Chris's Life

The second session went even worse than the first session. I was upbeat and positive, but I really got bogged down. I had even less time for the later problems than last time. On the plus side, I did finish exactly on time.

I know that I have a tendency to explain even simple things in great depth — to the dismay of many, though not all, of the people who listen to me — but even so, I think that the TEL (Teacher's Edition of the Lessonbook) is a little unrealistic about its timing. It's not that the timing is wrong, just that it's based on the assumption that the students will get all of the problems correct immediately. I don't think that there's time allotted for questions to be asked and students to not answer, or worse to answer incorrectly (because then you have to explain why they were wrong as well as move on to showing the correct answer). I guess that what you have to do is perhaps just one of the three recommended questions if the first one doesn't go quickly. That seems rather counter-intuitive to me — shouldn't one spend more time on things that students have trouble with — but perhaps that's taken into account by having the students complete all undone problems. I'll have to ask to make sure that that is indeed what they want, but I'm willing to trust my new employer. They certainly have far more experience than I do.

I wonder if it would be possible for me to become part of the team who works on updated training videos (they're constantly updating material, from what I understand). Perhaps when my first class is done, I'll start giving feedback and see if I can get to know the people who are working on the videos. Supposedly there is a lot of opportunity in Kaplan, maybe I can swing it. It's worth a try, at least.

Well, my first Kaplan session is finally over. Man am I tired. I feel utterly exhausted. The students were good, and I think that we had fun (I joked a bit and they generally laughed), but all of that standing really got to me.

The Timing was a little bit hard. I was on time for most of the session, but the verbal part at the end really threw me. I started with just a little less time than I should have (because I had to give an introduction to the Higher Scores Guarantee^™), but explaining some of the sentences in the verbal section was really slow. It's partially, of course, that it's the students first time seeing the methods and using them (I'm going to have to work hard to wean students from immediately looking at the answer choices on sentence completions), but I also just lagged. I'm hoping to sit in on a course that the center director is teaching because she's a real expert in the verbal sections of tests and I could really use a good example. Though I have tutored in humanities subjects, I just don't have much experience in it.

Beth really helped me to get my 125 gallon tank listed on Ebay. I sure hope that it sells well and I'm able to buy the platform bed so that I can move the futon out to the living room. :-)

Today was my first day at kaplan proctoring an exam. It was, as most proctoring's are, quite boring. I was able to get some preparation for class done, but not much. There's just something about proctoring which doesn't let you concentrate or get much out of what you're doing. On the plus side, I got a chance to see what my students look like. Well, 5 out of 6 of them. The sixth one is only PSAT so he or she will only be there for the first half of the session. The other part of the plus side is that I got paid for it. The rate for proctoring is better than the preparation rate, too: $10/hour. I'll have to see if I can proctor more often. :-)

Oh, and I really want a few of these. I think that everyone should keep a few around.