Thursday 1/3/13

Dear Journal,

Today was my first full day on Laurelbrook campus. Today was also my first day of teaching on Laurelbrook campus.
Somehow I hadn't envisioned those two events happening so very close together, but I do enjoy a good challenge to knock  me out of my comfort zone once in a while.
I may or may not have been unspeakably nervous all day before my class.

The class I taught today is Computer Literacy. It is an entirely freshman class intending to teach typing skills and familiarity with Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint. The teacher who taught it the previous semester took ill and is no longer available to teach it, hence the reason I'm teaching it straight off the bat.

The Plan

In planning what to do for the class, I realized two things:
     a.) I do not know any of the students, nor they me.
     b.) I have no idea what the previous teacher taught them, or how well they grasped it. (The previous teacher was not readily available to speak with. The principal was able to tell me what chapter in the book they had gotten to.)

In light of these facts, I deemed that the objective for the first class should be to get to know my students and figure out where they were at with the material. So I combined the two in this little activity.

Computer Literacy Review

1. Create an Excel Spreadsheet listing:

·         3 hobbies you enjoy

·         3 things on your Bucket List (things you would like to do sometime in your life before you die)

·         3 things you like about your mom

Sort the data alphabetically

Create a heavy border around your data

Create a new row at the top above your data, type your name in the first cell, merge and center it over your data box.

2. Create a Word Document answering the following questions:

1. What is your name?

2. Where were you born?

3. What led you to choose to come to LBA?

4. If you could meet one Bible character, who would you like to meet? What is one question you would ask him/her?

5. What do you like best about Jesus? (Make a bulleted list with at least 3 things)

Insert a clipart of your choice.

Change the shape of the bullets in your list to something other than the round default shape.

3. Create an Access Database listing the names, and birthdays of everyone in the class. Create a report showing the birthdays for each month in ascending order.

I figured that either they will know everything like the back of their hand and drum it out like a well-rehearsed band move, or they will get stuck partway through which will give me a fairly accurate picture of where they are at and what was covered. (PowerPoint has not yet been covered in the class, but I was given to understand that they had studied Word, Excel and Access.) In the chance that they DID know everything well and finished before class got out, we would spend the rest of the time talking about their answers together and getting to know each other better.

I also planned to have each student set up an account with Scripture Typer (www.scripturetyper.com) which will integrate typing practice with learning the memory verses I will be assigning them in Bible. Yay! for integrated learning! I did the pre-work, setting up a group on the Scripture Typer website where I can share each weeks memory verse with them in a way that they can easily access. I email invited each student to the group using their laurelbrook.org email addresses, under the belief that they would be readily able to access this account.

My idea is to use the Scripture Typer review as Bellwork each day when the students first come into class. I would like to establish a routine where they quietly enter the class, sign into their computer and immediately begin working on their typing. Doesn't that just sound dreamy and delightful??

The Implementation

Mrs. Wanda introduced me, told the kids who I was and that I would be teaching this class as well as their Freshman Bible class. They groaned. "Mrs. Wanda!! Noooo!! You're not going to be teaching us any more?"

Great. Off to a wonderful start here!

Fortunately, one of the students I had already met randomly at the Southwest chapter of ASI this spring, and she was delighted to see me. She, along with a young man who immediately wanted to know everything about OHC summer canvassing programs and how he could be involved, helped me feel a lot more comfortable.

After briefly giving them a little of my background, I started walking them through the process of getting set up on Scripture Typer. This was pretty much an utter failure. They were completely unaware that they HAD personal laurelbrook.org email accounts.

So we scratched that, and moved on to the activity. Mr. Sarr came in and helped fix our technical problems near the end of class.

The activity seemed to be pretty enjoyable for the kids overall. Two quiet individuals in the back row worked diligently and steadily and were quite proficient at nearly everything. One young man in the front had absolutely no idea what was going on and asked for help multiple times. When I asked him, "Did you all cover this in class at all?" the two on the back row answered "Yes" in unison. Lol. I suspect he is what Fred Jones terms a "helpless handraiser" who enjoys getting teacher attention by raising his hand a lot. I need to formulate good management techniques that will help him. The rest of the class fell on a predictable continuum between these two extremes.

I'm not sure how the entire class got passing grades for last semester, as most do not seem to have much familiarity with any of the three programs. Perhaps they forgot a great deal over Christmas break!

I presented the activity with little structure, in sort of a "Impress me with how much you know" fashion. When they would ask what it was supposed to look like, I was intentionally ambiguous. "Make it pretty."
At the end of the class I asked them how they felt about having such an ambiguous assignment.
They weren't too sure they had liked it. Most didn't feel competent to do it.
I told them that this was a foretaste of what could easily happen to them their first day on a job. I told them that I take it as my personal responsibility to make sure they will be competent and prepared to handle computers in the workforce. This communicated to them one of my over-arching objectives for the class.

Take-away

I definitely need to get on top of discipline and structure for the class. They're going to cream me if I don't put my foot down right away. My little front-row handraiser has a cute little way of bobbing up out of his seat and meandering over to help his lovely female classmates. :)

I need to begin implementing "praise-prompt-leave" to help curb the helpless-handraiser issue. I'll explain what that is later.

I need to get the issues with Scripture Typer worked out. The students have not yet been able to join the group, and I don't have their current memory verses entered. There also seemed to be a problem with the site not working that I need to get resolved before we can begin using it. I hope that can get straightened out soon, as I would like to use this as my main typing practice.

I need to set times for future activities. "Work on this until 5:15, then close what you are working on and direct your attention to the front. If you finish before 5:15, work quietly on such and such." etc. This will solve problems that came up when some students finished sooner than others.