Posted by
Waski_the_Squirrel on Friday, September 04, 2009 1:07:51 AM
I haven't blogged in a while. Frankly, I haven't had the time. I suppose I should apologize to both of my readers.
The explanation has been simple: school has eaten up my time. In a year when I was supposed to have more free time, I've really been busy. Here is a sample of what I'm doing.
ITV
Actually, this has been a disaster. ITV stands for "Interactive Television". I was asked to teach a dual-credit Calculus course over ITV during the "zero-hour". That meant getting up at 5:30 so that I could teach Calculus over the TV to other schools by 7:30. Trouble was, our school is undergoing some construction and the ITV room I was expected to use was gutted in the process.
One of the schools that was interested in my ITV Calculus called the Superintendent and Principal at home repeatedly to find a way to get the course. Finally, my school drilled some holes through walls, ran some cable, and managed to create a temporary ITV classroom in our board room. It was actually a terrible setting, but I worked hard to make it a real classroom.
We had huge technical difficulties. The system hung up on us, I installed gobs of new software so that my ITV student could see my notes (no one provided a document camera), and I worked hard on planning. After 3 days of class, I turned on the ITV system and the remote school wasn't there. The classroom was dark. I called up there and the principal informed me that the student had decided she was too overloaded and dropped the class.
Hello? How about calling me? How about talking to me that morning? Why not even a simple E-mail? Why did I have to make the call?
Anyway, I still have all of my local students. We're doing it in my own classroom, but I'm still angry about the whole ITV thing. It makes me really leery of doing another ITV class. I did a lot of work for this remote student. It was all for naught. Even now, writing this is making me angry again. Where is the courtesy? How about a phone call? My own students have been coming to school a week early because of this other school. It was for nothing.
As an addendum, my students elected to continue the zero-hour, except on Thursdays (one of them is in Jazz Band which meets before school on Thursday). I do like having all of my teaching done at 1:30 pm, even if I am getting up really early. I haven't gone home any earlier than last year, but I'm getting more done during my productive time.
Biology
I worked hard this summer to get all of my handouts for the year ready in one course. I wanted it to be Physics, but I wound up preparing Biology instead because it was easier. In fact, my mother helped me design the materials. (She probably doesn't realize her own contribution, but her artistic sensibility was a huge help for me.)
My major handouts, labs, and notes for the year are done in this course. It turns out to be a good thing. This is the first year I've ever had a para-educator in my classroom. Biology is split into a class of 24 and a class of 8. The class of 24 contains several special education students, some more "special" than others. The para-educator pays attention to the special education students, one in particular.
I'm actually extremely nervous about this. The woman is one of these "no-nonsense" types, and I'm not sure how well she is taking to my teaching style. For better or worse, I'm not your ordinary science (or math) teacher. I love my subject. Today, I got to talking about the lizards that run on water. It was reasonably on-topic (properties of water) but it was a digression. I always fear she is judging me.
Enrollment
The enrollment in my courses is up. Students who avoided me last year wised up and realized that they needed some challenging courses for college. Even so, my enrollments are smaller than they should be. My school is at that awkward size where it is too big to lay off teachers, but too small to support the teachers it has. The fear is in the back of my mind that my position may be eliminated. I don't coach and I'm not a teacher that students automatically love. I'm not popular and I probably never will be.
Lightning
Last year, I spent hours and hours and hours entering material into an online classroom. Right before school started, the server that hosted this classroom was hit by lighting. Fortunately, only 3% of users lost material. Unfortunately, I was in the lucky 3%. Every single bit of work I did was gone. This year, I had to start from scratch. I'm still not back on level.
Positives
I saved the good parts of my year for the end so that I could end on a positive note. First of all, the enrollment in my elective courses has more than doubled. While my enrollment is small, it isn't as small as it was last year. Perhaps the students who despised the change I brought have graduated. Those who remain don't know any different.