Grading Me?

It was Friday. Twelfth grade English. The school is starting a study hall period, and this was the day all the teachers were to explain the concept via PowerPoint to the students.

This is new to me, too. We did not have study hall when I was in school. I have heard of it, but I've never experienced it first hand.

Of course, I was informed about all of this when I checked in that morning.

My job is pretty much winging things with no prep whatsoever, so I wasn't too concerned. I had access to the PowerPoint slides. I know how to work the in class projector and computer. 

Yes, reading the slides to the students is dreadfully dull, but what else could I do?

So, the class came in, the slides were loaded, and the projector worked. I even had a group that sat quietly while I droned on. Success!

I was about five minutes into it when the door opened. In walked an assistant principal and a counselor.

Administrators walk in from time to time. They may be doing a dress code check or they may be looking to talk to a student for some reason. But this time they just stood in the doorway and watched.

Eeek. I didn't know I was getting graded.

I tried to up my game, but I was doing the presentation cold. And the slides were pretty detailed. There was nothing for me to add to make things more interesting.

The administrators were there for a couple minutes before they left. That's when I breathed a sigh of relief.

It is likely that they were making sure everything was working. But in my mind, I felt as if they were watching and judging. And I was sorely lacking.

We always judge ourselves way more harshly than the world sees us.

The administrators said nothing to me. So, I'm sure it was fine. It must have been fine, right?

Mr. O and the Powerpoint Remote

I don't generally cover Spanish classes (silly me took French in high school), but the pickings were slim that Monday...

I arrived to find the best of surprises: a student teacher. Woo-hoo! It meant I'd be pretty bored, but at least I didn't have to pretend to have any idea of how to speak Spanish.

He'd already set up the computer when I got there. As it was Monday, he went through their usual PowerPoint of the week's vocabulary. (When I was a kid, all we had was the book. Now, he puts up pictures to accompany the vocabulary words along with other examples to make the words more memorable.) The whole procedure went so smoothly I figured this was what they did every Monday.

However, there was one issue. The remote the student teacher used to advance the slides wasn't working.

Bonus for me, as I needed something to do. I stood at the computer and hit advance when he was ready for the next slide.

But that didn't explain why the remote wasn't working. Mr. O found the replacement batteries, but that didn't help.

After two periods, he looked down at the computer and wondered where the USB drive that was usually in the computer was. And that's when I found it in the remote...

Obvious, in retrospect. We won't complain about Mr. O, either. He's only been student teaching about a month, so it's easy to see how he might not have figured this part out yet.

(And with the remote found, I had nothing to do but watch. Some days I really wish I had brought my knitting.)

Power Point Humor

I was surprised by a rare summer school assignment last week. (I got the notification for it the week prior.) It was to be one day (Monday) for a health teacher.

As I plotted out my blog posts for last week, I had a hole for Wednesday, so I figured I could slot something in about the day. And I did. Although, that wasn't from Monday...

Because as soon as I got home Monday, I got a message saying the teacher would be out all week, and could I continue to cover? Well, yeah... And that's how I got a whole week's worth of work in July. (Happy birthday to me? My birthday's this Sunday, if you're keeping track.)

(The teacher had a family emergency.)

I had the same group of 39 students for four hours. And while they acted much like 9th graders at transitions, they were diligent with their work. Which wasn't surprising. (The reason they were taking health in the summer was because instead of taking health during the school year, they were taking an AP class.)

On Thursday the topic was pregnancy and childbirth. They were to create a PowerPoint presentation detailing the development of a fetus during pregnancy.

As per normal, I walked around the computer lab and looked over their shoulders. They hadn't been at it very long when one group's PowerPoint caught my attention. (This is a recreation of what they did.)

Ahem.

That they were embarrassed when they found me looking over their shoulders made it even funnier. One accused another of being "disrespectful". I gave them a grim look while they deleted this and got on task.

I kept the laughter inside. Because, you have to admit, it's pretty funny. (It wouldn't be funny if it was true. It's not true.) But I didn't want them to know that.

(Perhaps they were just trying out that formatting?)

Giving Notes

The school year is officially in full swing.  I got called to work today.

I got to do something today that I have never done before.  I gave a Power Point presentation.

The class was criminalistics (or forensic science or whatever they're calling it now).  The juniors and seniors are required to take an extra year of science, and this is a popular choice.  It's the CSI craze.

The lesson plan instructed me to find the Power Point file on the classroom computer.  I was told that everything was already hooked up, and sure enough, it was.  I'm well-versed in using the projectors, so it took me little time to get it all going (and good thing as I didn't have all that much time to get it set up).

However, presenting someone else's Power Point cold is a bit of a challenge.  I read the slides.  The students copied down the information.  I spent my time guessing what would come up next when I pressed the forward button.  Would I get another bullet point?  Would I get a picture?  Would the next slide come up?  (I had to be careful with that one as some of them copied notes slower than others.)

The first time through (I had three periods of this class), the bell rang just as the last slide came up.  (Oops, my clock was 2 minutes slow.)  The second time through, things went a bit more smoothly.  I knew what was coming.

The last time through was for 6th period.  I could tell that I was losing them as the end approached.  But of course this was 6th period.  6th period is always a bit squirrelly.

This was so much nicer than giving them some random review worksheet.  They were kept busy all period.  They learned something new (as did I).  So, I didn't have all the behavior issues that could have come up.  I wish more teachers would leave such things for us subs.