Co-Workers Teaching Styles

So since I was only working with Tony this past Saturday session, my reflection will be about his teaching style based on what I've observed from this Session as well as the the past few sessions.

I've noticed that Tony speaks up loudly whenever he's leading a lesson and also goes through the lesson thoroughly to insure total understanding. He also does a great job when he's working one on one with a student to answer a question or help solve a problem they're having with their project--he also doesn't hesitate to call me over for further help if there's something he's not too sure about.

Some things I noticed that he could improve on a little more are moving around the class more both when he's leading as well as when he isn't. I noticed that Tony tends to stay at the front of the classroom when he's teaching, and at the back when he's not. So that could be something he could work on, moving around while he teaches could grab the students attention more and really make sure that they are paying attention, and moving around while he isn't teaching could ensure again that the students are really paying attention and are not being distracted by facebook or games, etc. as well as be more available for those who may have fallen behing a bit or have questions pertaining to the lesson that the leading instructor might have missed or wouldn't really have time to stop for; so he would be kind of like the eyes in the back of the room for the instructor who's leading at the front and cant catch every little thing with the students.

But yeah, overall he's doing a great job as an instructor of course.

End of the summer blog

-Maybe the only thing I'm wondering about still as far as the role of the unit support and coordinator is the ITA Bugs and how to get them to send the notifications to my gmail instead of my wiscmail. Other than that I think I'm pretty comfortable with everything else as far as the roles of unit support and unit coordinator.

-As far as the system of unit coordinator and support, I feel there could always be a higher level of communication between the two in order to assure things go a lot smoother with less confusion as far as what everyone should or could be doing for the lessons.

-The 3 act structure works just fine and is really a big help when it comes to planning lessons and making time for everything. So no complaints about the 3 act structure at all.

-I really enjoyed the students, units, lessons, and everything we did over the summer in all three camps. I hope we're able to put all the videos up from vegas camp soon because I'm really excited to see the rest of them. And I had some of the most fun getting to know the new freshman.

Blitz Day!

Our blitz video was a satirical commercial about pop ups. I actually chose this topic for our group because I was inspired from the previous two camps in the sections where we talked about computer viruses and safe keep. So I think the biggest thing we learned is that filming takes a lot of re-doing and doing-over and repeating ..and more doing over and repeating after that from different angles in order to make a decent scene. Another thing we learned (or at least me since I was doing most of the directing) is that you should always keep in mind the bigger picture of your movie, meaning you want to keep in mind how different shots and angles will fit together in the composition and where you'll be making cuts and all that good stuff about how the final project will turn out in general. One other thing i'm definitely sure we all learned is that making a movie is a lot of fun. One thing i'm sure we'll all keep in mind for future videos is that we should leave just about enough time for filming as for editing the film.

Summer '09 Goals Survey

-Plan for the session as much as possible as far as making sure everything you have planned will be able to be covered within the session; however, if time is running short, don't feel the need to rush--you can just make up whatever you didn't get to the best you can next session in possibly a more time efficient manner. So i guess it's Quality, not Quantity.

-Always have more planned than you expect to get to so that the students aren't left with unauthorized excess free time to surf the web if they finish early with certain activities.

-Circle discussions/ feedback works very well for checking progress and getting & maintaining momentum.

-"So I guess as an instructor, as much as you would like to, you can't awasy get caught up in being on the students' good side and sometimes it is just really necessary that you be a little more assertive than you regularly are in order to get things done; however, I still believe that a good balance between the two will always keep things going pretty smoothly and not bring up too much tension or anything like that."

-Using downloaded fonts for session powerpoints aren't really the best idea. Lots of problems came up whenever I tried it.

-Take more STT, STS, and/or PTE classes

Last Session

Goals for the day: Really get to each group and give them good and useful hints and tips on their projects. Make sure they are staying on task so that they will be definitely.

4/25/09 Session

I don't really have much to say about today because it was mostly all showcase work time in both the morning and the afternoon, and I really didn't do much but help them out with finishing their projects.

For the morning all the freshman finished their projects with no problems, and for the sophomores, all of them either finished or are super close to being finished with only a few more things to add, except for Terrence (who has a lot to do and will work at home with Gabe and email the ITA gmail account their project when they are done).

So it wasn't really anything new for me as an instructor today in the labs; however, my little "discussion" time in Will's class with the seniors about being a PEOPLE Scholar and a little bit about being a student at UW Madison. It was kind of different experience from being an instructor because I wasn't really teaching anything to them, so I felt more like a public speaker or something. It was just a different experience, so it was pretty interesting to feel like I was the "wise one" with vital knowledge, information, and advice for them to use once they become students at UW Madison.

4/18 session

Today I pretty much lead for both the afternoon and morning sessions (which I dont think was supposed to be done for the morning session but it just kind of ended up that way).

So for the morning session with Sabrina, I was expecting to just be basically the support for the session and Sabrina was going to be leading with whatever she had planned or whatever was posted on the Wiki, however, I guess there was some confusion as far as that because I basically ended up taking over the session for the day as we went through getting them all on the right track with their showcase projects (and in a way I kind of feel like I could have been "stingy" with the teaching that session because I didnt really leave much or make much time to let Sabrina do much, but at the same time I felt sort of obligated to kind of "step up" for that session for the sake of actually getting the session up and going). So maybe for the next session when I'm understood to just be the "support," I'll try harder to just sort of sit back and do more more of encouraging for the instructor that is supposed to be leading that session to actually get everything started and lead for the day. But other than that I think the students made a reasonable amount of progress on their showcase projects and i was able to help a lot of them with their ideas. Although it seems like they're kind of struggling with coming up for a way to really be able to engage an audience of elementary students, so that'll definitely be something for them to work on or the next session.

For the afternoon session, I lead the session (as I expected) and Elizabeth was did well as the "support" instructor. We started off by going over how the students' BTW were almost and what they needed to understand/do in order for them to be finished. So for the BTWs, I know that all of them were successfully done all the way except for Ashanti because she looked llike she still had a little bit more to do when I had glanced at her progress (but Elizabeth was working with her so I'm not sure how far they got with that and if they actually got it completed by the time we moved on to the showcase). Also, Adrainne's BTW was pretty basic and simple and could've been improved a whole lot more, but I kind of figured since she was so far behind and we were getting ready to move on to an entirely different project, that it would be best to just go through her project with her and see what still needed to be done, and jus sort of do the smallest tweaks to her project so that all the boxed on her evaluation sheet could be completed, so yeah, if ever there's like some kind of extra time I'd really like to see hers re-worked a bit more.

As far as the showcase with the afternoon session, there was quite a bit of confusion as far as how the students were progressing with their projects--partly from me because I wasn't with them for the last session so I wasn't sure where everybody was with their projects or where everyone was a class, and also there confusion amongst the students because I guess some of them forgot their project ideas or where they were planning on going with them (even after we brought them up ont he wiki). But the project proposal sheet helped out a lot as far as making sure just about everyone was either working with a set plan of how their project would be, or else they had a set of guidelines in front of them to get started with what their project idea was going to be.

And for the permit test, we didnt get to it because of the fact that so many stuents had to leave early to prepare for the talent show so that will definitely be the first thing to get into at the next session.

3/28

Today was possibly the best session I've had with the Freshman so far. The session went very smoothly, I was able to make sure the students were on task, and we got a lot accomplished for their spring showcase projects even though not everyone's partner was present (and it looks like we might have one group of 3). Before this session I don't think the students were really thinking much about their showcase projects because not too many of them had an idea. So we started off with me showing the students a couple of nice examples from Dvice.com to get them geared in the right direction (because although I have told them about the site before, I don't think too many of them actually looked through it so picking a few good examples from the actual site and showing them really helped). After that, we allowed the students a couple of minutes to get an idea down and then we got into a little circle discussion and went around and had the students tell everyone the details of their project. This helped a lot becasue even those that still weren't too sure about what they were going to do had a chance to heear other ideas from their peers which ended up sparking new ideas for them. After going around for the second time and really pushing the students the think about the details of their projects, we had them write it all down on a piece of paper which we would collect later as a reference to who's doing what s that next session we can help out even more and also make sure the students are on track.
Aside from the fact that a lot got done and that the students were kept busy, I think another reason why it was a good session is because I was a bit more assertive with them when they were gettin off task (like games or facebook) and we had to take away the internet from some of them for a while but it all worked out well. So I guess as an instructor, as much as you would like to, you can't awasy get caught up in being on the students' good side and sometimes it is just really necessary that you be a little more assertive than you regularly are in order to get things done; however, I still believe that a good balance between the two will always keep things going pretty smoothly and not bring up too much tension or anything like that.
The showcase introduction to the seniors that I lead didn't go as well as with the freshmen, I think mainly just because they are seniors and are ready to graduate, so they werent really all that engaged or interested it seemed with my introduction to the showcase. But that's fine I guess because I remember how it was to be a senior and just ready to graduate. The second time the showcase was introduced (with me and sabrina to the sophomores), I think it went much better and the students seemed very engaged and interested in the showcase; however, I think I might have been talking too much for this presentation because it was realy supposed to be for Sabrina to get more used to speaking in front of the class and finding her own way to get them engaged so the last time we introduced it, I hardly said anything and let her lead--and although there were some things I felt were important to remind her to add in the presentation, I think it went pretty well with her by herself becasue the srudents still seemed pretty engaged.

*Also, note-to-self: no more using new fonts on powerpoints--it takes too long install them on other computers in order for them to show up and it doesn't always work. So...yeah.

Session 2/28

Goals: Keep drinking my juice every now and then, and try not to talk to loud because of my throat.


Today went pretty smooth. The morning with the freshman didn't seem as hectic as it usually is which is probably because we were talking about Photoshop and they seemed interested. For the spring showcase, they all have their groups together but not all of them have a solid idea just yet on what they want to do. They might need a few more examples or maybe just to set aside about half an hour in a little circle so that they are away from their computers (since a lot them are constantly being distracted by internet games during worktime) to brainstorm with their groups on possible project ideas.

The Photoshop session went pretty well. I think the students had fun with editing their photos and were really interested in some of the FX they could use and also with my Sin City Effect lesson that i decided to show them just to give them another idea to incorporate into their photos. They seemed to be excited about getting started on their BTWs as well and they have a lot of options to choose from. I like how AJ had the students come into a little oval kind of group to talk about their ideas so far on what they wanted to do for their BTW projects because the "monitors off" technique isn't always fully effective with every student. So I'm definitely going to start using that with the freshman. And I guess I didnt really go through with my goal becasue at the end of the sessions my voice actually got a little worse so I was really trying not to talk too loud or much at all.

2/14 Freshmen & Photoshop Sessions

My Goals for today were to not rush through the material. And I did a good job of not doing that.

Freshmen Morning Class:
Most of the students only had a little bit left for their Dreamweaver BTW except for Gavin's group, so after everyone got through their external style sheet, they pretty much had to wait until Gavin's group finished because they were so far behind. They mainly were just on facebook or myspace or games while Tony and I helped Gavin's group finish, but I didint really like that and I wanted them to have something to work on but I had completely forgot about the ITA Spring shpwcase handout so I didnt think to hand that out to them and have them work on that until Gavin's group finished.
I dont think any of them finished the road test but I dont really see that as a problem anymore after AJ explained that if they dont pass the road test it's because they havent been putting forth enough effort for the unit in order for them to know the program on that high of a level. But I think the photoshop Introduction went pretty well; they seemed pretty interested in it.

Photoshop:
This session I really felt went great. My Powerpint for compositing and the pen tool were very effective and engaging and they seemed really interesting in what I was showing them. I'm happy to say that even though I felt there was a lot that needed to be covered in this session, I didnt feel the need to rush like before--and that really showed because the students didnt feel as confused as they seemed to be last session. The only thing is, is that becasue I took my time the fix your photo challenge wasnt covered so they didnt get to work on that and we kind of ran out of time for the pen tool. So for next session I'l probably just start with a quick little review of the pen tool and illustrating in photoshop and then let them finally get to work with the photos they took, ince they've been itching to do that ever since they first took them.

1/31

So all of today was very "timey," in the sense that there was a lot that needed to be done or gone through but only a set limited amount of time so a lot of plans had to be cut out the schedule.

In the morning with the freshmen, work time for their Web BTW projects had to be cut out of the schedule for time's sake in order to make time for the ITA Jeopardy, the PPT Road Test, and the Dreamweaver Permit test. So next session that will definitely be one of the first things that needs to be done. But other than that, we got through everything pretty smoothly.

In the afternoon with Photoshop, the same problem of insufficient time came up. The original plan was to have Elizabeth's photo restoration and enhacement section go for about an hour, my compositing section go for another hour, and then have Pacal's "fix your face" activity go for the remaining 445 minutes or so. However, although things didn't go as planned, I think the students got a lot out of the session today from me and Elizabeth's presentation. Elizabeth's presentation did such a good job incorporating the "bigger picture" theme into her lesson but the only thing is that hers ended up being about an hour and a half so that made my presentation have to be cut for time's sake. A big reason why Elizabeth's lesson went so long was because of the discussions I think, so in the future, although the discussions are important becasue they bring up the bigger picture theme, we might have to cut back on them a bit.

But because of the time problem, my lesson seemed a bit rushed becasue I was going to try to get through everything I planned to get through and still leave time for Pacal and his setion. So what ended up happening becasue of my rushed plan is that those who already had a decent feel for the program caught on pretty well with what I was covering but those that didn't have as good a grasp of the program kinda began to fall behind--so we might have to go through compositing again in order to get more in depth as I had planned originally. So for next session we'll probably reintroduce compositing, get through it, and then go into the "fix your photo" project with Pacal.

Freshman & Photoshop 1/17

The morning with the freshman didn't go as well as it couldv'e i think mainly because a lot of the students were already finished with their BTW powerpoints so while the others were still working, they didn't really have anything to do. But once everyone was finished, we had them present their powerpoints in the front of the class, so that went pretty good.
I think the Showcase introduction went great though. I feel I spoke loud enough and made an engaging enough powerpoint to get keep the students' attention on the topic and they seemed pretty interested in the idea of making their own invention.
But after the showcase, when we started the html/css review I felt like I couldn't really do much becasue of my lack of knowledge in that department. I was looking at the permit test for it to try to see what I could help out with in reviewing but I wasn't to sure I knew a lot of the material ont he test so i just let Tony cover the html/css review for the most part.

The afternoon with Photoshop went good and it was pretty fun I think for the instructors as well as the students. We started off showing them some of the basics about the program and what they can do with it as far as making money doing professional layouts and what not. So that introduction got the students pretty interested, not to mention that Photoshop is just a cool program to work with in general so they were already pretty interested. But I think they really had fun with the pacman fix challenege and the kidmixtape walk through as well.

Portfolios 1/3

The portfolio session seems to be one of the more tiring units because there were a lot of questions that arose between the freshman class in the morning and the sophomore class in the afternoon. That might be because of the fact that I only had about a day to prepare the lesson plan/power point or just because of the fact that it was either so much or not enough to do that some of the kids were confused as to what they should do next. For example: the freshman class didn't have much to add to their portfolio as of yet simply because they haven't been in the program for long and they haven't necessarily had the opportunity to create work in the programs taught here--so the most that they could add to it really was just the web pages that they made during the summer. The sophomores, however, had a lot to do and seemed pretty motivated to add a lot of content to their portfolios since they have had the opportunity to build a decent amount of work from different programs. Either way, both classes asked a lot of questions. Another reason this session might have seemed pretty tiring is because not that many students were present today so at times it was kind of like the energy was just sucked out of the room. Some things that I would like to do more with this unit is work with students who are actually interested in creating and incorporating their own design into their portfolio instead of the one provided, because ot was fun showing them how to change the color of the border and the border style. Allowing more time for more thought to go into this lesson plan would help for next time.