Thursday, June 9, 2011

Week 6 - "That's One Small Step for Man....One Giant Leap for Mankind"

     There will be a entry for this week's blog, suceeding class on Wednesday, June 15, 2011.  Please be patient!  Thank you.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Week 5 - Lessons to be Learned, Plans to Take Action

     Compared to all of the classes prior to tonight, I felt hopeless, uncomfortable, and established a poor reputation for this course based on the comments I made and gestures I featured inside and outside of the classroom setting that not only annoyed my fellow classmates but was also conspicuous to the teacher.  Today, however, was merely the opposite; I actually put a smile on my face and more times than not displayed some degree of interest and excitement regarding the things we learned about.
     Although my grade that I earned from the facilitators had no influence on how I felt while in tonight's class since it was a percentage I was not expecting, it is my mission from here on out to enjoy this class and make the best out of it with the remaining time we have left in this semester.  Luckily, I have nothing to agonize over, since there are still a ton of opportunities left for me to raise my score. 
     In tonight's class, we were split into our groups and discussed/reviewed the threads other classmates composed and posted to in support or against the constructed and analytical overview of the learning activities each group thought of indicative to the phase assigned to them.  Then, Tiffany asked us to pick two activities (one from each phase) that appeared to be most favored and liked by the classmates, and record the main objective and basic concept behind both activities that were chosen in the infamous typewithme program.  Later, we were split into three macro groups, where each group was assigned to review one of the three phases and it was each group's obligation to finnd the centralized notion and goal of each idea and how it is relevant or contradictory to the phase the activity was selected to be classified under.  We ended class by learning how to setup and create a website, courtesy of Mike, our TA. 
     Our task for this week is to come up with two well thought out and organized lesson plans with our partner that outlines the ABC's of both learning activities elected to expand upon.  We are also responsible for creating a rubric using "RubiStar" that outlines all of the standards (time limit, content quality, etc.) mentors can use to evaluate students who choose to partake in and complete this assignment.  Lastly each group is to turn in the URL's to their website(s) that contain the completed lesson plan(s) as well as the rubric to Tiffany, stapled together by next class.   
     I can finally see how all of the things we have accomplished up until this point are interconnected and are pivotal factors for this potential class to materialize into a real class that is scheduled to be offered for students to elect for the Fall semester! 
     Stay tuned, there's more to come in the week's to follow....☺