Thanks for everyone's awesome advice! The consensus of the world's best blog readers, plus my marathon coach, is take today off. In the long run, is half an hour of swimming really going to affect my marathon? In the short run, I could be regretting it for 20 long miles tomorrow. Over the summer, I had friends miss entire weeks (or more!) of training due to injuries, vacations, or whatever. They all did GREAT in the marathon, so I need to remember one week of being sick isn't that big of a deal.
A few people have asked in comments about the degree that I am working on constantly complaining about, so I thought I'd mention it. I'm working on getting a masters degree in Instructional Technology. Although my whining would probably have you believe otherwise, I actually enjoy learning about all the different technologies that are available to teachers and how they can improve my lessons and provide cool activities to help the kids to learn and use as assessments. However, the reason I do so much complaining is that the class I am currently taking is teaching me none of that, and it seems the professors biggest concern is that we write papers each week in APA format, and post on the group discussion board every single day, not that we actually learn something that we can use in our classrooms. If you can explain how editing a paper for hours so that the APA format is perfect can make me a better first grade teacher, please do, because to me it seems like a giant waste of time. I co-teach with our school's technology teacher, Kristin, who gave me the awesome mug in my last post each week. I have learned so much more in that hour a week than I have in my total of two grad classes so far. I am really hoping that the rest of the program is more of what I thought I signed up for, aka, technology I can actually use to improve my instruction.
So that's my long winded, probably not very exciting opinion on my higher education!
Lol, I've been to one of those slumber parties before. ;)
ReplyDeleteI had a lot of the same problems with my classes to get certified. We spent most of our time discussing school budgetary issues (important, sure) but not so much time on learning good teaching techniques.
Can you use a Smart Board with 1st graders? Those boards are the coolest thing ever. :)
Sounds like a pretty fun slumber party to me!!
ReplyDeleteSeems like the class is full of busy work?! I HATED that. I would LOVE to get my masters in Instructional Technology. My school is so far behind, but I should be getting a SmartBoard soon! WOOHOO!
I've been to a few of those slumber parties before...and I've owned a few of their products for about 4 years now and they work great, just in case you were concerned about quality! haha!
ReplyDeleteI too, am a certified teacher. I'd enjoy having a masters in Ins Tech, because I'd love to be an instructional coach at a school. We have those positions here, and your whole job is to attend different conferences/seminars and learn there, and bring it back to your school and teach the other teachers. How cool would that be?!
Oooh! Our special ed classes got Mimeos, and the special education teachers just went to a workshop on them. I've had a chance to see them in action, and they're really cool! The kids love them (The kindergartners and first graders think they're great!)
ReplyDeleteI had a class like that...it was supposed to be Instructional practices for students with severe disabilities. The (adjunct) professor was so condescending, and made it known he would not bother learning our names (class of ~20). He never bothered to figure out everyone's background and ended up spending multiple 2 hour 40 min classes talking about concepts like "generalization". Meanwhile, me and 3 other students were currently teaching students with autism; and 3 of the other students were parents of children with autism. It was such a joke and waste of money. Blah. Oh, and he was texting during our final presentations.
Hope your other classes are better!!!
I had to look up what your slumber party was all about...I feel so naiive. haha. I've never been to one. Have a good time!