Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The power of negative expectation

Well, despite my fears, I did even better on the second "opportunity" in Educational Psychology than the first --- I got a 91, which according to Mr. S's curve is a solid A. I guess that when you're faced with a question and you draw a total blank, spouting random B.S. sprinkled with keywords like "development" and "metacognitive" and "social construction" and "information processing" is a great strategy. Go me!

The TA brought in a guest speaker --- the principal at the school where he works --- and it was fairly interesting. She gave us some good tips on preparation and planning, and defined handy devices like Cornell note taking (a three-column system) and KWL (what we know, what we Want to know, and what we Learned).

I found it notable that at one point, in talking about planning with a mentor, she used a phrase very close in wording to Mr. A's stock quote: "You need to become a veteran teacher's best friend, because you are not good enough to do it on your own."

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