The Process affects the Product

I don't think The Husband understands how much TIME one takes to do something as huge as National Board. He makes comments about how I'm always on the computer, blah blah. This morning I informed him that my entire life from now until March 30 when I mail my box is going to be National Board. I warned him when I started this process.

I am working hard on E3 this weekend. Well, today. I gave myself permission to take tomorrow completely off. No school work. No computer. No cell phone (ie where the internet is). No nothing school or National Board related. So today it is. I have an ecgen.org chat in about 2 hours. I am digging the chats because they are UBER helpful. It's always good to hear other people's thoughts and ideas for their entries. I was in chat last night with one other gal who is an ecgen candidate. We were just chatting about everything and nothing and talked a bit about E4. I'm so happy that I was able to help her brainstorm and nail down her ideas for that entry. It just makes you feel good.

I am hopeful to finish my draft of E3 today. Then I will be set with my deadlines still. And I will be thrilled. I haven't touched E2 since I printed it. I plan to finish drafts for all of my entries then ship them off to readers, meanwhile making my own notes, changes and modifications. Once I have feedback from readers, I will take that and my own notes and changes and work on my finals. I REALLY want all of March to work on that aspect of it -- the revision and polishing. If I can get a draft of E3 done today I may ship those two entries off to my readers so I can get them back quicker while I am working on E1 (E4 is pretty much done -- waiting on my latest data to finish it, which the data should be ready by Monday, I hope). 

This process IS overwhelming and frustrating and challenging....but I am finding that I as time goes on and I read more and learn more, I am less overwhelmed and frustrated. I am empowered. I feel like I've made growth in my teaching and my passion for teaching literacy has been recharged for the better. The end product will just be the icing on my cake.

Entry 3 Beginnings

It feels like it should at least be Thursday...and I've only been at work one day this week so far! What a crazy day! Tuesdays are one of my favorite work days because I have a prep right at the end of the day and it is lovely. I am all prepared for tomorrow except for pencil sharpening which won't take long when I get there. I have some marking to do but that shouldn't take too long either as long as I actually DO it instead of procrastinating and/or distracting myself with other tasks.

I'm really proud of myself because I ended up chit chatting with a colleague after school for almost 45 minutes and time got away from me. The Husband and I went paint shopping for The Youngest's room after dinner and I still managed to get myself upstairs and work a bit on Entry 3. 

I believe I have mentioned this before but the best piece of advice I have gotten is to type out all of the prompts in red and then fill in the answers in black as you go so you can ensure you have actually answered all of the prompts. It really does sound crazy but it works well.

I have my instructional context section of Entry 3 finished. This is the entry where you take a content area and demonstrate how you incorporate listening, viewing and speaking into it. I chose to do a social studies lesson for this entry. Our entire 2nd grade curriculum is about communities and it's fun to teach. There are two parts to the video -- one in which you are actively teaching the listening/viewing and one in which the children respond by speaking.

After I wrote my instructional context section, I decided to stop and review (and review, and review!) my video. I like to take notes. It's weird to watch yourself on video and not judge yourself. But I've found after watching the video again and again that you don't notice your hair, clothes or think "wow I need to lose 10 lbs" or whatever. You really begin to pay attention to your craft. What your instructional decisions were and why you did them. I also have noticed after each viewing an example of when I clearly changed focus midstream based on a student answer. This is not bad of course. It's the point -- you reflect and you think about what you did and why but also what you would change if you had the chance.

I take copious amounts of notes and this one even moreso than my notes for Entry 2. 

  

Entry 2 notes 

  Entry 3 notes 

        (only halfway & lots more writing!)

At any rate, even though I am only halfway through with my note-taking but I feel so proud of myself for coming home after a crazy day and a busy night and still working on this. 

I have been participating in the chats at ecgen.org and in the forums and I finally do not feel all alone. I feel like I am finding my way and this is possible. I am MUCH farther along than some of the other people in the forum. I'm super glad I decided to do my videos early. It is one huge load off to know that I only have to focus on the writing.