We’ve made it through the first week of classes and some of my hopes and dreams for the semester have already been shattered (maybe this is too strong of a word but allow me to be a bit dramatic for now). Here are my shattered hopes and dreams:
- To be a week ahead in my class preparation. I had to be prepared a week ahead for my Developmental class since my night class met on Monday but I didn’t quite realize my dream for Cognitive. I was prepared at least the day before for both Tuesday and Thursday and it looks like the coming week will be more of the same.
- Students would show up for class and be prepared. Okay this one didn’t even get to survive the first day of MWF and TR classes. You know who you are. And come to your Friday 1:30 class. It’s just as important as every other day of class. The weekend starts on Friday after classes (not Thursday night). Help me realize my dream for next week.
- I will always be perfect in class–no tripping over words (or my feet), no mistakes on handouts or PowerPoints, and I will never say something wrong or stupid in class. Hmmm. Maybe I’m dreaming too big. Definitely tripped over words during the first days of classes (no tripping over my feet–yet) and made some mistakes on handouts and PowerPoints by the 2nd days of classes. I don’t think I said anything wrong or stupid during the first week but you may disagree with that assessment. Wonder how long it will take before I awaken from that last dream.
- No one will fall asleep in class (especially me). Well I have managed to stay awake but I’ve had a few nodders already (no snoring though).
- The technology will perform (correctly) at my command. No delays, no crashes, everything will hum along. My Monday night class got started 30 minutes late because PowerPoint was slow and shut down a few times. So that dream “crashed” the first day of classes. The most interesting technology snafu was teaching in BL030 with 2 classes on either side and all 3 of us were using the remote mouse to advance through PowerPoint slides. Seems all of the remotes were on the same channel so every time I advanced a slide the same happened in the other 2 classes and every time each of them advanced a slide my PP went bonkers. That was fun. Especially at the beginning when students were taking a quiz displayed on PP. Hopefully, that one will be fixed for the coming week.
- Students will be utterly fascinated by everything that I say and do in class. Being in my classes will rank as one of their top 3 experiences for the week. I didn’t do any informal or formal polls on this one but my observation of naturally occurring behavior in the classroom suggests that this dream probably died a quick and violent death. Some observed behaviors that may indicate a lack of fascination on the part of my students were: sleeping, yawning, packing up materials 5 minutes before the end of class, watch/phone staring, fluttering eyelids, and smirks. I’m hopeful that I’ll be more fascinating in the coming week.
- I will always find my shoes to be extremely comfortable (especially at 9 pm after Monday’s night class). Alright I never really expected this one to happen. I was meant to be taller. I think my parents must have exposed me to too many garden pesticides and fertlizers and they stunted my growth. So the only way I can realize my true height potential is to wear heels. I’m a 5′6″ in a 5′4″ frame. I digress. Must be time to end this posting.
So there were a few shattered dreams but they were dreams after all. Hey, I wouldn’t have anything to aspire for or to hope for if they’d all been answered the first week of the semester (come on growth spurt). All in all it was a successful week and I enjoyed seeing familiar people and meeting some new people as well. I’m looking forward to this semester and I plan on learning a lot. I hope you’ll comment on my blog and if you have a blog send me the URL and I’ll take time to read it and make comments as well.
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