Getting Into A Rhythm

[Belated post]

Things are now settling back down and I feel like a small amount of consistency is finding its way into my routine. I know where I am supposed to be, I know what I have to teach, and I know that I can now give a quiz and grade papers like all those other teachers before me throughout history. It feels pretty good.

I had not assigned a scratch of homework nor had I asked the students to demonstrate any applied knowledge outside what we do during lectures and practical lessons in the computer lab. Today I asked students to do their first quiz and already I have learned a lot about what I will do next time. I have a feeling that asking students to get out a sheet a paper, write their information on it, and then view the questions on the wall (all my teaching is done via presentations on the projector) is a bit too time consuming. It will be different next time. That, and I want to create three tests so it is not so easy to see the neighbor's paper and get a hint for an answer. But oh the pains and cries of “No, not this week,” and “we can do the quiz next week,” were delightful. I don't know if I was that bad during school when the teacher announced a quiz, but I am guessing that I was quite close.

So the first quiz is done and graded and six more classes await. I will be changing up the questions but not making the test any harder for other classes to avoid whispers from traveling from class to class. From what I have seen so far there is adequate knowledge of some concepts but we could use more practice on some of the basic steps like using the keyboard to save files. Not too shabby, but then this was not the most strenuous of exams.

Of course now that I feel somewhat comfortable with a routine I will be breaking that apart a bit when I get to travel to Accra for Thanksgiving. I will detail that trip after it is complete but for now I like teaching and I am hopeful that the students are enjoying the computer time.