I am extremely thankful that my demo is over. I still can’t really explain to myself or anyone else why I was so upset about it. I was sitting at my computer yesterday and as always, stupid stuff happens to me when I work with technology, namely the computer. Tears began to stream down my face as I thought that I would never get this demo doc finished. I wiped the tears away as quietly as I could and excused myself and went to the bathroom. Thankfully, two of the Fellows, Queen Peggy and Princess Jennifer, ran into me and noticed the emotional signature on my face. Queen Peggy put her arms around me, which surprised me, but I leaned into her and was so thankful that she was there. Thank you God. Thank you for Peggy’s arms and shoulder. Jennifer and Peggy both told me to not let it get to me and assured me that I would do a great job. They had no idea how surely that I felt I would not do a great job.
That was then and this is now. Now it is over with and it seems that I did do an adequate job with my demo. I knew that I was informed about my subject. I knew that I could convey the info, if I didn’t forget it. I did forget something, not any of the core stuff, but a funny metaphorical story that I wanted to add. I made six notecards, which I could not locate once I got over here. However, I am pretty sure that I covered the highlights of the paper and may have remembered some other important stuff, because I didn’t have the notecards.
I wore a dress today and I am glad that I did. I am not usually comfortable in a dress, but am glad that I did. Someone made a comment about me “being commanding”, and it wasn’t a negative comment. Perhaps the dress had something to do with that. The Fellows seemed to be actively engaged in the authentic learning activity that went with my demo. They were asked to brainstorm some ideas about how their school staff could be more productive and cohesive and then write a paragraph or two about it. They had no trouble accomplishing this task. They actually came up with some very good suggestions on staff cohesiveness. There were common threads among the three groups with regard to their answers.
Before I began my demo I placed the four books up against the blackboard, so that the Fellows could view them. I should have talked about the books, especially the two that impacted my demo the most. I also wrote the objective on the board before beginning the demo. Somewhere I saw that this was a good idea. I should have wrote the definition of “Constructivism or Constructivist Theory” on the board along side the written objective.
Originally I had planned for the Fellows to do a shared story-writing on the computer, on my blog or my wiki, I’m not sure which. Fortunately, time was running short today, because of something that we did this morning, so I didn’t have to face that problem, although I had already admitted that I did not know where the activity was.
In summation, I feel that I made a good case for constructivist learning in the classroom by using visual tools (graphic organizers). If it could just be this simple that would be great. This idea is so much like many other ideas that we see, hear or think of, but when the hussle and bussle of the school year starts, it disappears from our recent memory bank. If I intend to present this demo again I will have to do some more work on it. I would also like to have a power point presentation to go with it, but not to say everything that I want to say about the subject. I suppose that I want a power point because almost everyone has had one.
