Pre-internship Weblog

All I can say is AGH!!! At least that is what I feel. In math today, not all the students had completed their homework. I must admit I was quite disappointed. You see, we have a test on Friday and we must finish the rest of the unit by Tuesday. Wednesday our school is having a clay workshop and all the senior students will be participating in this event. This means we lose math class. That leaves Thursday for the review. I sure hope we get it done. The kids are hardworking, so it kind of surprised me when they had not completed the task. For tomorrows class, I will be focusing on time management for a professional target. Maybe this way I can stay on track and then be available again at lunch and study hall to help them out if they have questions. I guess the difficult thing to do is to just keep going. If I hold back to wait for the ones who have not completed the work, we may never get the test done. This is why it is soooo important for teachers to have those unit development plans and outlines of how the course will work. It keeps you on track. I have learned my lesson, thankfully before it is too late.

For IP, the class worked on a quick exercise to have them practice their chart making skills. They were to research the breakdown of calories and fat of a fastfood meal, record the data on an excel sheet and create data chart that could represent the actual levels. I was hoping they could reflect during the process on the amount of fat that can be found in these foods and the importance of selecting healthy choices when eating out. I know eating habits is not part of the IP curriculum, but I strongly believe in making an exercise applicable to the students life. Another example of what a teacher could do for this exercise to have students record their income for a given period of time and prepare a budget, spending habits and breakdown of where their money went during that month.
Tomorrow will be an interesting day. Math will be a whirlwind of activity as the students work on independent events through assigned questions, while in IP the students will begin their final assignment on excel. I am looking forward to marking the IP exercise when it is completed. For this final exercise, students will be developing an itinerary of a dream trip, calculating the costs and then organizing it in a document that is appealing and accurate. I hope the kids enjoy this exercise. Since many of these students are from places all over the world, it might be quite interesting to hear about their “trips”.