Module 4, or the one with the ending

 My first 3 blogs had really great hooks to get you started, so hopefully this lackluster ending will not be too harshly judged in comparison. You see, I know you know that even though I say I don't care about my grades, and I pretend I don't care about my grades, and I tell everyone on the planet I don't really care about my grades, I actually care an awful great deal. Mostly because I've always felt sort of second fiddle; like I need to prove I deserve to be where I am. It's likely that dreaded middle child syndrome I'm always being accused of having. When I was a kid my mom was always scolding me for "fishing for compliments" so maybe I have always wanted to prove my worth? Whatever the case, grades matter to me, even though they really shouldn't. I mean right now I'm over here freaking out because I got two questions wrong on a quiz for the other class when it means I'm now missing 5 points total across all my classes. And yet I'm still mad it happened. 

In terms of grading in my classroom, since I'm at the second largest district in the state, grading and how those grades are sent out is mostly determined for me. That being said, I want all my students to know that the grade only measures where they are at that specific point in time; it doesn't give them their value. I don't want them to feel as connected to the grade as I always am in the back of my mind. The grade should be about figuring out where your gaps in understanding are so that you can learn more; they shouldn't be about worth. (If only I could take my own advice about this!)

Finally, in terms of this class, I would have to say I've learned more than I did in all my other classes this quarter combined. I've enjoyed helping my classmates with their work (and I anticipate doing that several more times before Midnight on Friday), and really discovered I liked making my own lessons from scratch (even the rubrics lol). I guess my nerdy nature extends even farther than I realized. There are a lot of things from this program right now I wish I could change, but this class is definitely not one of them.

~Ido Wah Nah

Module 3, or the one with the bird

 Dude, today has been weird. It started out with an actual sparrow flying through my house, had a potentially drunk and or heat-stroking old man in the middle, and a peter piper peck of paper prattle for a certain professor that nearly sent me into a tailspin at the end. Thankfully, I also found time to apply some of the lessons from this week's module through the chaos that was my day, and get some great ideas for this weeks blog. Oh yeah, did I mention the UTI?

First, the bird. I opened my bedroom window this morning because I realized the weather had cleared a bit, and my kitties had been driving me absolutely nuts with drama at the window since I closed it up last week when the smoke rolled in. My ex-husband helped me construct this really cool little screen to keep the cats from getting out to the wildlife, and presumably the wildlife from getting into the house. 

Jokes on me though because somehow a tiny little baby sparrow figured out how to get through a previously unknown opening in my catio and it was now stuck in the bottom of the window well. Turns out the cats' intense interest in the window had nothing to do with missing the outside world and everything to do with their desire to become APEX PREDATORS while hunting that poor bird. Next thing I know I'm literally running through my house chasing a baby sparrow as it flops about and three of my four cats alternate between pouncing and staring confusedly at the bird under their naïve little paws. I was thankfully able to catch the little bird, take it over to Garland Animal Clinic, and their vet Dr. Sorensen did a once over before I was able to release the poor little guy back into the yard.

Just when I was getting settled in after the bird saga, a classmate asked if I could help with some edits for the aforementioned peck of prattling procrastination professor. I quickly switched gears, and spent the following two hours focused intently on providing the best feedback I possibly could on the classroom management plan causing a struggle. I felt it was the only thing to do, seeing as the professor for this process is dealing with a plethora of personal pain (I think I may have played out this p pun, but it was puntastic while it puh-lasted. 😂) It was really nice though, to apply some of the skills we've been talking about in the assessment process while working on the paper. It gave me new insight into how important individualized assessment can be, and I think my help with the paper made a difference (at least I hope I did.)

Of course, my story can't end there since I promised a drunk guy and a UTI. Right as I finished up helping out my classmate, I realized that I was starting to feel an all too familiar pressure in my upper left rear flank. If you've ever had a UTI, kidney infection, or kidney stone, you know this pain all to well by the time you've reached 44 years old. So, I started a care chat with the Dr., got a urinalysis scheduled, completed, the results reported in the KP app, and a script for antibiotics by 4:45 PM (thankfully I got a very understanding Dr. on the care chat who still remembered the dread of missing a deadline in school. Shout out to you, Dr. Dude.)

That, however, leads us to the final weirdness of today. On my drive home from the KP Riverfront, while I was looking left before turning right from Buckeye to Post, I saw a man fully slumped in an awkward looking way. He was in a driveway right on the corner of the street, but I couldn't tell in my quick glimpse what was happening for sure. I'm really grateful for handsfree dialing these days; I asked my phone to dial the number for CrimeCheck and was eventually connected with the fire department. They asked me to circle back and check on the guy so they could find him easier. Of course when I got there I realized the man was more than likely just so drunk he couldn't keep walking so I declined the request to approach him, but instead sat across the road with my flashers going so the fire department didn't have to struggle with a location too. They arrived pretty quickly, so I headed home to finally take a look at my paper for the professor from perpetual p-dom. 

Before I could finish it, though, I had a bit of an epiphany, and I realized everything that happened today, including the bird, was a great allegory for what it's like to run a classroom and complete individualized instruction and assessments. There are days when a student may be like the bird - in a crisis - and other days that a student may need individualized, directed feedback in order to overcome struggles on a specific assignment (like my classmate). Other times what you assume will be one issue (a neighbor passed out in 100 degree weather or a student struggling with reading) will end up being something else (a guy who enjoyed way too many sips of a 40 or a student who doesn't have phonemic awareness), The key as an educator is to make sure that we are always striving to meet our students where they are. It means that I need to take the time to notice the students in crisis (be it in academic terms or emotional ones), and make efforts to support them through the challenges. It means that no matter what, I should always focus on the individual student who is in front of me in that moment, and do everything I can to ensure their success. Now, I feel it is time for me to get slumped like Matlida before I tackle the last bit of my draft lesson plan tomorrow. Hopefully without any birds. Or neighbors in the driveway. Or UTIs. Yeah, all of that.

~Ido Wah Nah

Module 2, or the one where I learned I can't write questions, like at all, but I sure can answer them

So this week was definitely full of challenges. I'm not even sure where to start, there was so much packed into it (and I'm not even done yet - yikes!) Probably like you do with a band-aid - a swift, efficient tug from the edges straight across the middle.

I am completely stupid when it comes to Bloom's Taxonomy. Like I get the idea behind it, and I know that it is extremely valuable, but for some reason when it comes time to sit down and write a question that fits that specific category I completely freak the fuck out (by the way I'm assuming that because this is college, a blog, anonymous, and you mentioned you have a military background I'm safe to continue my horrible habit of dropping f-bombs more often than a seagull drops white shit on bald heads, but if I'm wrong, please be gentle with me.) I have spent more time staring at various examples of different teachers' question stems than I care to calculate and all I've managed to do so far is give myself a headache and worry that I'm going to turn in my first late assignment for this program due to ridiculous performance anxiety. It's so bad, in fact, that I'm over here writing a blog post willingly. Seriously, who even am I?

I have, however, learned a heck of a lot about assessment creation through making the performance task and rubric, and I discovered I sort of enjoyed making the selected response assessment (yeah, it freaked me out too, yo). I also realized why you want us to backwards design our units. This process has really helped me narrow down the lesson plan I'm creating for the end of the class, and I have a much better grasp of the content in general. 

I also discovered this week that I enjoy teaching no matter what the setting is. For awhile I thought I really hated teaching college; that's the whole reason why I stopped my English studies - I was miserable. What I actually didn't like about academia was all the bullshit that the majority of the academics brought to the table (read that the need to be most right). I loved the conversations I had with my classmates; there is nothing quite like the banter that happens under the stress of an assignment. What I loved the most though, was the opportunity to teach my classmates and learn from them. Today we had a great two hour conversation on zoom about our assessment projects, and then another classmate reached out to me directly later for 45 more minutes. The conversation we had was brisk, vibrant, and most of all we all got something out of it. But the best part of it was definitely being able to help my classmates understand things they had been confused about. 

Now, if only I could figure out how to come up with these bloody 18 questions before midnight tomorrow.  ~Ido Wah Nah

Module 1, or "Flashback to the worst class of my college career"

First I have to reflect on this blog; I haven't used it since June 2010 when I was in my capstone for my Creative Writing degree, and if you decide to go back and read it, you'll see I did not exactly enjoy the process. The professor I had absolutely loathed me. I don't say that in hyperbole, I mean she actually hated me. She made a point of telling our class that she would either pass us with a 4.0 or fail us. She went on and on about how she'd never given anything but a 4.0 or a fail, but then she gave me a 3.9. She would tell our class she didn't get poets and thought poetry was sort of a waste, and then expect us to be cool with her ripping our work apart. And to top it all off she was the head of the club for the literary magazine I was the editor in chief of, but she refused to go to any of our club meetings or return my emails. Then to top it all off she falsely accused me of academic dishonesty AFTER my graduation date, and I had to go to a hearing and prove she was lying. 

 Anyway, I bring all this up to say that the biggest thing she taught me was that personal biases have no place in your grade book, ever. This professor's job was supposed to help us in our culminating class before graduating with creative writing degrees, and she spent the majority of each class railing against poets (there were like 7 of us I think) while praising the creative nonfiction writers, and basically ignoring the fiction writers. Her assessment method of 4.0 or fail gave no student any sense of the quality of their work or where they needed to go, and her blinders towards proper feedback did a disservice to everyone. 

I personally believe that assessments should not be used to indicate a student grade at all; at least not one that determines what sort of a student they are. I want my students to feel empowered to learn and grow, and the only way to do that is for them to learn from their mistakes. If someone wants to take an exam 5 times because they don't like their score, I want to encourage them to do that (though I'd also probably want to help them study first). If I have a student that doesn't test well, I want to take the time to figure out how I can properly assess them. Because I have so much personal experience through my daughter's eyes with what it feels like to be placed into a "corner" based on your ability to test or function in a classroom, I place a really high value on teaching to the student right in front of me. For example this past year in my science class I had a 5th grade student who could not read at all. He was eager to learn science though, and he loved asking questions during class. If I had just handed him the test and asked him to take it on his own, he definitely would have failed. But, and this is a big one, the goal of my class was NOT to assess his ability to read, my goal was to determine if he understood the concepts of science I was teaching. So, I assessed him orally, and I had him talk out his responses. And guess what, that student who couldn't read had listened actively in every class, asked questions, and he passed his assessment with one of the highest grades in the class. 

So to summarize, I think that assessments should be a tool for students and teachers to guide instruction, and nothing more. Grades should be based on effort, participation, and individual student growth. I just wish my district would get with the program too. ~Ido Wah Nah