Coming to a Close

I'm a bit bothered that I have not posted in a while, but it is with good reason.  I am in the home stretch of training.  The last day of my graduate course is today.  I still have to revise a few lesson plans for the final project, but aside from that, there are no more scheduled meeting times.  That means my last 12 hour day is today! YAYAYA!

Next week, I still am required to go to my field training site to observe and teach.  This is often the highlight of my day.  I get to work with students as a whole class, in small groups or one on one.  Establishing a healthy academic relationship with them is satisfying for me and beneficial for them.  Today was the midterm for two sections of Living Environment I've been observing and occasionally teaching.  Unfortunately, I do not expect many of them to do well.  During classes they were often not engaged or enjoying themselves and therefore not effectively learning.

I do not quite understand this, but when they were finishing the test, they found it acceptable to hand it into me telling that it was finished.  I would look at it, see that there were at least five questions not answered.  I returned it to them saying that is was, indeed, not finished and that I wanted them to try to answer the questions.  It seems that many of them are so easily satisfied with low mediocrity or failure.

One student insisted that he did not know and had nothing to write.  I insisted that he write something, even if it was that he did not know.  Hopefully this well let them see that they must know when something is finished before they can finish it well.  Obviously, this presents an overwhelming challenge for both student and teacher.  Most importantly, I think they do understand that I have a genuine concern for their academic success.  My ability to address that in summer school is limited because these are technically not my classes, but it gives me insight into what I would like to see in the fall.

Also, next week, I must attend my Student Achievement Framework sessions from 2-4 at CCNY, a much better and earlier time slot than 4-6.  Once next week is over, I am free for most of August until the last week on Thursday when I have to report to my school for teacher orientation.  In retrospect, training has gone by extremely fast even though it felt like time was static while I was in it.  I look forward (with some mild trepidation) to establishing my own class in the fall and continuing to learn how to help students do well in every aspect of their lives.

11 Hours of Sleep

Yesterday was the first full day of training.  I woke up at about 5:30 to ensure that I could commute from Ridgewood Queens to 137th St in Manhattan by 9AM.  I expected a very long commute.  Turns out, it took about an hour instead of closer to two.

Training was interesting.  At about 9:15 after some complimentary breakfast danishes and orange juice, administrative people from City College and NYCTF were introduced.  After some logistics, science immersion fellows (including me) left to go get our City College IDs.

After waiting in a long line with only one person operating one computer to create the IDs, I left to the college cafeteria to enjoy a tasty but quick lunch.  I was pretty impressed by the selection in the cafeteria compared to my college!  Well, I guess at this point, my alma mater.

In the latter half of the day was the real nuts and bolts of training.  Two gentlemen lead science immersion fellows in an activity where we all discusses and presented descriptives of effective teachers then reflected on the process of the activity.  We also received a short assignment to write a reflection about two articles given to us by Isaac Asimov and Brian Greene.

During the second session of training, the guy was kind of over the top.  He was good, great in fact, at teaching.  He totally blew our preconceptions about a heliocentric solar system out of the water.  I watched at people used poor logic to prove to him that our universe is heliocentric and not geocentric.  To you, the reader, this may sound confusing.  But think about it... How do you KNOW the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa?  That was his point.

From then on, we worked in small groups to complete activities dealing with the idea of how the sun casts a shadow throughout the day and how that reflects the location of the sun in the sky etc.  The point is that we focused on content and pedagogy simultaneously.  The man was intimidating, but effective.

Anyway, I went to bed last night at about 9PM and woke up about half an hour ago at 8AM.  Some quick math tells you that's about 11 hours of sleep.  It was much needed rest.  I better go and prepare for my second day of training now.

 

Looks Like I'll Be Moving

After I emailed NYCTF inquiring about the possibility of being reassigned to Pace for my master's degree, I received a prompt and informative response.

While Pace supports biology fellows, it does not support biology immersion fellows.  City College is the only institution for fellows assigned to Manhattan that offers a master's program for biology / general science immersion fellows.  For those who do not know what immersion is, here is an explanation:

NYCTF offers two "immersion" programs for fellows that have taken significant coursework in either math or science, but do not have a degree in the field.  In practice, the difference is two more weeks of training in science or math content with an extra $1k tacked onto the stipend for the summer (and apparently a narrowed pool of universities).  

I know last time I said I felt somewhat disappointed, but I've reconsidered.  Now I am excited.  As I am not bound to Queens for any reason, I will look into apartments near City College to minimize my commute.  It would be nice to learn a new neighborhood and just feel some change.  Sure there will be some obstacles like figuring out if/when I can break my lease, searching for an apartment, etc., but I welcome the challenge.  Thankfully I will be able to afford a one bedroom instead of a studio - living in a bread box gets old.

University Assignment

Just yesterday I received an email from NYCTF indicating that I have been assigned to City College for my master's of education in science. I thought I would be excited to received my assignment, but to be honest, I was a little disappointed.

Browsing City College's School of Education website makes it seem like a pretty well-established program. It has also been educating Fellows since 2000. I do not know anyone that currently attends, but would like to.

However, I am concerned about my commute. While I have yet to learn my commuting schedule for summer training, I do know that from my stop on the M train (Forest Ave) to City College is around an hour and a half commute. Right now, my usual commute is to 14th st and takes me no longer than 45 minutes on average with some train traffic.

There is an appeals process for one's University assignment, which I am considering. Also, there is a field on the "My Assignment" tab on the myNYCTF website for alternative Universities. Mine is blank. Just above that is a notice that reads, "Some borough and subject combinations have only one university option. If you are reading this message, then your university is the only one working with your subject area within your assigned borough."

This is simply not true. I am in contact with other Fellows who have been assigned to Pace downtown for my same field of study. All of this is a bunch of mixed messages. So I posted a message on the Fellow message boards asking if anyone else was in my situation and could relate. I received a few empathetic responses, but no solutions. My next step is to write an email to NYCTF inquiring about my options.

I know others may be commuting from NJ or LI, which can be a long commute, but once the commuter rails take them into a central hub, any of the Universities in Manhattan are about the same time away. Maybe I am being too fastidious. I would just like to minimize and not increase my commuting time as I am sure I will be very busy the upcoming summer and year.

PS - Thanks to those who took the survey! I am just interested in seeing, very generally, what everyone's experience has been like. If you haven't taken it, please do! Thanks!