Week of Webinars

There's a site I like to use to listen to educational webinars: edweb.net. It's awesome: it's free, you can earn continuing ed credit for listening to them, you can preregister and they send reminders, you can watch it live or watch a recording later.

This week I've had a webinar every day so far. Monday's was during the school day, so I couldn't watch it live. Instead I watched a webinar about the benefits of audio books. Tuesday's was about classroom management techniques. Today's was not from edweb, but from the FAST testing company about how to use test data to decide what to teach/how to group kids in the fall. Tomorrow I don't have one scheduled, but I'll watch the recording of the one I missed on Monday (it's about ending peer cruelty).

Today was Miss T's last day of teaching. She'll be here the rest of the week, but tomorrow afternoon we're going to the MLC Play and won't have time for science or social studies. Friday is an art day. My favorite education professor from Bethany came to observe her. It was so good to see her again and catch up! I love when she comes to observe because the suggestions and comments she makes to the student teacher are good reminders for me too. Every time she comes it seems like I learn something I should be doing different or better.

The three of us had an interesting chat while the 5-6th graders were at PE with Mr. E. We were talking about the merits of getting students to make connections to the content they're being taught, and Dr. B summed up her viewpoint of teaching. "Teaching can be boiled down to two things: building vocabulary and making connections." That's basically it in a nutshell.

I also heard some sad news today. We've been praying for Dr. B for the past few months because her cancer came back. I hadn't heard any updates on it, so I assumed it was going well. Mrs. E also has a student teacher that Dr. B observed today and the two of them got to talking. Dr. B shared with her that her cancer is Stage 4 and in her bones. You'd never guess to look at her! She's her normal perky and cheerful self. She's taking treatments, but even if it would go away, it would likely come back. But what a great witness for us! Living the life God gave her to her full capacity, knowing heaven is waiting when God decides it's time to take her home. Still, I'm going to keep praying for a miracle...