I feel like a baby. I'm overstimulated by all the new information and feel like sleeping 18 hours per day to let my mind process everything.
It seems like that--but actually, I've been trying to "pace myself," as Dr Boylan recommended during his welcome on Day 1. Pacing myself has meant take in everything I can, let go of the things that slip by, and reach out for the things that sustain me that *aren't* related to developmental education--my own sort of contextualized learning.
So I'll start by relating some of those things.
Coffee. I have been enjoying my morning Americano and hour of writing each weekday at a wonderful cafe called Espresso News just a few blocks from here. Friendly atmosphere, great coffee, interesting people to watch. They're starting to interact with me--on Friday one worked up the courage to ask me if it was ok to ask me a few questions (so formal)--are you a writer? how old are you?: Are you here working on a project? Yes. 40. Yes.
Music. I brought several instruments--flute, oboe, guitar, accordion. On Wednesday evening, we arranged a jam/sing a long for Kelloggers in the residence hall lounge--super fun. Classic rock, 50s, 60s, 70s. Stuff I didn't know. Stuff I did. Mostly it was Ken Wissmann leading the way on electric bass while I worked through the melody lines on my flute and others sang from the lyric sheet. My proudest achievement was faking my way through the organ solo in "Runaway" on flute. I'm also teaching Christi Duque how to play the Chicken Dance on the accordion. Yeah, I got mad skills. And we are all developmental students from time to time.
Yoga. There is a beautiful treetop yoga studio a few blocks from here: Neighborhood Yoga. The second floor studio has windows to the south and west. There is an apple tree, heavy with apples, visible through the windows. The classes are varied--Iyengar, Gentle, even Kundalini. Plus, they organize monthly service days--Karma Krew does community outreach, and today I got to visit a local farm and pull weeds. Saw some honeybees and a great blue heron.
Local Food. North Carolina knows how to do it. The farm I visited today supplies vegies to the local restaurant Proper. There are at least three awesome restaurants within walking distance of campus that source vegies from farms within the county. The campus cafeteria sources its vegetables from local growers. It seems like it will take five years before three Alamosa restaurants will figure out how cool it is to serve delicious local vegies. When will Sodexo get vegies from the valley?
Service. F.A.R.M Cafe--Feed All Regardless of Means. Yet another excellent restaurant which serves local food. Also, if you serve for an hour, you get to eat. The chef, Renee, was telling some patrons about the food insecurity that local college students experience. This restaurant helps them and many others get a delicious healthy meal. I love this place. I want one in Alamosa. My suitemate Mary Ann and I served there on Friday and are already signed up to serve next week as well.
Qi Gong. Qi Gong is like yoga or tai chi, but it's also like stirring the chi/love energy of the universe around me. One of the other Kelloggers offered to teach a Qi Gong class on Fridays after class--Qi Gong Happy Hour. We did breathing and simple movements to pull energy into us, mix it around, and then send it out into the universe.
So, besides all these distractions which have contextualized my learning and made it meaningful to me, I also had the pleasure of learning from Dr Barbara Bonham all week. This week's topics included Instructional Design (yay, Universal Design!), Theories of Learning, Non-cognitive assessments, a group project based on accelerated learning models, and Classroom Assessment Techniques. I'll be bringing some of those CATs home with me (meow!).
I managed to summarize an article I hadn't read. Fairly well. I think I may be ready for more grad school.
I also managed to get a computer virus. gah.
And finally, I revised my practicum proposal to the following: I will work with 11 students from Centennial HS in San Luis on telling their college story through digital storytelling. Co-teaching a class with film professor Danny Ledonne, I'll have these senior HS students work through some college readiness curriculum each week and create a video blog of their experience. I'll create a class into which the students can enroll Fall 2012, so they can receive college credit for their video projects as well as have access to our film program cameras/editing technology. In Spring 2013, students may also take a second course which will develop their editing skills as they turn the weekly video blogs into a polished narrative of their college story--where they've been accepted, what they learned through the film project. Since NADE (National Association for Developmental Education) is hosting its conference in Denver this spring, I will bring as many students from this project as I can to present their videos at the conference. I will be giving a presentation of my practicum as part of my McGraw Hill scholarship.
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