aha!

I observed an "aha" moment on Thursday. I was teaching a lesson on stressed and unstressed syllables and the students were not understanding. I had written a sentence on the board and showed them the stress and unstressed syllables, but students made comments like, "It all sounds the same." So I had them switch the stress on the syllables and say it aloud. When they read iambic meter in reverse students all of a sudden went, "OH!" I'm hoping that this isn't actually the first time students have "gotten" something from my lessons, but it was nice to see it happen all of a sudden like this.

Speaking of positive feedback, I had a nice conversation with Mrs. Solly last week as well. She prides herself in multi-modal learning strategies (especially games) and is usually in charge of enrichment activities for the collaborative classes. But on Thursday I planned a review game for American Born Chinese and she made sure to tell me later that she thought it was great. We also talked about the bellringer discussion for the day, during which I made a rule that students were not allowed to say "I don't know." She mentioned that all teachers can prepare for classes, but great teachers know how to prepare for the day and then take advantage of the moment. She said that I have made great strides in the latter skill. I agree with her. I think I am infinitely more comfortable making decisions during teaching that will improve or enhance the class.

Crunch time...

I'm feeling the crunch of the Thanksgiving Break deadline approaching. Computer labs are booked, copies are never made, contracts need to be written. I'm feeling a little...phew...pressed for time.

And I find myself making little mistakes that I'm pretty sure are just a product of being tired. Like I scheduled a quiz with a student who'd been absent and then immediately handed out graded quizzes to the rest of the class. I could tell that she hadn't noticed because her quiz had some pretty easy questions wrong. I don't mean to revel in her loss of points, but I was glad to be reminded that students are not always watching out for mistakes to be made and I have some leeway in that department. I just have to be one step ahead. :)

Activity Versus Teaching

Today, I had students answer this bellringer, "Pick something (a person, place, thing) that symbolizes who you are. Draw it." That led into our discussion of symbolism in Frankenstein. In class, I handed out a worksheet and showed them their assignment: they were to find examples of the places where certain symbols were used and explain what they symbolized. I generally reviewed the places each symbol was used and then let them work in pairs to find the examples and explain them. I also explained the back of the worksheet which was about irony. I didn't really like the feeling of giving them a worksheet, but it was necessary because I had grading and other stuff to finish. I think I should have spent more time really teaching symbols, but I'm hesitant to teach something when I think it might bore them. But I'm also hesitant to give them a worksheet because I think it may just seem like busy work. I have trouble finding that balance. I wonder if it is experience with the material (this is MY first time reading Frankenstein, after all) or knowing your students really well.

Skits!

I had a good day!

Last week, I asked the students to take the scene when the creature asks Frankenstein for a female companion and find the places where the creature uses persuasion and then also document Frankenstein's reactions. The students charted these interactions as a group. Then in the same group, they turned that chart into a script for another kind of performance (their choice of commercial, tv show, or court scene). I gave a few examples and gave them time in class to work on it. Despite A LOT of hiccups in the schedule, we presented them today and some were really great. One group did "Real World: Geneva" which managed to be accurate to the story and also included lots of added drama and private testimonials. Other groups did puppet shows, eHarmony commercial parodies, and pretty good courtroom scenes. However, a few groups just read straight from their chart without adding any "scene" to their skit.

I think the groups that excelled were good despite my (again) kind of vague directions. I did give them some examples, but I wish that I had said (during the classwork time), "You need to do more that just read the chart. You can use what they said in your script, but remember that you're imagining this interaction in another venue like a TV show, a commercial, or a courtroom. What kinds of things would be added in the new venue that aren't in the scene in the book?" That statement would have cleared up a lot of confusion, but I didn't see that they were confused until after the skits were prepared and delivered. I kind of assumed that they understood and just weren't that excited about preparing skits. And that assumption comes from having problems with getting students to read, which I wrote about before. I think I assumed that they weren't reading because they didn't care, and they weren't preparing good skits because they didn't care. Today was the first day I read aloud from the book, and it really helped with having control of the classroom and I made sure that they paid attention to the important parts. I felt successful, and I had fun reading with them, too.

Speaking of reading aloud -- Mrs. Solly and I have been reading American Born Chinese (ABC) aloud in our collaborative class and the kids EAT IT UP. They also like when we playfully bicker back and forth about characters and different issues. Anyway, I'm very happy that they're enjoying ABC and so are we.

Colloboration, Preparation

Things seem to be going better in my collaboration with Ms. Solly, who is sometimes unpredictable and sometimes unreliable. I think I make it harder because I never give her concrete responsibilities, which is due in part because she's unreliable (and most often for legitimate reasons like IEP meetings or other responsibilities, but sometimes because she's having an off day) and also because I'm not prepared that far in advance.

And that preparation has becoming a constant struggle for me. I cannot seem to stop brainstorming, which often ends in making concrete plans at the last minute, when they are "due." I have a lot of mental prep work done, but it's a bit stressful to be writing lesson plans on a weekly basis, most of which are either new to me (I just learned the material myself) or new to the classroom (I designed the lesson and have not taught it before). This inexperience often leads to activities that (in my head) are interesting and engaging, but when I honestly appraise them, need more structure and directions in order to be effective. That's not to say that my ideas are unusable, but that (I'll say it again) I just need to spend more time structuring them.
I talked to Mr. Conrad a bit about this and expressed it as "focusing on myself rather than on my students." I think if I took more time to imagine receiving the assignments/activities as a student, I could prevent some of the problems I have. But where do you find that time? And I worry because this has been a consistent problem that I know i need to address, but I continue to make the same mistake.

Test Anxiety

I gave my honors 11 students a test the other day. Before the test, I was confident in my teaching and I "personalized" the test so that it highlighted our class discussions. I gave them a review sheet and told them how to study, but I gave them the responsibility of actually reviewing. I even talked them through my rationale for that: they are honors students and need to practice reviewing in the ways that work best for them. When I gave the test though, most students said they thought they'd failed, but didn't seem to blame me. Upon seeing their grades (spread out in the A to D range), I immediately took responsibility and thought I'd done something wrong. Then I talked to Mr. Conrad who said that the range was predictable and reflected a grade spread that was fairly stable from year to year. Then I spoke briefly with some students who scored below a 70% and reviewed their studying skills/methods. Many of them indicated that they had studied superficially, but had not made sure they really understood the content.

Frankenstein Update

So I started out reading Frankenstein with out of class reading assignments and in class discussion and writing. When I realized that I needed to do more in class reading (which was probably a late realization on my part), I already had some students who had independently read ahead and I made the decision, rather hastily, that I shouldn't burden those students in class with reading things twice, so I kept my system. Now I kind of regret that decision.

It's clear that the students need much more time in class with guided reading. I've been assuming that students didn't want to read or weren't making time -- and though that might be true for some -- I think that a lot of students had difficulty with the text and need more guidance from me. Oh! Another good example of "not enough guidance" -- I was reviewing the vocabulary for a quiz and a lot of students didn't even know how to pronounce the words. I felt terrible because I could very easily have pronounced all the words for them or gone over them and said, "Look for the verb form of this" and just given them more time with the words in class. I know that they are seniors and should be doing more on their own, but I think I overestimated their independent studying abilities. And that's not to say that they can't do it by themselves, but i gave them the task without enough guidance. This is really becoming a theme.... hmmm.

Homework Passes

I have felt like my seniors just aren't reading when I assign chapters in Frankenstein for homework. I tried pop quizzing and announced quizzing, but those aren't improving the class discussion and are hurting grades. So I decided to incentivize reading by giving out homework passes when students answer questions in class. The first day I tried it I noticed fewer students having side conversations and more students (besides those 3-4 really reliable question answerers) volunteering answers. Additionally, students would usually opt not to contribute if a topic had been covered but I asked for additional comments/answers; however, with the homework pass on the table, I received more responses from students who had slightly differing opinions...and that helped to spark more organic discussions as well. The whole operation feels a little hokey because they won't have an opportunity to use the homework passes once I finish with Frankenstein (unless I talk to Mr. Conrad), but for now it seems to be working.

Final Novel Projects

So we've been working on the students' final novel projects for the past few days. I introduced the projects with a powerpoint and gave them a handout. In talking to Mr. Conrad, I decided to have the students write proposals that outlined their ideas and if they required classtime or equipment, and asked them to suggest a preferred manner of grading. Then I created a rubric with categories that combined my students' suggestions with my own ideas (Connection to Novel, Creativity, Visual Aids, ect). The project was worth 40 points total, but I allowed the students to move points around in order to weight certain categories in their favor. I thought the category weighting was a great idea initially, but after grading the projects, I realized that it didn't really help out their project grades. For example, a student might have weighted his project in the Visual Aids category because he didn't think the project was very creative, but it used a powerpoint so was therefore highly visual. This should have worked in his favor if the powerpoint was well done (In theory, he would lose no points in that category), but often students put a lot of points into a category that they had completed, but not very well. So in my example, that students ended up losing more points for a poorly completed visual aid rather than one or two for having an uncreative project. Anyway, another case of good intentions leading to overly complicated assignments.

So I definitely would have changed the grading system, but I would also include more directive instructions. In debriefing with Mr. Conrad, we discussed the struggle of having wide-open assignments that allow students to explore creative options for assignment completion, versus giving students concrete expectations and opportunities for success. I would like to strike a balance between those two goals, and I think this assignment landed too close to "wide open" on that spectrum and didn't provide enough structure. I know that the quality of some projects was beyond my control, but I feel like a few more models and concrete instructions would have facilitated more students' success. I am also worried that the assignment was so open-ended that I have not taught them to DO anything. They already know how to read and make posters, etc. I'm worried that beyond "connecting with the novel" there is no justification for why they did this project.

IEP Meeting

I attended an IEP meeting on Friday for a student who has fairly serious behavior problems and is having difficulty attending school and passing his classes. He has already been held back from graduation and receives modifications in most classes so he can get through them. However, the meeting was called to address a needed schedule change: the student had not been scheduled to take a required class for graduation;therefore, some of his classes were being taken out (during 2nd nine weeks) or redistributed. This required the student to be put in different levels of classes (ie. MI, LD, and on-level) even within the same subject area. Special and general educators in the meeting debated whether a student could be put in, for example, one 11th grade MI science class and another LD 12th grade science class. One teacher bluntly said, "You can't be MI and LD, it's impossible. You're one or the other." And another replied that his current class schedule was the only way to ensure his graduation. A lot of issues came down to following what is legal protocol, but it seemed like a difficult situation in which the student's needs were being compromised by previous teacher oversights. Additionally, tension had developed between the teachers who are responsible for this student and it seemed (to me) like their personal opinions had taken precedence over what should have been done according to the school, which further complicated the situation. I left the meeting seeing that rule bending may seem beneficial to accomplish short term goals, but it causes a lot of complications further down the road.

Commentary on Action Research

I've had a fairly tense relationship with my action research project all semester. At first I couldn't think of anything that I really wanted to do in Mr. Conrad's classroom because everything seemed so purposefully seamless (and it was effective). Then, I combined his teaching style with some of my interests and put together a project, but I was still worried about data sources and reliable feedback and just not having enough time to really concentrate on the project and my teaching at the same time. In seminar, I received positive feedback on my write up (everything except findings, discussion/conclusion), but I still have reservations about the process of Action Research.
I have always been a proponent of this project and think its crucial to learn AR during the pre-service phase of our teaching experience. However, I think that the experience would be more beneficial if (at least the first time) the projects were a collaboration in which pre-service teachers collected and analyzed data from their mentor teachers' classroom. In this setup, both teachers would be responsible for the design, but the mentor teacher would implement the new strategies while the pre-service teacher observed and collected data. Then both teachers would collaborate on the conclusions of their findings, and the pre-service teacher would do the final write up and share.
I like this set up for a number of reasons - mostly because I think it's very difficult for a pre-service teacher to measure the effectiveness certain strategies when she is still learning how to teach. I find myself analyzing data that indicates certain research findings, but in the back of my head I think that my results were caused more by the person I am than by the strategies I implemented. That is to say, my teaching is too new and too variable to collect reliable data. By collecting data from a seasoned teacher, the projects might produce more reliable results. Additionally, I often hear pre-service teachers commenting on the difficulty of balancing action research with teaching and the comments go something like this: "I'm tired of my action research because I can't spend time on my lesson plans." I'm sure this frustration is communicated to mentor teachers as well, and the idea that action research is a useful endeavor is subsequently lost amid the frustration of balancing new teaching responsibilities with time-consuming project implementation. With a collaborative project, I think both pre-service and mentor teachers could more clearly see the benefits of conducting research in the classroom.

One final note -- I think it's ludicrous to wait until the final semester to plan the action research project, even if it ensures relevancy to the internship classroom. I would have much preferred writing a proposal and having a project planned out in advance even if it turned out to be a bad fit for my class. The responsibility of brainstorming the action research project in the final semester is not only REALLY STRESSFUL, but I think it also contributes to the negative connotation of Action Research being unnecessarily difficult and perhaps rushed and superficial.

Disclaimer -- I really do like the idea of action research. I just think we should improve it!

A full load...

Teaching all 6 classes (3 preps) has become really stressful the past few weeks. I think part of my struggle is that I have high standards for myself. Sometimes I have difficulty separating my teaching from independent student behavior or student circumstances, and I end up intellectually and emotionally taking a lot of responsibility for student success. I know that, overall, this is a good trait and will push me to improve my teaching, but right now it makes everything seem a little unmanageable. I find myself spending a great deal of time trying to perfect lessons and predict student misunderstandings and...just prepare myself to be a good teacher...but no matter how much time I spend on preparation, I've forgotten something and something goes wrong and I feel that creeping sense of frustration and disillusionment. Hmmm...just realized how melancholy all that sounds.

Frankenstein

I taught the introductory lesson for Frankenstein today. For their bellringer, I had students write down three things they knew about Frankenstein, then I introduced the idea of theme and wrote down the themes in Frankenstein. They had to choose one theme individually, then they got into themed groups and decided whether there was a positive, negative, or neutral connotation and provide an example (So a student might come up with: the value of exterior beauty over inner beauty, negative connotation, ex. people are judged by their outward appearances and not the kind of person they are). Then students used their bellringer (something they already knew about frankenstein) and predicted how mary shelley might use that detail in the story with their theme (So a student might have said "creature is made of dead bodies" and then connected that to theme of inner vs outer beauty by saying, "Shelley will have people react negatively to the creature only because he is ugly"). It was a little confusing because students didn't like the bellringer to class cross over (they had put away their bellringers and didn't want to recopy) but otherwise this worked fairly well. I'm hoping to use this as a reference point for discussion later on, but I'm worried that I didn't have a handout or anything for students that were absent. I guess that's the danger of being absent all the time, but I worry that I should be providing substitute materials for students that miss.

Collaborative Classes, KWL charts

I am struggling with the collaborative classes. We are reading Olaudah Equiano's slave narrative and they (fairly obviously) do not like it. Sometimes I go into class with really high hopes and think they'll follow my (sometimes forced) enthusiasm, but no luck. Then I experience a mixed emotion of frustration and defeat...and it's difficult to rev my enthusiasm up again.

At the suggestion of Mr. Conrad, I tried doing a KWL chart with the collaborative classes. I wanted to show them a feature of GoogleDocs, so I used the spreadsheet and we created a KWL chart as a class. Although I intended to enhance the lesson by incorporating emerging technologies, I think everything would have worked more smoothly with individual charts (perhaps with inspiration from the class chart) and a 10 point participation grade.

Blog #6

Despite being “on vacation” from school this weekend, I found myself constantly surrounded by conversations about education. Most topics stemmed from the perfunctory, “What are you doing?” or “How’s student teaching?” questions but then spiraled into broad discussions of proposed educational reforms, the use of standard assessments, the value of games and gaming (ie. video) in education, and in-depth questions about my own thoughts and experience. Almost no one in my family has a background in education (and opinions on my choice of career vary), but most of them had quite a lot to say about the system.

My dad was especially vocal in his questioning of why I graded or taught in certain ways. He wanted to know why don't teachers use all standard assessments for writing? why do you make choices based on individual students? Why do you do this? Why do you do that? Talking to him felt like a dissertation defense – and I’ve had these conversations with him before. In fact, my Dad has never supported teachers or schools that I attend. But I think I won him over! At the end of this conversation, he said, “Well, I certainly respect all the work you’re putting in to this. I always thought that teachers have one of the easiest jobs in the world: show up, teach a little, go home…and they even get the summers off.”

My brother Sam was another critic of the school system. When my dad wanted a definition for a “bellringer,” Sam explained that teachers use them to settle students by immediately having a task to complete. He mentioned that he hated doing things he viewed as “procedural” rather than educational. I explained that my bellringers were definitely part of a classroom procedure, but they also served as writing/grammar review, as practice responding to text, and/or as a writing exercise that tied thematically with the topic of the day. I went on to say that his criticism of teachers “needing a way to get students settled” was unfair because although he may have been calm and collected, his teachers were really serving him by settling the class and starting class in an orderly manner. In a friendly way, I called him elitist and overly critical. He agreed and said, “I probably would have done a lot better if I’d just participated in class with this sort of thing.”

But anyway – I have some reflections on teaching, too. I just wanted to record my family’s changing perceptions.

I graded all the double-entry journals from my honors and collaborative students this weekend. It was a struggle. At this point in my teaching, I assume that students are not completing assignments correctly because I did not explain them well enough. I hesitate from docking points because I’m not sure whether students did not listen, listened and misunderstood, or simply do not understand. Then the ambiguity of comprehension leads to questions like, “How do I comment to help them?” and “Will they pay attention to comments if I do not dock points?”

Also, I’ve been worrying lately about the range of student achievement in both my honors and collaborative classes. I’m afraid that my instruction will be goldilocks-style “just right” for the middle of the class and I’ll lose students on the high and low end. I want to find ways to differentiate instruction and assignments for these students without causing mayhem in my planning/grading/classroom management.

Weekly Reflection #5

Last week was a little hectic. We had picture day and college fair day (that I neglected to plan for), a test, a day at the library, double-entry journals, left over presentations, and midterms. In addition, my action research brief was due on Thursday. Yet as much as I have to take care of, things are more easily fitting into the combined system established by me, Mr. Conrad, and the collaborative teachers.

Speaking of collaboration, Friday was the last day for Ms. Sambol and Ms. Cappellini at UHS. Though we were not doing "true" collaboration, I'm appreciative of the experience we had planning class together over the past two weeks. We had a slight hiccup on Thursday of last week because of failure on my part to plan enough time for review and failure of the students to complete the study guide. Though Ms. Sambol and Ms. Cappellini and I have had few issues in communication during our experience together, Ms. Solly interpreted the situation differently and decided to facilitate a discussion of the study guide/test issue. After speaking with Ms. Sambol and Cappellini post-discussion, I think that a very manageable situation was exaggerated into a mini crisis. The issues in need of discussion were not sensitive to any of the parties involved, which is how Ms. Solly presented them during our meeting. Despite this, I am encouraged by our ability to work out this miscommunication and move on.

Week 5, five words: Remember to plan for pictures!
Things I'm excited about: grading double-entry journals, seriously. I want to see what my students think about the books they're reading.
Things I want to work on: Transitions in class...smoothness, making sure I'm teaching the content on the tests while still taking advantage of teachable moments, establishing a voice level that doesn't strain my throat. :)

Week #4: Where oh Where has my host teacher gone?

Because of unplanned sickness and planned travel, Mr. Conrad was absent three days last week. Things went surprisingly well.

Highlights:

I am learning the value of being over-prepared. I worked hard to improve the Powerpoint that Barb and John used last year -- adding pictures and elaborating on the text/concepts. I think the students were fairly interested (though the subject is Puritans, so any interest is appreciated) and I'm glad that I put in the extra work for the lesson.

Teaching finally feels real! Everything is suddenly my responsibility, from accessing prior knowledge, to instructing and assessing progress. I've had snippets of this experience across the past two years, but never felt the responsibility with such...weight. It feels good. A little scary, but good.

I need to work on clarity of directions. Like I mentioned before, a lesson last week kind of bombed because I confused the kids. Then this week I mentioned "the blog" to a class that was unfamiliar with the concept and a student said (with playful frustration), "Stop saying things we don't understand." Though she was joking, I know it's something I need to work on. I jump around sometimes, too fluidly. I need to be more cognizant of the students that really need a concrete structure (especially in my collaborative classes).

Speaking of collaboration, I wish that I had more time to work with Ms. Sambol and Ms. Cappellini. They are both leaving at the end of the week. I feel like they are running errands and not teaching. However, in our planning meetings, they say things like, "Don't throw us to the wolves." I'm trying to find the balance between being the dominant teacher and giving them content with which they aren't familiar.

Mr. Conrad mentioned the importance of reviewing your technology, and I'm glad I listened to him. I had several computer/technology malfunctions that could have thrown my lessons off significantly.

I feel about 75% successful most of the time. Passing, anyway. :) Learning, for sure.

--------------

Week 4, Four Words: I can do this?
Things I'm excited about: writing instruction
Things I want to work on: secretarial organization. Keeping track of that stuff gives students a sense of your responsibility, and the structure of the class. I just need to be on top of it. Period.

Weekly Reflection #3: Realizations

So last week was generally not disastrous! I know I have a lot of room for improvement, but that improvement seems fairly manageable.

Highlights from last week:

I glanced down at a student's desk and saw a date at the top of her notebook page and the word "Um" and about 20 tally marks. I cocked my head in thought for about 3 seconds and realized she had been counting my "ums."

I make eye contact with students sometimes during quiet times. Usually I smile or, if I know the student pretty well, I wink or something. I guess subconsciously I had been thinking that they were looking at me for some kind of teacher-student connection, a kind look of encouragement, for example. Last week I realized that most of them want to know if I'm watching them because they want to pull out a cell phone or work on other homework. By no means am I allowing myself to become jaded after my first week of teaching -- but I am going to try to cut down on my naivety.

I was officially observed in 6th period by Mr. Conrad this week. The lesson went pretty bad, even though I had made modifications between 3rd and 6th periods. We had a great debrief session about it though, and what seemed like a big problem (poor lesson design) turned out to be more of a management problem (make the kids quiet and listen before you expect them to listen to and execute directions). So, that was really productive and helpful.
----------------

Week Three, Three Words: Here we go!
Things I'm excited about: I received good feedback on my Action Research proposal, which taking shape nicely. The question is going to be something like, "How can I integrate technology into the secondary ELA classroom to support 21st Century Learning Skills?" And if all goes well, my professor mentioned that I should expand my research into the spring semester and turn it into a professional development project.
Things I want to work on: clarity of directions/class time.

Weekly Reflection #2: Moment of Truth

So, all is well in the world of student-teaching.

I have narrowed my action research to something interesting and manageable. I have written my first set of week-long lesson plans. I have made jokes. I have taught (mostly) clear lessons, and facilitated class successfully. I have beaten my host teacher's scores on the Praxis. ;)

All of this confidence...but I'm concerned that I've simply yet to be challenged. I have not disciplined. I have not conducted a lesson without a model. Really -- I haven't run into any problems yet. So (hence the title of this blog post) this week feels like the moment of truth. I feel a little silly saying that because many of the other interns have already taken the reigns from their host teachers. But still -- this is my first time taking over a class completely -- and I'm unabashedly excited/anxious about it.

Here's to a successful (and short!) week.
-------------
Week Two, Two Words: more progress
Things I'm excited about: teaching by myself
Things I want to work on: long term planning: action research, unit plans

Weekly Reflection #1: Back to School

All along, I knew that the beginning of my Intern Year would necessarily feel different than any other time in the 5 Year program. Full time teaching, no university classes, altered sleep schedule --- the differences in lifestyle are numerous -- but all this mental preparation aside...I've been amazed by how positive and engaging this placement has been so far.

I feel so lucky to be teaching at University High--which is so close to my own community--in a classroom with John Conrad, who is a alumnus of both UHS and the Benedum 5 Year Program. He is an impressive teacher and mentor -- and everyone at UHS has a great deal of respect for him. We're teaching two sections of Honors English 11, two of 11 collaborative, and two of English 12. I'm excited for the content, and (as far as I can tell) the students seem nice and interested. Additionally, Mr. Conrad has a ridiculously vivacious collaborative teacher (Mrs. Solly) who brings so much excitement and heart into our classroom. I feel as though I am in a place of great support, knowledge, and positivity in beginning my next step as a teacher -- and that's incredibly reassuring. And that feeling of security is important because I have a lot of learning to do, and I know that--as a student--I need to feel safe to take risks and test out my skills. I'm grateful that I have such a perfect space to grow as a teacher.

In particular this week, I have spent a lot of time observing Mr. Conrad's teaching and classroom management style. Sometimes I feel too timid in the classroom, but I wanted to get to know the environment before I interacted fully. And I think that decision was correct, because my observations have produced valuable insights about teaching. I am definitely excited to teach; however, this transition time has been more productive for me than I ever imagined. And I'm looking forward to Week Two!
---

And here's something I want to continue for every reflection....

Week One, One Word: Insight
Things I'm happy about: just about everything
Things I want to work on: being more present in the classroom

Welcome to the New Blog!

I needed to switch blogging locales because the other one is tied to an old email.

This makes my life a little easier -- hope it's not too inconvenient for you. :)

Thanks!