meet with, I had some really productive conversations and was quite pleased with the discussions. It is very interesting to hear about my students from the parent perspective, gives me a little bit more of a fuller picture as to who they are and what they are about through the parents eyes. This weekend I spent trying to catch up on work and I was able to attend a Siena basketball game vs. Iona. The Saints had another large win and are continuing on their very successful season. It was a nice way to unwind from the week and gear up for getting work done.
  This week is going to be a crazy one, as is every week before a break is. I was surprised at how energetic and not focused my students were today, I can only imagine how it will progress through the week. A lot of today's work called on previous knowledge, so I was extremely pleased when the students remembered that previous information rather quickly. It made me feel better to know that they are paying attention and are actually retaining the information. Some of the students asked really great questions about the excretory system. I was glad that I had anticipated some of their responses ahead of time, so I was better able to answer their questions. I must admit I am just as excited as they are, that next week is break. I have a lot of work to catch up on and I wouldn't mind a little extra sleep as well.
  Well that is it for now. I will try and check back in later in the week.

Third Quarter has officially begun

It is hard to believe that the 2nd quarter has come to a close and we have already begun the 3rd quarter. Today I made a new seating chart and switched up everyone's seats and oh the moans. Making a seating chart that is condusive for all is next to impossible. Trying to separate chatty students, put students closer to the front that need to be closer for vision or attention purposes and trying to keep in mind where they might want to sit is a complicated task. I do my best to place the students where I think they will do best, unfortunately does not make them happy with me in the least bit. The amount of groans and disgruntled students on seat moving day is the highest usually for the term. It is always interesting to see how the dynamics change and students that you didn't think would chat would or students who normally don't volunteer seem to want to participate. I was out again yesterday do to illness so some of my students were glad to see me return, which is always a comforting feeling. This week is an odd week. Wednesday is a half day for Professional Development and Thursday and Friday we move into parent teacher conferences again. Thursday evening is parent teacher conferences as is Friday afternoon, so Friday is yet another half day for the students. Therefore this may be yet another one of those weeks where the student focus is lacking a bit and will be hard to keep them all on task. They thought I was mean for giving them a quiz on Friday, but it shouldn't take too long. I was going to give it on Thursday, but after realizing that Wednesday is a half day, I didn't feel we would have quite enough time to review for the quiz and I wanted to make sure they were amply prepared. We are currently covering the Human Respiratory System, which they seem to understand and actually seem to enjoy (though they would not admit it). I am hoping that they all do well on their first quiz of the quarter to start off the term on a good note. So hopefully parent teacher conferences go well Thursday and Friday and that I get to see quite a bit of my students families and maybe even some of the students. I will try to post another blog after the conferences are over and let you know how it went.

Have a great week!