Never a dull moment

Four weeks in and once again something new and exciting/terrifying was tossed our way in our scientific methods course. 

Mother nature was in full force Tuesday pushing schools all over Orange County to close down for the day including Bishop Dunn Memorial school where our class was suppose to take place.  Not wanting to miss class time we were scheduled to meet in an online chat group.  I'm not the most tech savvy person as everyone knows, so this frightened me a bit.  However I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this thing was to get in and work around.  

Once you got through the awkwardness of talking on a mic in front of everyone, or the silliness of the good doctor's grandson it was actually a very informative lesson, and I happen to learn quite a bit.  I think it was also good for each group to have the lesson plan format reinforced, clearly outlining what needs to be done and how exactly it should be taken care of.  It also didn't hurt that I saved myself 30 minute car ride and we got out of class by 6.  

Well, it's done....

Three weeks of class have already come and gone.  Crazy to think that 20% of the class is already done.  This week brought on a new challenge in the sense of teaching a group of students in a scientific after school program.

I, or I should say my group, was very nervous as none of us had ever done anything like this before and to add to that, we had to go first in our class.  Despite all of this though I feel like my group did an amazing job and most importantly the kids seemed to have an awesome time doing all the different stations we had planned out for them. I give those kids a bunch of credit because they hung with us during our direct lesson, which I think ended up running longer than we thought, after they have already gone through a whole day of school.

They however left with a bunch of stuff I'm sure will drive their parents nuts, and in the end you know you've made something good for a child when the parents wants to throw it away as much as possible.

By the way congrats to Albert Einstein on his gravitational waves theory that came to fruition this past Thursday.  The man predicted this would happen over 100 years ago.  Props.

Week 2 and the Journey Continues...

After finally calming my stress levels from the overwhelming first week, I trekked back to Mount Saint Mary for the second class.  My stress levels began to rise as we were to meet in a location I had never been before and I usually end up getting out of work late to barely make it to class on time as it is.  Thankfully all of my classmates are wonderful and helped me find the location easily.

We met a character this week, and I think I am using the word character properly here in Mrs. Foster-Faith, the cooperating teacher from Bishop Dunn Memorial School.  A very passionate woman, who clearly loves her job and is also willing to help out the fieldwork groups whenever they need it.  My group has seen this first hand this past week as we have been in constant contact with her and she is pretty good about getting back to you in the same day.  Also, while she wont hold your hand on the project she will lead you down the path that your group should probably go down.

Speaking of being lead down a correct path, I want to personally thank Dr. S for teaching me how to use google docs, google drive and pretty much google in general this past class.  It was the hands on tutorial I needed and I want to thank all my class mates for being patient with me this past week.