900 Reflective Blog

My impressions of the program so far is a positive one. When I first heard of the program I thought it would be beneficial. Then I got scared. Then inspired. Then scared. Then, I questioned whether I would be able to work in college level thinking, since I had been teaching 2nd graders for 4 years and I wasn't sure how I would do. AKA scared. My wife encouraged me because it was a passion for me, plus I would earn units toward moving over on the pay scale. After going through the online discussion and spending some time getting used to the formatting and the style of the assignments, I am a little less nervous than I was before. As comfortable as I am with most tech, my general audience is 7 and 8 years old. Are you noticing a pattern of fear? Because I am. Haha.

Besides fear, I am hoping that these courses will force me to dive deeper into the tools I have been using, and the tools I had no idea existed. In June I will be going to a training about Project- Based Learning. So, it is also exciting that I will be taking the course on how to use technology to hopefully make things run semi-smooth (I have modest goals).

As I stated above, I have been out of college for many years, so I am also looking forward to learning about improving my pedagogy and instruction. (Is it bad that I had to look up the word pedagogy? We don't use that word with 2nd graders- I sometimes overshare my struggles) I am excited to learn some things that I may have learned in my credential program but have long since forgotten while being in the trenches of teaching. Plus, some of the things will actually have some context to real life teaching. Part of the problem I see from the Credential program is that I had no real idea of what I was getting into. I mean, they tell you it will be different when you get your own class, but that learning curve is huge.

I do not have many specifics about how I will change my teaching practices because I don't really know what I don't know. I will share more as we progress, but my hope is that this is the start of a good thing...no matter how scared I am.

Derrick Bright

• Project Status - It seems daunting, but I think I have a couple ideas that will challenge me and be a good resource for myself and others. (See the picture below for more details)
• Elective Status - I have done a little work in TEC 950 and I am fairly certain of the 3 courses I am adding. (https://sites.google.com/view/derrickbright/cuedi-blog?authuser=1)