Without any classes or other responsibilities on Friday afternoon I dug into developing stuff for CO212. Mostly I worked on the course web site which is basically set up for now. I took home a small mountain of materials which I plan to paw through. I hope to generate a more comprehensive list of warm-ups and interactive activities and cross reference then with my weekly plans. Because this is the first time I am teaching this course I still am having some trouble wrapping my head around coherent themes, patterns and routines. There are plenty of pieces of curriculum but I want to make them all hang together better.
Some new faces have been added to the class. I'm worried about the small size of our classroom. It feels too tight now and with more people.... I mentioned this to Tom but I think I need to be more forceful about this.

 
great first day. its groups of students like this that make me excited to come to work each day. I have a really good feeling about these people.
there was much I had thought to do the first day but I wasn't sure where to go from there. however, the first day plans were greatly over developed - we did only a small portion of what I thought to do. but you would think that I would have know this by now. I always overplan and then follow the flow of the class group.
we did matches activity, introductions and talked a bit about the course. i think i should have done more with the matches activity and maybe I will cycle back to it at some point. i am really pleased with our discussion about collaborating about course expectations and policies. these students seem really motivated and are in school for the right reasons.
tomorrow we will pick up a few pieces from today focusing on the topic - conflict with common expressions, conflict continium - and with looking at the course by checking out a draft of the syllabus and calendar. Also let's start up the facilitator plan.

 
Well I lost the first real post. Not a good start.
My hope is to use this site to post my planning ideas for my own reference and for the CO212 students to "see behind the curtain" about the thinking process for the course.
Although I have a long list of things to do to get ready I need to focus on the first day. Since it all starts tomorrow!!!!