I felt better after I talked with Dr. Houghton on Wednesday night after class, because I felt I was clearer on the expectations on the unit plan.  I think one of the main ways that I get stressedas a student is when I am guessing about what someone wants me to do.  I finally got the sound to work on my video so this miracle is greatly appreciated.  It was easy when I did it the second time, because I had a camera that works.  I felt a huge weight of stress lift off of me when I was able to put that behind me and move forward.  I am currently working on my room design in Bob villa's program, and it is amazing how complicated moving a little bit of furniture is.  I like the program because the program makes the furniture look real, but the disadvantage is finding something that works with my classroom.  I think choice is good, but I do see why they tell us to limit choices with students to three because you could get easily lost in the mired of choices that are available to you.
     It is interesting that a question arose when we were discussing unit plans, that the justification for what you are doing has to be clearly there in your mind because other teachers will ask why are you doing it this way.  I have thought about this since Wednesday because I feel like this is an issue for me.  I have a good mind, and I feel that I am fairly creative and innovative, but I am week when it comes to supporting myself and why I am doing something.  I feel like I backed down a lot when it came time to teach because if someone told me that this was not the right way to do it I believed them.  If I am going to support integrating technology in my classroom, I am going to have to find a simpler way to deal with the in office criticism that doesn't send me spinning to change my lesson plan.
   I found in the last year that what is beneficial in one arena creates difficulty in another.  I feel that some schools want teachers to be creative and innovative because students are so bored with education that they are not learning anything.  I found that my students were indeed fit into this category.  I think one of the main reasons I took on this unit so aggressively was because my students were bored, and what I was being told to do did not work.  There has to be a balance between doing to entertain, and hard core working, but I feel like if their is no real center to it what is the students motivation to move forward.

Page Author: Danielle Earley
Return to Home Page
Return to Online Notebook