With Friends Like These.......

How long did you spend subbing before you applied for / started your first "real" teaching job?

I graduated from my teaching program on Dec 3rd, and have been a TOC for the past two weeks. However, there aren't a lot of hours for TOCing. . . I've only been offered two shifts in the past two weeks, and only been able to work one of them.

There's a temporary .8 position opening up for the spring semester at the high school I did my student teaching at, teaching Socials 11, English 11, and Planning 10 (a course with no lesson planning or marking: just babysitting while kids do online material!) Teachers at the school have said I might be a possible candidate for the position, since Socials and English are my teachable areas and I have experience in the high school already.

However, I'm really nervous about applying! I wonder if after such limited TOCing experience, am I really ready for this jump? Are these jitters about having your own class for the first time normal, and should I just apply regardless of my nervousness? Or should I take the time to do some subbing first (however little work I actually get)?

What did you do?

I have a small dilemma. I teach Grade 12 Functions at a private school where most of the students are from China. They are working really hard to get Canadian high school diplomas so they can go to Canadian universities. Many of my students work extremely hard to ensure that their math and science marks are very high because they know their English marks will bring down their average. First semester is now over, and I keep getting requests from students to raise their mark "just one percent". One student in particular has requested her mark be moved from a 91 to a 93. She had a 93 before the final exam, but got an 84 on the final, which dropped her mark. She says she needs the 93 "to correspond to university requirements".

My thoughts:
1. Is it a huge difference? The mathematical calculation of her mark is a 90.6...so I'd be giving her 2.5%.
2. I was told not to give grades of 69, 79, etc. This means that students with 78.5% get bumped up to 80%.
3. If I do it for one student, I'd have to do it for every student who requests it.

I'm leaning toward not doing it, but I don't know if I'm just being a hardass, and I don't know what the standard is. 2% in one class will only bring her average up by 0.33%...so it's not like it will make a huge difference. Advice?

Frustrated
What to do when you have a coworker who is quick to harshly criticize?

This particular coworker I am continually untrusting of. I have my lunch break with her and for a long period of time, she was always complaining about another coworker who wasn't doing things correctly. Granted, I had some issues with the person she was talking about, but it wasn't as bad as her, nor would I open my mouth to join in. It made lunch feel less relaxing each day she started to the point where I would wonder each day if I would have to sit through another round of complaining.

That stopped eventually, and now she's started criticizing things I do. During lunch one day this week I made a slip of the tongue and said editing process when I meant to say revising instead. I was talking about something my students were doing for writing. She quickly scolded me for my slip and told me I'd better not do that with my students. It was the tone she used.

Today we had grade level meetings and the person from the board office in charge of writing was doing a follow up on our program we are using, which is the Step-Up to Writing. Each teacher was to share how they were incorporating it into the classroom and I spoke of my students color coding their journal entries every morning, as well as the summary questions in their science text reviews. Very quickly, in the same tone as the incident before she told me that there was no way all of the students could be doing it correctly and that some had to be color coding random sentences just to finish their work. I didn't get to respond because the principal wanted to show a student's work, but it really bugged me. I know that not all my students do it correctly and I work with those who struggle with it. The majority do do it correctly. Overall, I have seen a big increase in the quality of writing because though some students are not color coding correctly in application, they are searching to try to write the kinds of sentences to match each of the colors. I wish I could have replied.

I know she didn't really like this writing program, nor has she done very much with it, but I hope that's not her reason behind the quick criticism. She's the only coworker with who I feel this huge gap between... it's like she glows superiority and I hate to ask her for help on anything... I go to my mentor teacher or two other upper level teachers instead. I teach 5th, if it makes any difference, and she teaches 4th.

What can I do? How do you deal with coworkers like this?

Tragic Opera
In the spirit of end-of-semester procrastination, may I present: "Il Destino di Grant Application, A Tragic Opera in Three Acts." (Please note that I didn't write this; it was apparently written by a Lloyd Fricker. It was sent out on a listserv for grant administrators.)

( Don't click here if you don't like fake Italian )

Proper Citation Style and Anonymous Forum Comments
Not to interrupt the seasonal troll-watching (two of the most appealing features of which have been

knut_hamson's increasing disdain and the attempts to lay the blame and/or ferret out the troll's identity), but I do have two questions for the collective wisdom.

First, a student has just complained about having to know and use proper style within a course. She/he dismissively called it "minutiae" and objected to losing points over it. I will take away a point in a 20-point question if proper style is not used (for example, if a student writes "Beethoven's Fifth Symphony" instead of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony). Do you grade on style, or do you simply not care? Or does it depend on how many students you have in that semester?

Second, this student made the complaint anonymously, on a Blackboard discussion board set up for my course. I allow students to post anonymously to encourage them to ask questions about the course they might not otherwise ask. Most of the time, the questions are just about the material. Sometimes a student will use it as a forum to kvetch about the course. Do any of you feel strongly for or against using anonymous bulletin boards for your courses? If so, why?

Yes, I am procrastinating from grading right now.

hi :)
Name: Kat
Status: married
Age: 31
Location: southeastern indiana
Children: my son Tristan, who's 5 months
Sahm/wohm/wahm: Currently I’m a SAHM, which was hard at first, because I was so used to working somewhere else, but since staying at home, I realized my mom never just sat in front of the tv all day while we were at school. It gave me a new appreciation of everything she did, and she had 3 of us, I only have one. I’m hoping to teach my son at least Spanish.

Hobbies: when i watch tv with my son, it’s Nick Jr (he loves Diego, Yo Gaba Gabba, Miss Spider, and Wonder Pets). My fave shows are Glenn Beck (sorry, lol, my son loves him), Dexter, the Tudors, Mercy, Law & Order SVU and CI, House MD, Project Runway, and just about anything on the History Channel except for the R Lee Ermey stuff and shows about cars.

Photography (I’m always taking a lot of pictures and sometimes I spam my journal with them), writing, drawing. i also enjoy journaling, spending time with my friends. I love to cook, but am not the greatest. I love to read, usually any range of fiction (except mystery or scifi); anything about serial killers, crimes of the Third Reich (and psychology of the Nazi doktors), history, politics, sociology, religion. I also read to my son, which he and I both enjoy.

More about me: in my journal i mainly write about whatever i feel like at the moment, or stupid quizzes. this is a new journal, so there's not much, but i'm adding more entries. my dad was in the Navy til i was 16, so i've lived all over the country from north to south and east to west. i've been to all but 10 states, but never out of the country except to Mexico on accident. i can be sarcastic and a bit too honest for my own good. i write how i talk, so there's some "dunnos" and "wannas" and some cuss words in my journal. Family is extremely important to me. i write a lot about my husband and son, and things that make me mad.

I try not to post about politics, but when I do, if someone’s viewpoint is different from mine (on anything, not just politics), I don’t get all mad and de-friendy just because someone disagreed with me. I have my opinions, as does everyone else. I tend to lean toward the middle-right, tho, on many topics. I’m a big history geek, so forgive me if I happen to post anything history-related, Ancient Greece and Rome, Victorian era and Nazi Germany are my favorite eras.

So I look forward to making some more friends. just add me and comment on my journal so i know.

( here's a pic of me )

Current Mood: relieved

Hello <3
Hi everyone. I am looking to meet some other moms on here. I am 29 yrs old from NY. I have a 15 months little girl who I love dearly. The status is complicated beyond words. I worked full-time nights. I love to read, music, and art. Feel free to add me <3

Trying to find out more about Understanding by Design, but the library has no books on it
Hi folks,

New member here, and I'm in a bit of a bind actually. I was hoping the fine folk might be able to offer some help.

I'm an Education grad student in the Philippines, and our professor assigned us topics for reporting for after the Christmas break. The topic I've been given is something called Understanding by Design.

I did a thorough search of our school library, and unfortunately, we don't have any books that appear to take up Understanding by Design. I went to the internet, and it seems that I need to pay to have access to in-depth information on Understanding by Design, although Wikipedia has a basic gist of the ideas behind it.

Here's what I found so far:
http://www.ubdexchange.org - Seems to be a website specifically meant to address Understanding By Design. Access needs payment however.
http://www.ascd.org/research_a_topic/Understanding_by_Design.aspx - Some basic resources related to Understanding by Design.

I was wondering if any of you had stronger google-fu or maybe know a free resource regarding Understanding by Design, or might actually be teaching Understanding by Design or using it in your own classrooms. It sounds like an interesting topic to discuss, and I'm actually excited about tackling it and possibly using it in future endeavors, but alas, I don't have any references.

Any assistance would be most appreciated.

-Victor B. :)

EDITED TO ADD: It's Sunday where I live, and I'm going back to my school tomorrow to ask the professor or some of our other professors for leads on where they acquired books on Understanding By Design. Hopefully, they'll be willing to help me out. :)

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: New York State of Mind, Ken Hirai

Seeking advice
Hello!

As the title indicates, I need some advice. I'm currently debating with myself and I need perspective on:

1. How to be diplomatic when asking a professor to clarify.
2. If/how to push a partner to focus on the big picture.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: stressed

Poetry?
Next week is the last full week of school before our Christmas break. Because of the way things are scheduled, my one reading class has a test every two weeks on their story. They are a lower reading group in the 5th grade. We test this week, and I do not want to start a story next week. I want to do a quick unit on poetry instead. Their class has 30 minutes of whole group each day, and this would need to be for 7 days (to cover the two days of school next week).

What I'm stuck on is where to begin. I know some of the things I want to cover. This class struggles with metaphors and similies, so I wanted to include that. I also wanted to include fluency and reading with emotion (they have a lack of this just from listening to them at the poetry station). I wanted to touch on alliteration. Basically, I'm trying to touch on things that they will see in various forms on their state exam that they did not grasp very well on the first benchmark test.

Is it best to spend two days on each of the skills, using a poem/s that exemplifies the skills I want to touch on? I know the poetry I want to use for rhyme and fluency will come from gigglepoetry.com. I will have to find sites for the others though. I also wanted them to try their hand at writing poetry, using the setup of "I went to the _______" to _________/I made a mistake and __________" and would use this at the very end, barring no snow days or delays.

Suggestions or ideas to add?

Apropos of some of the other discussions we've had in the last few weeks, the New York Times this morning ran this story about college retention: "College Dropouts Cite Low Money and High Stress." None of the conclusions will be startling to anyone who has worked in Higher Education for the last decade and a half, but the picture it paints of how difficult it is for individuals with little support or from low-income families to complete college, even if they have started it is chilling.

Name: Valerie
status: So complicated
age: 25
location: Australia
children: 4 children, 2 boys, 2girls, aged 7, 5 , 4, 2.
hobbies/interests: Playing my piano, learning to drive, raising my 4 children
More about me: I was coping fine with my 4 kids. Then things went so very bad with their dad and I now suffer from post traumatic stress and anxiety. Nearly everyday I think of the hell my poor kids watched, and regret how bad it got before their Dad and I both realized that we were destroying them. I regret that my kids saw us at our worst, and wish I could have fixed things sooner. Now that things have calmed down, and their Dad is completely rehabilitated, I still feel the after effects. Although my kids are fine and show no signs of any emotional and mental damage, I still feel like I failed them. I still feel like I should have done a better job, and I still fear that things will go back to the way they were.

Current Mood: depressed

Hello
Name: Stephannie

Status: married

Age: almost 29

Location: Wyoming

Children: 2 and 3 year old daughters

Sahm/wohm/wahm: SAHM working towards WAHM

Hobbies/interests: cooking, writing novels, sewing, sex, reading just about anything that interests me, gardening, ranching, freelance writing, fantasy/fiction/romance/paranormal, music

More about me: I live on a ranch, in the old homestead house, and cook on a wood cookstove.

Name: kendra
status: single
age: 40
location: texas
children: a 4yr old daughter
hobbies/interests: computers, photography, web design
More about me: i have severe depressive disorder & have battled on & off with an eating disorder. my daughter is the love of my life & my reason for still being here.
my childs father is an addict and has been in & out of her life since.

Introduction
Name: Hannah
Status: I consider myself single
Age: 20
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Children: 6-month old boy, Aiden
Sahm/wohm/wahm: Currently SAHM; looking to change that
Hobbies: Photography, studying Psychology, snakes, spending time with my son.
More about me: I'm in a sticky situation. I trusted the wrong people who dragged me into a criminal act that has left me with a felony record that I shouldn't have. Aiden's father is in jail until the end of this month. I gave birth alone and have raised my son without his father's help. I say I consider myself single because as much as I'd like to make our relationship work, he isn't willing to grow up. I'm the mature one and I'm 6 years younger than he is.

I struggle daily with my PPD, get frustrated, want to scream and tear my hair out, cry more than my son does, and often don't want to get out of bed. But when my angel smiles at me, I know every tear and every torn follicle is worth it. =)

I'm always looking for moms, near or far, to talk to, voice my concerns, and have someone who knows what I'm going through. Add me? =)

( Pictures! )

Academia and e-books
Consider the huge amount of texts that have been scanned by Google and its academic partners, now available for indexing from any Internet-connected computer. Then consider the texts owned by your university's library. Now consider the intersection of these sets. What is stopping your university and Google from being able to fully offer this searchable, digitized library to its students? Clearly, the answer is "the rights of the publishers and authors". But when will this progress, and how will this progress? It seems inevitable to me that that's the direction things will go. It just seems so attractive. Surely something can be worked out such that there can be some fixed number of licenses available for each book. I do this all the time whenever I fire up MATLAB and the software retrieves a license from the school's server.

Basically, I dream of a day when I have a few color, highly-responsive Kindle-like things that'll let me pull up an entire library's worth of information without ever having to leave my desk. The technology has some ways to go from the current generation, no doubt, e.g., the ability to easily take notes on the pages, the adoption of color (however, see the soon-coming PixelQi for advances in these directions), easy document sharing between devices and your computer and the Internet and libraries-- but I'm excited for the direction it'll eventually head and the products which'll soon be out. The padds of Star Trek, anyone?

Sorry, I sort of exploded into nerdiness halfway through this post. But anyone with insight on academic library infrastructure or on publishing or on the recent Google Books settlements-- please inform and please speculate to your heart's content. I'm also curious to people's thoughts on e-books in general. I absolutely abhor reading documents on my computer, but it wasn't until I saw how paper-like the kindle was that I changed my mind on this entirely. I have to imagine that publishers are nervous, though. Suddenly textbooks will be way more amenable to piracy. You can already find almost any academic text (in math, at least) with an easy Google search. But those who do this are likely few in number, given the difficulty in printing it all out or reading it on your laptop. But to download an 8 MB file then to sideload it onto your device...? Crisis.

Also, unimpressed luddites, please come to the table, too. I'm interested in your thoughts.

Current Mood: nerdy
Current Music: Fleet Foxes

Video camera recommendations for data collection
I'm going to be collecting video data in classrooms, and my advisor/PI has told me that we have money for some new video cameras! Yay! The old ones take little tapes that take forever to copy onto a computer, and I don't even have the software to do so on my computer, only in a lab.

So I've talked him into new cameras that record right onto SD cards, which will both be a lot easier to access and can hold a lot more at once. But we have one major need that most cheapo digital video cameras don't worry much about - we need really good audio. We need to be able to hear kids across the room, possibly with other kids talking. The big advantage of our current cameras is that as you zoom the video in, the microphone "zooms" in as well and picks up the audio from where the camera is focused better.

Does anyone have recommendations or opinions on good cameras for this purpose? Yes, we may also be using individual audio recorders (especially for kids doing group work), but for full-class discussions it would really be nice to have one recording with both video and decent audio.

Name: Isis
Status: Single
Age: 18
Location: South West, England.
Children: One daughter [: Willow, 3 years old.
Sahm/wohm/wahm: I'm currently taking 3 A-Levels at college, which has been made possible from the massive support offered by the college.
Hobbies: Music, literature, foreign languages and culture (in particular Japanese), art, photography.
More about me: So as you've probably noticed, I'm quite young to have a 3 year old. I was a foolish girl when I was 15, and somehow thought I was inlove, which lead to me getting pregnant (in all fairness, it was a complete accident, but still). The father was out of our lives as soon as he heard the news, so I was left on my own. At the time, I thought it was the worst thing in the world, but now I am so happy that it happened. I spent most of my early pre-teen/teenage years suffering from an eating disorder, but falling pregnant made me realise I had bigger responsibilities, and I did my best to turn my life around. I've been recovered for 3 and a half years now, and now my life is dedicated to my baby girl. [:

EDIT: Thought I'd add some pics:

( Piccys )( Read more... )

Thesis subjects
Two years ago, when I started my doctoral degree, I already had an idea of what I wanted my dissertation to be on. Now that I'm almost done with my coursework and comps, I've begun doing some research on my topic, just to be ahead of the game.

Here is my dilemma: the topic I've chosen has not been extensively written about. This is, in a way, excellent! It means I will be writing a paper on a subject that has not been extensively covered(although it has growing interest in my field), and could therefore lead to some possible publishing (I am not required to have my paper published). The bad is I have very little to go with, and I obviously can't base a dissertation on let's say five articles and a website.

I have a paper advisor, but he cannot meet with me until next semester. I'm just curious as to what the general consensus is about thesis topics and the amount of research already done on said topic. There is no big hurry, I'm just a little worried. Thank you for your help!

Quoting typos
If a British student quotes an American-spelled paper, is the protocol to use the American spelling, surreptitiously correct the spelling, use the American spelling followed by a [sic], or correct the spelling and indicate the correction somehow?

What's the protocol in cases of typos and non-typographical errors that slightly obscure the meaning of the sentence, or that are incorrect in a way that doesn't obscure the sentence's meaning?

(New journal, LJer for nearly five years. Check my user info.)

Hi. :)

My name's Jessica - Jess is fine, too.

My grumpy cowboy (Nick, 24) and I have been friends for two and a half years, together for a year and a half, and engaged for a month. :)

I'm 23.

We live in Texas and will be moving to Washington state within a few years.

Our little girl, Charlie Ann, is two. (Her biological father was out of our lives when she was seven months.)

We're also parents to two Dachshund mixes - Lady, 6, and Slink, 5 months.

I'm a partial (?) stay-at-home mom. I was at school for seven hours per week this semester, and I'm registered to be out for twelve per week starting in January. I do a little online selling from home as well.

Contrary to normalcy, I really enjoy school. I also love watching baseball, photography, writing short stories, "nightlife", dancing, concerts, and travel.

I had a reading hiatus (excluding textbooks) for awhile, but now a long-overdue shipment from Barnes & Noble is on its way to me. My favorite book is An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison.

I <3 pretty much all music. I'll just leave it at that instead of trying to decide which bands/musicians to list. Same goes for movies - our Netflix queue is ridiculous, haha.

My favorite television shows are House, Dexter, and iCarly. Yep.

Let's be friends? :D

( Pics )

I'd LOVE some more LJ mommy friends!
Name: Liz

Status: Married since 2005, together since 2001

Age: 25

Location: Madison, Alabama

Children: One silly, 20 month old boy named Nolan

Sahm/wohm/wahm: Sahm. My husband is a high school art teacher, so things are usually tight money wise, but I love staying at home. Totally worth the pinch. Of course, I bring in a little by working Saturdays at our local Little Gym and teaching bellydance lessons three nights a week.

Hobbies: My number one hobby is bellydancing. I've been studying for almost 10 years now and still can't get enough. I teach and perform with a local live music collective that does both charity, outreach and paid performances. I also travel for workshops when I can collect my pennies. I've also started hooping and poi spinning...both of which I'm totally in love with. Other hobbies include reading, cooking, playing outside, drumming, sci-fi conventions (geeky, right?) and merry making.

More about me: I'm a strict vegetarian (not vegan, although I was before I got pregnant) and have been for almost 13 years. I'm not an animal rights activist, but I try to make my home as animal friendly as possible (meaning I try not to buy products tested on animals or that use animal parts). I listen to NPR and really haven't a clue what the network news stations say. I don't have cable and don't watch alot of TV or movies. This doesn't mean I'm not interested in politics, economics or current events...I just tend to keep things simple :-)

During the day, Nolan and I try to explore, create, learn, dance, sing, play and snuggle. When it's mommy time, I usually like to sit on the couch, read, sip something fermented and relax with my husband.

I get called a hippie mom, but I'm really not. I'm just a little alternative and little smelly sometimes ;-)

My journal isn't private, so feel free to check it out before you add me. I'd love to have some new mommy friends here!!

Current Mood: grateful

Advertisement