Spring Break?

This is what spring brake would have looked liked if we had an opportunity to take the time to off, but this is what it looked like, we were all going batty.

Last week we had to complete the Inquiry-Based learning assignment.  Emily, Ken, and myself worked all week making sure we met all the requirements.  The assignment had more moving parts than a water show..

Inquiry-based learning is a good way to teach because the focus is on the students not the teacher. A problem, question, situation, it doesn't matter how the assignment starts; what matters is how the learning is conducted.  The students work in collaborative groups (and if you're lucky you get the group I was in for these last two assignments). As the students work instead of the teacher laying out the path they'll take, the students are guided by their own questions through their research.  The students ask the questions and the teacher uses questions to help guild them.  The main focus is the why and how questions.  As a teacher it's a little harder to prepare because you need to have a good solid foundation about the subjects, in order use questions to guild the students.  I like the concept, we use it at the Huntsville Botanical Garden for our homeschool students (and the method we're working on this week but that's next weeks blog). The assignment was huge and the elephant in the story; where did the pictures come from.

This week's assignment is just as huge, and I didn't care.  On Monday I went to the zoo with my other best friend Xan.  I met her not long after we moved to Alabama, we hit it off the first time.  I had known her for several months and then found out she was the sister of Shelley, my best friend, the one who keeps me grounded.  Xan and I are very much alike in the things we enjoy doing.  She teaches Science at East Limestone High School and I always go with her as a chaperone for the science club field trips.  Five years ago we went to the Nashville Zoo, fell in love with the place, have been a member since then, and we go every year in May to celebrate our birth month. I didn't care how much homework I have to do.  I needed a brake so we went to the zoo, Gaylord Opry Mall and the Gaylord Opryland Resort to walk through the gardens.  Two of the girls in the first picture are Xan's two girls (they attend Jacksonville State University). The other three girls are their friends, ones at UNA, another at UAH, and the other at UAB.  They all had gone to the first zoo trip with the science club.  I didn't get spring brake but we left Alabama at 08:00 am and didn't get home until midnight.  I had fun and the next night Pete and I drove up to Nashville to watch hockey. We have season tickets starting next year, so we'll be closer to the rink; I like hockey.  If my advisor knew what I did for two days she would laugh and say, "yeah that sounds like her" and tell me I deserved the brake, that we didn't get.