Melissa Weihmayer
Murray Language Academy
5/20-5/25
3 hours Monday, 2 hours Friday
Tech Assistant

On Monday, although Joe Mills was able to make it for the afternoon lab period, I went ahead with my mini-lesson. I went briefly through transitions and saving on Windows Movie Maker with the class, and then fielded some questions. The kids were most attentive when we asked them first how to proceed, before telling them the right answer. They asked good, appropriate questions and the class went smoothly. However, we noticed that a few students had misinterpreted previous directions. For example, we had said, "don't just get two or three pictures from the web, get as many as you can so that you have some to pick from for the final project". Some students, wanting to do a good job (or maybe just wanting to stay with a pursuit that they could succeed at easily), found over thirty pictures for a twenty-thirty second slideshow. They were therefore very behind, not necessarily through a fault of their own or ours. This goes to show that the kids need us to be overly specific with our directions, especially since they don't quite have the logic skills yet to figure out where they have room to experiment. Some of the class was spent assuaging panic, and catching some kids up to where they were supposed to be. Next Wednesday will be my last day, so hopefully I will get to say goodbye to some of the kids that I've gotten to spend time with.

Question: Does CUIP participate in the nsp-evaluation form? Is there still time to submit it? Could I ask Joe Mills for a recommendation for future jobs?