1st Day as a Professor

Well

Yesterday, I had 20 students. A wonderful powerpoint presentation (ppt).
Several activities within the ppt related to fingerspelling, vocabulary
and simple phrases...BUTT.... I couldn't access the ppt!

I went over the syllabus, and then I fumbled through somewhat trying to
remember the info from the ppt and conduct it in the right order. This
is only my 2nd time ever working with pure newbies. I have been
fortunate that most of my previous students usually had a year or more
under their belts. I did do the manual alphabet. Basic vocabs and 1 set
of a practice dialogue before I ended the class. I covered briefly what
ASL isn't (Universal, same as SEE/Cued Speech/PSE/Rochestor Method...
etc) and so on with a few other areas. Today I will upload the ppt to
the online Blackboard for my students to review.

After the class ended, I went back to meet up with my supervisor. When
another ASL professor arrived who is also from my program at TC. She was
the part of the 1st class to enroll into the MA program, I came several
years after her so we never met till today. Nice woman, glad to meet
her. VERY Deaf :) I enjoy meeting other people who studied ASL, and
watch their sign choices, facial expressions, mouth morpheme choices and
syntax usages.

This coming Monday's class is gonna be a LOT smoother. The Instructor's
curriculum has been ordered so meanwhile I have the 1st two Units
xeroxed. Now I can do a real lesson plan. It still kills me because I
spent a good 4-5 hrs working on my ppt to wow and dazzle them with my
superior knowledge but ended up instead making them laugh here and
there. They're all pretty young and seem like happy kids. I look forward
to getting to know their personalities and see how they interact with
each other.

I also stopped by KMart after I finished work. I caved in and spent $21
on the twins. I needed supplies in order to teach them! Brought some
cool stickers/temp tattooes, Elmo Memory Card set (the twins loved
this!), this weird foam based clay item (far-out stuff!) I want Jack to
check it out with me later, I'll snap some pixs of what I mean. I also
brought a set of puzzles for their age group, and some arts and craft
stuff, coloring book, a regular book to sign to them. They both did well
last night.

I will be taking a class at TC Thurs nites. Tonights the 1st class.
Kinda weird, haven't been in class for over a year. It should be
interesting.