Spring 2012
This probably was the most entertaining semester I have had ever since returning to school. I only did 10 credit hours this spring. Elementary Spanish II w/ Lab, Math Teaching I, and Intro to Teaching II.
The best out of this bunch was the Math course. It was very intriguing and the teacher/professor was great. Probably the best I have ever met. If you are ever attending Tarrant County College (TCC) and have to take a math course look for Alan Cazares. Anyways, this class show you some ways of teaching mathematics to students in 1st through 8th grade. I have always loved math in school, but this definitely broadened my view in the subject. It makes since because I probably would have been hard to teach math to kids with the knowledge I knew before this course. He helped show us the simplest way to teach it, but the biggest struggle most of the students had was way over thinking the concepts. Finished with an "A". I'll be taking the second part this Summer. Will be pretty busy, but I'm sure will be fun again.
Elementary Spanish II was the continuation of the massive amount of work I did last semester. It has just as much homework, 2 Charlas, 4 writing assignments, 8 quizzes and 4 exams. I was a lot to do. I did learn a lot with the both classes, but I doubt I will continue Spanish in the fall. I need to finish school with as little stress as possible. I may finish in the future or just buy Rosetta Stone. The instructor, Belia Freedman was a pretty nice to have. She was tough, but very reasonable. I definitely made you put in the work. Some students were cool with her methods and others were none to happy. I finished with a "B" and that's all good with me.
The last class (but not least) was my second teaching class called , Introduction to Special Populations. This class was very great to be in. The instructor, Ms. Elizabeth (Lisa) Self, was a probably the most energetic teachers I have ever met. Her methods were pretty interesting like Mr. Cazares. There was a lot of reading involved in the class, but when we went to the class sessions, instead of going through a lecture on the subject, she had us do activities on the subject including class discussions, group activities, book reports and presentations. Now these were as tough as I thought, but you still had to put a great deal of work in it and you had to be used to working in a group, because you worked with the same individuals in your group every class time. The challenge to was keeping up with the reading and retaining all of the information for the exams (not one of my strong suits), but I must have done well enough because I finished with an "A". Way better than I was expecting.
To top this semester off, I was invited and installed in an organization called, Kappa Delta Pi. It's an International Honor Society In Education and like the profession of teaching has a women majority and I was honored & proud to join them. I was one of 2 men installed in a class of 20 this pass spring.
So that is my update from this pass Spring. A semester to remember.
Later...
