September 8, 2014

When I got to work this morning I went up to the SPED room with my seating charts so I could mark off who would be testing outside the lab. The teacher for the older grades was unaware testing started today and the teacher for the younger grades was on her first day back from maternity leave, so she obviously didn't know testing started today. I went down and printed off the basic, one-sheet schedule that shows all the testing times for the next three weeks and gave each of them a copy. They appreciated that.

The first class testing was a tad late so I had time to hang up the login signs I made on Friday. They look good up on the wall but tomorrow I need to rearrange things because I didn't space them out enough when I put them up. And I want to change the stuff I already had on the wall (a keyboard with ctrl, alt, and delete marked on it and giant buttons that can be pressed to log off) so they look more like the signs I just made. I should have time to do that tomorrow.

When the first class showed up to test, it was pretty much wall-to-wall testing for the rest of the day. The were slow kids in the first test that stayed and overlapped into the second test. Then there were kids in the second test that overlapped with another class that weren't testing but then one of them ended up testing. And that class ended up logging off of most of the computer even though I asked them not to so I had to log back into the test server on all of them.

Then it was time for lunch. While I ate I redesigned an ABC book for one of the resource teachers. The end of my lunch butted right up against the first test of the afternoon so I ate a bit fast and before clocking back in I got all the tests loaded. And then we tested. All but one kid got done in a reasonable time and the student intern stayed with that kid to try and keep him focused. For the next round of testing he will probably have a para sitting with him in the lab or be testing out of the lab.

Anyway, I had a bit of time before the last test of the day so I finished up the ABC book. Then I was able to enter the MAP scores for the first class into my spreadsheet before I had to start loading up the tests for the first graders.

This is the first time they have taken a MAP test and almost the entire first row sat down and immediately hit 'Start Test'. They had no clue what they were doing but they saw their name and a big button in the middle of the screen so they clicked it. And then did nothing, not only because I told them to hold up but also because they had no idea what they were doing. The majority of the kids raised their hand on the first question because they didn't know how to go onto the next question, which involves clicking the small button at the bottom of the screen that says 'Go On'. It was a pretty rocky start. I don't remember a first grade class being that clueless before but I could be viewing the past through rose-colored glasses. In the end, it seemed like there were a lot of low scores but I can never remember where first graders tend to start the year at so it could be average. And, only one kid had to take part of the test again because he went too fast. He got lucky on the first part because he was one of those who started the test early and had to wait while I tried to explain some things. If he hadn't had to wait he probably would have rushed through fast enough to take the first part twice as well.

After work I went home and started coming up with an outline for my reflective journal. I really hate how open ended the whole assignment is. There is a big list of sentence starters that the instructor said we could/should use and a list of things we should probably touch on and put them in bold when we do. But then we're supposed to write it like it's a personal journal entry. But also in a scholarly, formal way, with citations if we want to get full credit. I would prefer a list of questions that I can answer. I don't like open-ended. I might try to come up with my own questions and see how it goes. Maybe it will be discussed during the face-to-face next weekend.

I came over to the old house tonight to watch YouTube videos, download some games on my laptop, and escape my textbooks for awhile. Tomorrow I need to crack down and do something productive for that class. I am liking the research class better because it is much more structured, with weekly assignments and discussions that keep me on task. Not these vague, open-ended, semester-long reflective writing things. I am enjoying the reading for that class but that damn journal writing is just messing with my head.

And lastly for tonight, I forgot to mentioned I played bass guitar, ukulele, and guitar yesterday. I only ever knew part of a song on ukulele and completely forgot it. I also forgot most of the songs I knew on bass. I'm pretty sure I can figure most of them out again if I listened to the songs but I didn't feel like digging out the CDs. I have played guitar more recently than the other two instruments but I still only remember a few songs. That is pretty sad. I won't do it but I need to work a little practice into my weekly schedule. I should probably start by making a weekly schedule. I need to become more disciplined with my time. Soon hopefully.