Being idea genies..

This week, the students learned all about finding good story ideas. They learned the basic elements of a story. I learned that just because they read the book and answered the questions doesn't really mean that they have it down pat quite yet. 

Class happens smack in the middle of the day, so the typically outspoken students don't really participate much. On Thursday, it hit me while I was handing back their work that I had only really remembered half of their names. However, I do not think that I did that bad because no one complained about me giving them the wrong paper. I got the hang of it; it just took me longer than I had expected. 

I always hated the classroom. I remembered why when I heard a bunch of the students inconspicuously tapping their fingertips against the keys and clicking the mice as they submitted the roundups during the lecture. Talk about rude. Just because I can't see their faces doesn't mean I didn't know who they were, either. 

It was interesting giving the students feedback, since it is something I have never done before. There were only a couple that completely missed the questions at hand, which shows they rushed through the work. I put more time and effort into the feedback for students that put more time and effort into their assignments. I called out the students who submitted in the work during class as politely as I could sound. A couple of students got back to me saying that they had submitted the assignment beforehand, but edited it during class. I told them not to do that because I can only see the last time-stamp, and that defeats the purpose of a deadline. Giving feedback took a lot longer than I had thought it would as well, even when not every student submitted something. Giving feedback through Moodle is quite simple, yet tedious.

After meeting with Cyphers to go over the lesson plan and being in the classroom, I noticed that I need to be more comfortable speaking to the class and not just to the instructor. This includes looking at them, acknowledging them and participating more in class discussion, even if it means interrupting Cyphers.