Today was a pretty good day.
Due to various circumstances, today my collab and I ended up listening to the advice we'd been given and only teach one objective per class hour, rather than trying to cram in more material. Though it means we've skipped more material overall, the students are really knowledgeable about mitosis and meiosis, and how to compare and contrast them (there were Venn diagrams and everything). They aced the translation review, and then we made a chart, and a diagram. They even wrote in complete sentences for me on the exit ticket. Overall mastery was 87%, which is excellent. I was proud.
It's good to know that for the school year, I should teach objectives well at the expense of a few at the end, rather than trying to squeeze any material in last minute. In a year or two, I should get the hang of which topics are best to leave out.
During the last couple of minutes of class, I tried to chat up the students again. Yesterday's magical moment had passed. They stared at me for a minute and I let them go for the day.
No more students accidentally expressing that they were disappointed wouldn't be teaching here in the fall.
Tomorrow, we talk about natural selection and phylogenetic trees. It's nice that these kids have already been through the course, so I don't have to worry about any questions about the validity of the theory of evolution. On a related note, today Google is celebrating Gregor Mendel's birthday. Who would have guessed he would become so famous for his experiments that were initially designed to prove Lamarck's theory of evolution (which is famous for being wrong)?
I bet you're wondering what the picture at the top is, the one with the lockers. Today, one of our sessions was about formal writing with our students. We learned how to teach the steps of creating a written piece, such as a poem or essay, based on a model. We did this by writing our own poems! The poetry was taped up in the hallway and we commented on each others' work using Post-Its.
Post-Its are pretty ubiquitous around here. So are red pens and chalk hand-prints on business clothing.
As we approach the penultimate day of the penultimate week of Institute (lolz, sorry, can't do that with a straight face), the sessions have been getting a little less formal and ending a little earlier each time. We've had an extra half hour or so today to relax in between sessions. It's nice, and it helps me feel like I'm not the only one looking forward to the end of this.
By the way, I finished my LAST LESSON PLAN OF INSTITUTE today. It didn't hurt that it was a lesson that the other Living Environment class had already done, so I got to borrow large pieces of lesson plan. Like we were encouraged to.
Four days left of instruction!
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