Wow, what a day.
This morning was hard... I had a really difficult time getting out of bed. But I had a lot to do, so eventually I was able to make it to the dining room. Kimmy had to go to work early, so after she left I started planning my lesson for the day.
Let's see.... after my shower I made some lunch then went up to campus. My goal was to finish all of my grading so that I could hand it back in class. And I succeeded! I was pretty happy. Well, no... I wouldn't necessarily say "happy," but I would have been a little disappointed if I'd had to take my grading home with me.
Teaching went really well today. I was able to keep things moving pretty quickly and cover all of the material I'd planned for the day. I even kept them interested for a while by discussing how to make soup. The chapter I'm teaching is on scheduling, so I broke down making soup into different parts and used it as an example for explaining some of the scheduling procedures from the book. I think that the majority of the students don't mind being in class. Some students (I think) actually enjoy being in class. I remember in one of my math education classes, we did a fantastic exercise. It was very short and simple (there were four of us in the class). Dr. Whitaker asked us what our favorite math class was during high school or college and then explain why. Each of us explained that the specific classes were our favorites because our professor did something special that we liked... maybe it was exceptionally good explanations or drawing pictures or giving us stickers or starting class with cool facts. So I developed this theory for teaching that revolves around a very key factor near the beginning of the semester: I aim to make my students want to be there, or at least be accepting of the fact that they're in class. I'll pick an easy chapter, use tangible examples, make jokes or funny faces, call on people to participate... whatever I must to make the first few weeks count. After the first weeks, it becomes so much easier to teach because the people generally don't mind being there. In fact (as I mentioned earlier), some of them actually enjoy being there. One of my students actually informed me that she appreciated my ability to get the material across and try to make class fun. I felt special.
So after class I came home and made some stir-fry for dinner. We got some sweet and sour sauce at the store, so I used that to cook everything. It was pretty tasty. After dinner we went to the GAP outlet at the mall. Apparently they're closing at the end of February and everything is 50% off. Kimmy needed some new jeans, so we went. It turns out that they didn't have any jeans that fit and liked... but I got two new button down shirts for $10! And I ran into (figuratively) one of my students from the fall. We tried to avoid eye contact at first, but when there are only 6 people in the store that gets awkward fast.
After we got home I started studying... and Kimmy made cookies! They were really really tasty. And then we proceeded to eat many of them. I have no regrets. In other news, I officially being my 5.5 weeks of review tomorrow. Woo hoo. Even though it's over a month away, I feel like this exam is just around the corner. AHHHH!
Ok, that's it for me. Good night!
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