Accomplishments of the Day

Howdy from Jaclyn in Aggieland!

I am actually out at Mom's tonight, so more like, "Howdy from Cynjara!" I had a very full day today and feel like I did a pretty decent job at following through on most of my goals today.

One bittersweet moment from the day: I got an email from one of my students who was regularly in my office the second half of the semester (as in, the student was there almost every time that I was available to students). This student did not get the necessary grade for their degree plan and they were very disappointed and were beating themselves up about it. This is a student that I know well because I saw him and worked with him almost every day for the last several weeks. I sent him the following response:

Please don’t be so hard on yourself. I am proud of the fact that you started making changes in how you studied. You might not have seen the results on your exams, but you were making progress. This is a minor set back in the grand scheme of things. You will come back from this better and stronger. I believe in you and your abilities. I am still proud of you. You did not fail my course, you just didn’t meet the requirements for your degree plan. You have learned a lot this semester about how to study, how to learn, how to take exams. Now you can use those lessons to rock the class the next time you take it.

I am always in your corner.

The student's response was lovely:

 And this is why I am grateful for choosing you as my prof! Thank you again.

 I honestly hate this time of the semester. No matter how hard I work, someone is going to be disappointed. I am going to get emails from students who think that their circumstances warrant special treatment. Who think that a 66 is a borderline grade. And many other soul-sucking, discouraging, broken moments. But then there are students who see how hard you fight for them. That know that you really are rooting for them and want only the best for them. Students who, even though they are disappointed in the final result, trust you enough to take your class again. Students who refresh your soul, encourage you in your mission, and are a salve on those bruises incurred by others.

Thanks and Gig 'Em!




For my own personal record and for those who might be following along, here are my accomplishments of the day:

• I woke up a little after 8am. I did not HAVE to wake up, so I count this as an accomplishment.
• I read the introductory chapter to How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. Already finding some challenges that honestly kind of intimidate me. My complete lack of expertise in Biblical languages and the history of the Middle East being most intimidating. I really need a good Bible dictionary.
• I read Luke 1. I kind of somewhat randomly chose to start with Luke. I was trying to practice separating feeling from the reading of the text and focus on the technical aspects of what I was reading. However, Zechariah and Elizabeth's initial challenges hit too close to home for me to separate my desires and subsequent feelings from the story. I ended up reading Luke 1 multiple times today in multiple translations.
•  I did a load of laundry! Actually, I finished a load that was already in the washer and did another load.
• I graded 9 of the 15 work out problems on the Honors Final Exam.
• I picked up clutter in the living room and on the stairs. I started doing the same in the bedroom. I folded laundry.
• I went to lunch with Hubba and his co-workers to celebrate his 3 year anniversary there.
• I took my multivitamins!
• We packed up clothes and essentials and headed to Mom's. Grandma is here and it is the perfect time for me to get away from Aggieland. Despite me sternly telling students that there was nothing more that can be done about their grades and to not email me about their grades, I have had SO MANY email me. It is convenient to say, "Sorry! I am out of town! I am happy to talk to you in the fall, though! Have a great summer!"
• I finished grading the Honors Final Exams. Now I just need to decide what to do, but I really already know. I just know a few of them are going to be disappointed and it makes me sad.
• I worked through half of the Exam I notes for Business Calculus. I still don't like my exponential functions notes.
• I worked on this post!

Non-Accomplishments:

• Did not drink enough water today. 
• No exercise. (When was there time!) No deliberate food choices.
• Didn't work on any of my 166 materials, but I did a lot of other work.
• Didn't look at Physics or Cal II. (Again, I think I did enough intellectual work today, though.)
• Didn't cook at home, because I am not at home. Mom made beef stew. It was amazing. She also made banana pudding. Also, amazing.

Summertime

Howdy From Jaclyn in Aggieland!

Another academic year has finished. The majority of the students have made the exodus out of town, while families of the degree candidates are starting to come in. We instructors are just trying to make it through grading final exams, meeting with panicked students, nervously entering grades into the system and hoping that we don't get flooded with emails from students asking if there is anything to be done about their grades. In a few days, Aggieland will be quiet. Summertime in a college town.

I will be teaching business calculus during Summer I. Despite the fact that this class was my foot in the door to the job that I love, I have not yet felt fully satisfied in the job I have done each time I have taught calculus. When I teach finite math, I feel like I do a good job making the material interesting and relevant. I do a good job of making math fun. I haven't found my method for teaching calculus that does the same thing. I am working very hard right now trying to make my materials for business calculus accessible to the non-math-major. I am debating different methods to teaching. Should I try to include activities or use that time to cover more examples? What if I gave them all of the activities at the beginning of the session and asked them to turn them in at the end? What about quizzes? Should I have them every day? Should I not have quizzes at all? When should homework be due? The evening before each exam? Or every couple of days? I realized that I don't like the way my notes on Exponential Functions are currently done. How can I improve them to make base e make sense to students? How am I going to cover all of this material in 5 weeks? I have done it before. I know I have. How did I do that? This is what is going to be taking up my time between now and Memorial Day. On June 2, Summer I starts and it will be too late and too chaotic to make any changes. At that point, we will be running the 400m race. A long sprint to July 7.

Summer II will be the first time in several years that I will not be working. I have some anxiety about this, but at the same time, I am very excited to have a break. My schedule is already starting to fill up. My mother-in-law and youngest sister-in-law are coming to Texas. There are plans in the works for a trip to Louisiana to see my other sister-in-law, her husband, and our niece and nephew. There is talk about a family reunion late this summer. Our neighbors are moving and will have a newborn baby, so I will be helping them however I can. I also have plans for lots of reading and cooking - two things I haven't made time to do in the last few years. I am excited for this time of recharging for the new year and all that it will entail.

It is shaping up to be a busy summer, but I have made a list of goals. If you have read this far, then I would venture that you care enough about me to hold me accountable to these goals:

• Work Goals: My job is very important to me and I want to continue to improve myself in not just teaching ability but also contributions to the department and the university.
•  Course Coordinator: I want to create some basic teaching materials for instructors and graduate students teaching Math 166 for the first time. It is hard knowing exactly what to cover and where to start in building course materials. I also want to create expectations and guidelines for Math 166, such as guidelines for using graders, submitting drafts of exams to the coordinator early enough for review and to allow the coordinator to offer suggestions, the necessity of providing exam statistics and exam keys, and other issues that may come up in the course of the semester.
• Teaching: I got a lot of very good feedback from my honors section. The area that needs most improvement are my labs. I didn't do a very good job of making the connection of the lab to what we were doing in class. On the other hand, they really enjoyed the research paper and presentation we did at the end of the semester and the labs that involved real-life applications, like financing a house and car. I want to overhaul my labs to make them more practical, that makes them get out in the real world and use math.
• Intellectual Goals: I am finally far enough out of school that my brain is ready to learn. There are a lot of classes I didn't take in college. There are also a lot of things I have learned that I need to refresh on because I haven't used it in so long. A big motivating factor for the subjects I picked to focus on this summer are that they are very common courses for my cadets to take and I want to be as useful to them as possible. With that said, I want to learn:
• Physics! I won the Physics Award in high school and then never took physics in college. Also kind of strange that a math major didn't take physics in college. Time to remedy the situation.
• Refresh Calculus II - Towards the end of this semester, I got to relearn some series materials and volumes. It was fun seeing how quickly it came back. However, it is not very efficient for my cadets to come to my office for help and have to wait several minutes for me to reteach myself before I can help them.
• Spiritual Goals: I want God to be my highest priority. I love Jesus. However, I am terrible at putting him first in my life. I often don't even know where to begin! This summer, my goals are:
• To study How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. Our church uses this book in one of the classes they offer on Tuesday nights that I can't ever go to. I want to read it and apply what I learn to reading the Bible. I hope it will help me dig deeper.
• Have daily devotional: Always sounds so simple, but something I have always failed at. Pray for fortitude to follow through and that God will meet with me during those times and fill my heart with a desire for Him.
• Attend homegroup whenever we are in town. I love my homegroup. Why am I not going? Why is it so hard to set aside work, exhaustion, and my introversion to go to something that I know will minister to me and give me energy. 
• Physical Goals:
• Lose 16-32 pounds. I normally am all about "it's not the number on the scale that matters." However, something needs to change and that is a quantifiable measure of how well I am doing. This is going to maybe be one of the biggest challenges for me this summer. My body is stubborn. It is resistant to losing weight. (There are medical reasons for this that I may go into in a future post.) I am going to have to be very deliberate in working out daily: cardio and strength training. I am going to have to be very deliberate in meal planning. I am going to need a lot of support and encouragement in this area. A lot.
• Take multivitamins daily. Seems simple enough.
• Drink more water. I think I walk around in a constant state of dehydration. That probably doesn't help to convince my stubborn body to play along. I bought water bottles. Now I just need to use them. Two to three of my Academy bottles of water every day. 
• Home:
• 30 minutes of cleaning a day: I am tired of feeling like a bad wife. (My own thoughts, not my husband's.) I can do a lot in 30 minutes and that isn't too long. It's one episode of a TV show.
• 1 load of laundry a day: I don't want the laundry to pile up so that Saturday is lost to the mountain of laundry.
• Make dinner at home at least 4 nights a week. We eat out a lot. Our food budget is completely out of control. It is probably the number one way we are not being good stewards of the physical blessings God has given us.

I really need people to hold me accountable. If you feel like you can check up on me on one or two of these, I would appreciate it. An easy way to maybe help me be accountable is to ask for updates. Maybe it will help me get into blogging if I am sharing what I am doing and how I am doing on my goals.

What plans do you have for the summer? Do you have any summer goals? What do you think about my goals?

Thanks and  gig 'em!