After my interview with Deedee, she gave me a "tour" of McCracken. First, she took me to what she called the "Cafe." Honestly, when she said that I pictured a place, well, a cafe. Instead I met the lovely vending machines that live there.
We then went to the library in McCracken. The lighting there was mostly natural and didn't seem as nice as Scripps. She said that there feels like there's not enough resources.
The computer lab is attached to the library. At one of the computers, she showed me one of the programs she uses for class. The closest thing I could compare to LiveText to is the portfolio design students need when applying for a job. It's a site that potential employers can go to to loo
k at whether a person has reached the standards one needs to be a teacher. These are standards set up by the government, and each project she completes on LiveText meets certain standards. While this is an easy thing to show employers, she said she wasn't always sure how these projects were really meeting them.
After she showed me some of her projects on LiveText and then we went to her class. We arrived early, so some of the previous class was still there. Of course, I usually don't do yoga after class. Apparently someone had put forth the idea as a form of stress relief.
Class started shortly afterwards. The first thing I received was an agenda of the day, something I never had in any of my classes. It gave a clear outline of what was going on that day, with times included.
The first thing they do in the partnership class is have Lit circles. Basically, each group has to read a nonfiction book that they discuss every week in class. Deedee's group had already finished their book, however, and so were discussing articles the teacher, Joette Weber, assigns them. We outside this day because it was so nice outside, so we got to watch some guys play basketball as they discussed the new U.S. Secretary of Education.
This was done for about 15 minutes, and then the class went back inside. There Joette and one of the other students gave a demonstration of a teaching technique. They pretended that this was a discussion class. If this was real, two people would have to research a topic so that they understand both sides of an issue. The class would pick who gets what side, and each person would spend three minutes defending his or her side. After they were both done, people in the class could raise their hands to add to the conversation. It was interesting to watch a college class pretend to be a middle school class. None of my classes so far in college have been like this.
Though the class would go on for the next 2 hours, I had to leave early to get to one of my classes. Still, I felt like I got a much better idea of what classes in the partnership are like.
*All pictures are my own.*
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