How did you do this week?

How did you do this (short) week? On Tuesday we wondered if we’re getting enough sleep (& why districts insist on early start times), Wednesday we saw that success is small steps repeated and yesterday we reflected on the small things we’re thankful for. Some might think that this is a lot for 6th graders to contemplate, but I think you can appreciate things like sleep, holding on to little meaningful moments and seeing each day/moment as building toward something much bigger. How’s your week been?  

It’s the end of the third week of the current semester (16 1/2 to go…). Given this week’s topics I’m feeling anxious about the future post-teacher career while trying to continue to manage the daily grind of robotics curriculum creation/management, dealing with a vast array of student personalities and then finding time to give students meaningful feedback… hang on, need to break up a squabble over $1 chocolate bars being sold by school band students… 

Living the dream… It’s Friday. I’m thinking that four-day weeks should be easier than five-day weeks, but I’m feeling just as tired and faded enthusiasm as last week. Go figure. One good thing: I found out that my request for more classroom robots was accepted and I’ll be picking up the eight loaner-bots this afternoon, so that’s a good development. That makes is so that I can have my 106 advanced robotics students sharing 28 robots instead of 20, giving me robot teams of 3.7 instead of 5.3. Yay. Having teams of three or four is so much better than larger teams. Alas, right now we’re practicing programming robots using iPads, but to do that students have to watch a video tutorial (with interactive questions) before doing the iPad part. Out of 106 students only 35 have completed the video tutorial… But I’m thinking, after next week’s robot programming cycle, we’ll get back to building the robots and the hands-on stuff tends to bring in students who aren’t as motivated when it’s just virtual programming on a Chromebook. So, we’re looking at a couple new pluses and the same remaining minuses. Onward and upward, I always used to say. Gonna recover from week three and try to get ready for week four. 

How has your week been?