Escape the Ordinary....

For this assignment, I chose to read the article titled, "Why Giving Effective Feedback is Trickier Than It Seems" written by Katrina Schwartz. This is a link to the article! In the article, they quote Susan Brookhart who says, "The job of feedback is to meet the student where they are and give them what they need to take their next steps." I found this quote particularly useful. You have to meet them where they are. There is no baseline or general start place that you can use as a guide. You have to assess the student or employee, where they are currently at. If you don't, then the feedback may not be effective. She talks about how many teachers try and give one round of feedback and give them everything that they need right then. Even if there are large gaps in performance. It tells that feedback is an ongoing thing and may take many rounds to accomplish that goals that you have set forth. It says to praise their strengths and then point out one or two thing...

Title: Ending Source: Wikimedia Commons For this week’s picture, I googled ending and this is what came up. There were lots of pictures of sunsets. I found this quite appropriate for my last Famous Last Words post. It’s as if the sun is setting on this semester and it’s very bittersweet. I have enjoyed this class immensely, but I’ll be glad to be done with it. The coursework for this class is quite hefty and I was not prepared mentally to be as creative and write as much as was required. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t struggle in this class this semester to keep up. However, I have learned so much and seen some really cool things. I have also discovered that my fellow classmates are so creative and there are so many different personalities out there. From Star Wars Weapons to WWII stories to things told from a gossip columnist point of view, there was never a dull read in this class. I have also been very blessed to have classmates that had such positive things to say abo...

For this assignment, I chose to finish up the Jataka tales about Buddha. Eastern Stories and Legends by Shedlock. A link to the stories can be found here . 1. The Crow That Thought It Knew This story is about the Buddha that is reborn as a crow. There was a great famine in the land and all the crows left the area. One crow left to go to the area where the Buddha lived. He saw the Buddha crow dive under the water and catch fish for it's meal. The crow that came to the area thought it would be good to be a servant of this crow that he too could have food to eat. Then the crow was not happy with the arrangement so he thought he could catch his own fish. Viraka, the Buddha fish, warned him that he was not meant to dive into the water like that and that he would not be successful in his ventures. The other crow did not listen to Viraka and drown trying to catch his own fish in the water. 2. The River-Fish and The Money This story is about Buddha born into a wealthy family. He went...

For this assignment, I decided to continue my reading on Buddha and read some more of Eastern Stories and Legends by Shedlock. A link to these stories can be found here . 1. The Hawk and the Osprey This is a story about a male hawk who married a female hawk and she told him that they needed friends to protect them. She recommended the Osprey, the Lion and the Tortoise. One day, there were men in the area and they were going to roast the hawk's babies for dinner. They called upon the osprey and he came and put out the fire of the men several times to distract them from getting the baby birds. Then when the osprey was tire, they called upon the tortoise to help. He gathered mud from the lake and also put out the fire several times to distract the men from getting the hawk's babies. Then, once the tortoise was tired, they called upon the lion. The lion roared and the men ran away. And they lived happily ever after. I think this story is a wonderful telling of true friendship...

This week I decided to to the happiness jar challenge. I thought this would be something excellent to do at the very end of the semester when things start to be the most stressful. So for this week, I'm going to write something down each day that makes me happy. And by the end of the week, I'll go back and reread all the things I have put into the jar. I'd like to sit and reflect on each one and remember that my days are good. I think this will be really helpful too since this week is Thanksgiving! I need to be reminded of all the things I'm thankful for anyway, so this will be the perfect challenge. Picture of my husband and I taken from my phone. We were supposed to pick a picture that inspires us. This picture is of me and my husband this summer. We took the kids to Mexico and stayed at a resort for a week. It was one of the best weeks we've had in a long time. I chose this picture because at the end of the day, he is what makes me the happiest. He suppo...

The article I read for the growth mindset was titled Top 11 Signs That You're A Perfectionist. The article is a part of a series that is written by Celestine Chua. The link to it can be found here . 1. No room for mistakes - this is definitely something that I struggle with. If I see a mistake, I can't just let it be. Sometimes this is good (especially in the line of work that I do) and other times it would be best if I just let it go. 2. Very specific manner in which things should be done - HA! This is me to a T! It says that people often have difficulties working with people like this. I find this true as well. I like things done a certain way and if it's not done that way, it really bothers me. Typically I find myself just doing everything because I will end up going back to redo someone else's work if I work in a group. I just find it easier to do it myself up front. 3. All-or-nothing approach - This partially fits me. It says you either do it all or do nothin...

For this assignment I decided to do another Canvas tip. This time I read over all the information about the dashboard portion.  Surprisingly, I knew most of the things it had to say. The first semester I was here, I had never used Canvas before, so I clicked ALL the buttons to try and figure out how to get into my class! I had a teacher that used ONLY Canvas for pretty much everything. I know a lot of other professors use it just to facilitate tracking of grades and as a place to keep a link for another platform used. However, now that I know I can create to do items on my task list, it will be helpful to track all the information in canvas on the calendar and then in card view on the dashboard. The one thing I did learn though is that you can create nicknames for your courses. This is helpful for this semester in particular. For some reason, my intermediate accounting I course had a really long complicated name. So being able to change the name to something shorter was very ...