10 November, 2005

What a lovely day for a bitch-a-thon

So hooray, today is the day that we get to meet with the students and listen to them tell us how to "improve" the learning experience. This is totally a rant -- I have such a hard time with these students who not only expect but demand to be spoon fed the information. What happened to learning? To exploring? To finding out the answer on your own, for crying out loud??!!! Here's the deal in a nutshell -- I have made a very large quiz bank for these students to use as a learning tool. With a total of over 1,200 questions, mind you, served up in 20 to 30 question chunks. They are further divided by subject to correspond with their lab sessions and syllabus chapters. After a student completes a quiz they can go back and review their answers and after it is submitted the tool will show the score and also show the question and the answer they chose and whether the answer is right or wrong. Every day or so someone of them emails to complain that they don't get the correct answers! Could we please have an answer key or could you just show us the correct answers when we're done. And what do I say? No. Sorry, no. This is a learning tool. If you don't know the answer, what about looking in your book? What about searching it out in the syllabus? What about asking your professor?? I mean!!! It might seem a small thing but it absolutely drives me crazy because how lazy is that? I could go on and on but I'm starting to get dizzy.

So - on to the knitting news. I had a lovely evening - had a glass or two (okay, 2) of wine, read the paper, listened to music [simultaneously - wow, what a multi-tasker] and then started on Kate's tea cozy. It's a strange pattern - Vogue is always weird though - worked in repeats of short row shaping. I had never done it before but it's easy. I got one 30 row repeat done and a couple rows on the second. The Kureyon I got for it is very bright - pinks, oranges, greens, purples - and I am excited to see how it turns out. It should be pretty cute. I hope to get some more done on it tonight, but I'm planning on going down to my neighborhood pub for Taco Thursday --- wheeeee ----- (Oh I DO live such an exciting life!! ) so it's going to depend on the company. If any of my pals are there I might not feel like knitting when I get home. If it's dead - no problem.

And tomorrow is a holiday. I need to get more leaves raked up and I'd like to plant some bulbs as well because I think it's going to freeze soon. My back has been getting kind of tweaky lately though. I don't know if it's because I've extended my running time to 45 minutes or if I over did it at the gym Tuesday or what, but it is going to be difficult to garden with a tweaky back. Luckily I've got a few massage gift certificates so I'm going to get a massage tomorrow at noon. That always helps. Plus I just like it.

No comments: