AuburnChick's Adventures

So, I’ve gotten down to the teens, eh?  It’s really hard to believe that I am a little more than halfway done with my first term of my certification classes.

Week 5 of Term 1 was deliciously pleasant.

Why?

Well, you see, two of my classes did not have any artifacts (assignments) due!  I only had to take quizzes in those classes.  In my Teaching Profession class, I still had regular work, so I did it…

While watching a local high school soccer game…

Regional Finals…

My friend, Barb’s, son is on the team, and she’s been so wonderful to me that I wanted to support her…

I only managed to read two pages during the game.  The upside was that I only had 38 left to read when I got home.

Silver linings, people!  That’s what keeps me going!

The most significant thing about last week was that I used my “free” time to get ahead on assignments for the next couple of weeks.

One, in particular, was a BEAST of a project.

I had to take all sixteen learning outcomes I had developed in Week Two and create a formative assessment/instructional strategies day-by-day plan.

Oh yeah.

Not easy.

It was so bad that the instructor had warned us to send all of our family away for a day or two — for however long would take us to complete it.

Rooster took the advice to heart and left Dodge to sleep over at a friend’s house.

Although he is a quiet child, the house was almost dead-still without his Xbox mania going on in the other room.

I had already decided that I would complete the BEAST over the weekend, even though it wasn’t due until the following Friday (this coming up Friday, by the way).

On Saturday, I set up shop…

I planted myself on the couch and, with few exceptions, stayed there until that evening.

All total, I spent about nine hours working on the BEAST.

It was a relief to finish and upload the project to my online class site.

Of course, I am awaiting feedback from the instructor, so chances are good that I will have to tweak the chart.  However, I learned a very important lesson last week.

Make a game plan and stick with it.

I could have easily taken part of the week off…given myself time to relax.

I didn’t.

Good students don’t do that sort of thing.

They have vision and wisdom to recognize gifts of time as opportunities to work ahead.  You never know when something unexpected might happen.

Besides that, Week 8 is the week when there will be no assignments due, with the exception of making electronic portfolios (CDs) for all of the classes and getting them turned in.

THAT is the week I will relax…maybe knit.

But, until then, I have more work to do.

I have another BEAST of a project due next week.

I think I’ll take the lessons I just learned to heart and get busy.

Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: certification classes, EPI classes, teaching |