Spring Semester 2011

First, Happy Martin Luther King day!

"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.” -MLK.

I used to not really care about this particular day. I was just happy to have the day off of school! But now that I am older, I now know and understand the amazing words this man spoke. May we all try to live with love and treat all people with equality.

This past Saturday marked the beginning of my Spring Semester 2011. I must say that I am pretty excited about this semester. I'm making some major changes to my face to face classes. This semester I'm piloting (testing) an electronic math class. I'll be trying out this new and upcoming trend with 3 of my math classes. Basically, I will meet with my class, just like I would in a regular lecture class, except we meet in a computer lab. I will only lecture about 20 min a day versus the entire 50 min or 80 min. The rest of the period, my students will log-in to a special math website to begin practicing what I just lectured on. It's a great website that has lots of help buttons for the student, and the best part in my opinion, is that it gives immediate feedback! In other words, the student knows as soon as they click submit whether their answer is right or wrong. During this "lab time" I will also be walking around and helping the students out. I'm excited to start the class this week with some basic orientations on the computer. Keeping my fingers crossed that there will not be many computer or log-in problems. I'll be comparing my results at the end of the semester with my pass/fail ratio from my 2010 spring classes. I think this electronic class will benefit the students greatly. I guess we will see in May! I am also teaching 3 online math courses this semester. I know most of you are like how do you teach math online?! Well, the website/program we use for the electronic classes we also use for the online courses. Again, it's a great friendly user program for the students and instructors. I assign my students lecture videos - a teaching explaining the basic concept and a problem first, then after a student watches the video they can have access to homework/practice problems. Of course questions arise of, well how do you know the student is actually doing the work and not someone else. I don't! lol BUT, my students must come to campus twice during the semester to take a Midterm and Final exam - with is worth at least half of their grade. So that's how I can make sure the student (and not someone else) passes the course. Looking forward to a great semester! (and hopefully a successful one!)

AFRICA update: I got my Tetanus shot on Friday. The shot wasn't bad at all, but I must say that my arm is still a little sore. I'm currently waiting for my last two shots to arrive at the pharmacy so that I can pick them up and report to my doctor to get my last two immunizations in my body. I also got my perscription for my Malaria medicine. I'm happy to report that insurance kicked in nicely for this med. I also picked up a bottle of B-12 vitamins to take sometime before and during my trip. Trying to be precautions and stay healthy as much as possible. I'm also having a great time writing Thank You notes on my super cute animal print notes! Again, thank you all who are supporting me with my mission trip either through prayer or finances. It means SO much to me! I just get so excited inside when I talk or write about the trip.

HOUSE update: Travis and I met with a possible lender, and were pre-approved! We got our credit scores run for the first time ever and were happy to learn that our credit is good. I learned a lot in the meeting and was very satisfied with the lender. She was extremely helpful and willing to work with us and our particular needs. She kept things practical and real with our budget. That's exactly what I wanted! Tonight Travis and I will be meeting with a realtor for the first time. We've been in contact through email for the past couple of weeks, but I'm excited to finally meet in person and talk about a future home. They have been sending us emails about once a day of homes for sale that are in our price range. It has been fun shopping online and seeing possible houses. I know that online pics don't do a house justice, but it is nice to eliminate some homes just from the info listed. I'm really happy that we are not rushing anything, but at the same time we do have a deadline - so we don't get too laxed with it all!

Keep living with love!
-Miche