It's one of those days again where it seems like I can't get any work done! I spent the entire day going over a lesson plan for Chem 20 and started a weebly site for my 501 website...
But that was it for today! =(
Sigh... laziness will be the end of me... and I probably said this before too somewhere... Ironically, laziness is this week's theme. I think I'll take a nice big picture of me being lazy.
As the saying goes, tomorrow is another day! I hope you look forward to my special blog tomorrow: senses.
Saturday, 24 November 2012
Friday, 23 November 2012
Week 2 Friday
I forgot to take a picture of my meal today at Libertine Pub. I had the Jerk Chicken sandwich, which turned out to be pretty decent. I also had a mad bomber (Gin + Coca Cola), which was unique. I'm not too fond of the taste of Gin, but I guess it'll eventually grow on me. =/
As for school today, we pretty much went over the quiz/unit test that students wrote yesterday. I'm amazed at how fast my partner teacher returns back tests! I hope that I can be as quick when I start administrating my own tests in the future. =P Besides going over exams, the students in biology played a little review game to get ready for their unit exam on Monday. The unit will cover mitosis, meiosis, DNA replication, transcription and translation. I hope that we did them justice when we taught the last three concepts! They did pretty well on the quiz (on DNA replication, transcription and translation), so that's a good sign!
For the chemistry class, they went through more stoich. Starting Monday, we'll be in charge of teaching the entire Chemistry class! I'm anxious, yet excited! I guess a very positive anxious feeling if that makes any sense! For the first time, I'll be teaching for more than 45 minutes! (I'm thinking it'll be about 2 hours of teaching).
I should be doing my lesson plans, but I'll do it tomorrow. =P
As for school today, we pretty much went over the quiz/unit test that students wrote yesterday. I'm amazed at how fast my partner teacher returns back tests! I hope that I can be as quick when I start administrating my own tests in the future. =P Besides going over exams, the students in biology played a little review game to get ready for their unit exam on Monday. The unit will cover mitosis, meiosis, DNA replication, transcription and translation. I hope that we did them justice when we taught the last three concepts! They did pretty well on the quiz (on DNA replication, transcription and translation), so that's a good sign!
For the chemistry class, they went through more stoich. Starting Monday, we'll be in charge of teaching the entire Chemistry class! I'm anxious, yet excited! I guess a very positive anxious feeling if that makes any sense! For the first time, I'll be teaching for more than 45 minutes! (I'm thinking it'll be about 2 hours of teaching).
I should be doing my lesson plans, but I'll do it tomorrow. =P
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Week 2 Day 4 - I'M JOINING A MUSICAL!
The biology and chemistry classes had exams today so I didn't have to teach anything. Instead, I spent block 2 (biology) to invigilate exams while block 3 was spent observing a math 20 AP class. It brings back memories of when I was in IB. There were a bunch of questions on the board and I was able to do about 40% of them. Not bad considering I haven't seen high school math for a while!
Block 4 was spent in a biology 20 classroom. It was interesting to observe another science teacher and the techniques he used in his classroom.
Perhaps the most intriguing part of the day was when I accepted the role as a piano accompaniment for the musical that the high school is holding in a couple of weeks! I have to say that I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing since I never played in a musical before. Also, it's been a while since I last played as an accompaniment (high school jazz band). I've been listening to the music that I have to play and some of the songs sound tricky. I'll have to wait and see what the sheet music looks like tomorrow! =P
The next couple of weeks will sure be busy with the practicing that I'll need to do for the musical!
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Week 2 Day 3
Practicum today was relatively quiet. I started my morning by visiting the university fair they had going on in their gymnasium. I'm impressed that they were able to recruit... I believe it was 20+ different universities to come talk to the high school students. I saw schools like UofC, UofA, MRU, and many other universities that I didn't recognize (East coast somewhere).
In biology today, they went over a review booklet that covered the unit that my learning partner and I taught. I think for the most part they got the concepts that we discussed (DNA, replication, transcription, translation and mutations). There were some confusion in terms of what was the coding strand, what was the template strand for mRNA, mRNA codon and tRNA anti-codon, but I think at least some of the students were able to understand it once we went over the concepts briefly together.
Since there are quizzes/unit finals tomorrow, a couple students came during lunch time to seek assistance. I helped this one student go over using the pH and pOH formulas during the lunch break. I hope I was able to help her!
Both chem classes started stoichiometry today. They went through a review of net ionic equations and started on learning how to use the mol ratio.
Luckily for me today, I don't have to prep anything for tomorrow since it's all quizzes and unit finals! I did end up doing nothing at home since I felt tired. However, I did put in about an hour and a half worth of LoL...
In biology today, they went over a review booklet that covered the unit that my learning partner and I taught. I think for the most part they got the concepts that we discussed (DNA, replication, transcription, translation and mutations). There were some confusion in terms of what was the coding strand, what was the template strand for mRNA, mRNA codon and tRNA anti-codon, but I think at least some of the students were able to understand it once we went over the concepts briefly together.
Since there are quizzes/unit finals tomorrow, a couple students came during lunch time to seek assistance. I helped this one student go over using the pH and pOH formulas during the lunch break. I hope I was able to help her!
Both chem classes started stoichiometry today. They went through a review of net ionic equations and started on learning how to use the mol ratio.
Luckily for me today, I don't have to prep anything for tomorrow since it's all quizzes and unit finals! I did end up doing nothing at home since I felt tired. However, I did put in about an hour and a half worth of LoL...
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Week 2 Day 2
Class periods were shorter today due to an evacuation drill. Fortunately, we were on track in biology, so it wasn't an issue for the two of us to finish talking about translation and mutations. We had the chance to go through a translation activity, which I hoped, helped the students grasp the concept. Looking back, I wished I took a bit more time to think the activity through... I forgot to ask a couple volunteers to act as ribosomes, so I'm not sure if they got the idea of the "three" different sites.
The evacuation drill itself was relatively straight forward. We walked towards an elementary school during the drill. It was quite cold out and I didn't wear my warm jacket, so it was quite cold walking to and from the elementary school. During the walk, there were some students that were quite rowdy, including one that kept stepping on my heels and even had the nerve to push me off the sidewalk without apologizing... I should have disciplined him, but I guess I wasn't quite sure how I would discipline him since I'm not an official teacher.
Chemistry was quite straight forward today. The students went over a acids and base lab where they got to go through five different stations and test out the properties of different chemicals. It was an interesting lab and it seems like some of the students are able to make connections between the course material and the lab.
After bus supervision, we had a lengthy, but eye opening chat with our partner teacher. We learnt more about the aspects of what being a teacher is and about the difficulty that we will eventually have to go through. I have heard similar stories in my last practicum, but nevertheless, it has strengthen my resolve in becoming a teacher and being able to change, if just only one, the life(ves) of (a) student(s).
Once again, no picture... I'm getting lazy...
And it was my brother's birthday today, so I guess I could have taken a picture of the cake. =P Oh well
The evacuation drill itself was relatively straight forward. We walked towards an elementary school during the drill. It was quite cold out and I didn't wear my warm jacket, so it was quite cold walking to and from the elementary school. During the walk, there were some students that were quite rowdy, including one that kept stepping on my heels and even had the nerve to push me off the sidewalk without apologizing... I should have disciplined him, but I guess I wasn't quite sure how I would discipline him since I'm not an official teacher.
Chemistry was quite straight forward today. The students went over a acids and base lab where they got to go through five different stations and test out the properties of different chemicals. It was an interesting lab and it seems like some of the students are able to make connections between the course material and the lab.
After bus supervision, we had a lengthy, but eye opening chat with our partner teacher. We learnt more about the aspects of what being a teacher is and about the difficulty that we will eventually have to go through. I have heard similar stories in my last practicum, but nevertheless, it has strengthen my resolve in becoming a teacher and being able to change, if just only one, the life(ves) of (a) student(s).
Once again, no picture... I'm getting lazy...
And it was my brother's birthday today, so I guess I could have taken a picture of the cake. =P Oh well
Monday, 19 November 2012
Week 2
Today marked the start of my second week of practicum. As always, I started off my day with prep. During this time, I went through what I was going to say for biological translation. During the lesson itself, I believe I was able to get the main point across, but I was unable to finish the entire topic. I'll have to finish that first thing tomorrow!
It's for sure a lot tougher to teach high school science compared to junior high science. There's a lot more prep work that I need to do to teach. At times, I have to ask myself how much detail that these students need to know for their grade level, since at times the material they learn is a simplified model of what actually takes place. (I can understand why my Chem prof said on the first day of 201, that everything we learnt in high school is wrong. Technically it's not really wrong, just an overly simplified model that fail to address certain points =P).
I'm still learning the names of my students! I feel ashamed that I was not able to learn everybody's name during the last week. I was able to do that in my last practicum, but I'm struggling in this practicum. =(
It's for sure a lot tougher to teach high school science compared to junior high science. There's a lot more prep work that I need to do to teach. At times, I have to ask myself how much detail that these students need to know for their grade level, since at times the material they learn is a simplified model of what actually takes place. (I can understand why my Chem prof said on the first day of 201, that everything we learnt in high school is wrong. Technically it's not really wrong, just an overly simplified model that fail to address certain points =P).
I'm still learning the names of my students! I feel ashamed that I was not able to learn everybody's name during the last week. I was able to do that in my last practicum, but I'm struggling in this practicum. =(
Sunday, 18 November 2012
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