Schoooool's in for the summer

Well, school starts for my students AND for me on the 28th now. I'm all registered for my first class and have even peeked at my week 1 assignments. Okay, I'm almost finished with week 1's assignments, approximately 2 weeks ahead of time... I've never been so excited to start a class! My first class is called "Numbers and Operations" and focuses on the history of numbers, problem posing, and problem solving.

Anyway, I'm only taking 1 class to start out to see how this whole online program works and to see how manageable it will be. There are 11 classes in this program for a total of 33 credits. When I finish (in hopefully just over a year), I will be at Master's +45 on the teacher pay scale, which is nearly the top for education. What's great about Lesley U, from what I can tell, is that there are actually 6 terms per year (Fall, Spring, and Summer are split up into 2 8-week terms each). The pace is fast, but you can get more covered. If I double up in the summer, then I can finish my 11 classes by June or August of 2012. This would be great.

What else do I like about this set up? Well, you have to be very organized to be successful. Each week of work for each course comes with a checklist/timeline of what needs to get completed. The way it's set up is very clear from what I can tell, which I appreciate (I attached a picture below). Since I'm ahead on my work-work and I have next week off, I decided to set up my binder for my class. Being this organized can't be more exciting to me. I just can't help but share.

I made tabs for each week - this way I can keep all the assignments/readings/journaling organized within each "weekly module." Very exciting to see that there are only 8 tabs! I've got the syllabus in the front, too.

I love that they make a checklist FOR us, because I'd be doing it myself otherwise. I will put these in the front of each week to keep track of what I need to do. Since it's not really "work at your own pace" (you have to post to the boards by a certain day), it's important to stay on top of things.

Just thought I'd share one of my first assignments - it's a little silly. We had to sort and organize different systems of numbers on our own.

Takes me back to be annotating articles! Plus, we have to make all our thoughts and journaling digital - so I can't just scribble in the margins!

Anyway, couldn't help myself.

So, what will I be doing on my week off? Mostly trying out some power tools by making this:

 

Ana-White

If all goes well with this little table (which I'm making for practice, not for necessity), then we'll see - maybe bigger things will come. Wish me luck!