New Classes Coming + New Schedule!

Hi!

I have been hard at work on what I will be doing for when I come back to teaching online. But, I have been using most of that time to play with my kids, get ready for finals, and put in last-minute grades, so this is not wasted! I will be introducing some new courses into WiZiQ and EduFire which are the Human Legacy, the Eastern World, and Chemistry. If you would like some more information on these, then please either send me a message or attend the classes, but these courses will be awesome!!

Also, I have been putting together a bit of a schedule that I can sort of keep track of to know when I have to meet a certain deadline for a number of classes. So far, it is going like this:

June 21, 2010 - 100 Classes Down
July 23, 2010 - 200 Classes Down
August 18, 2010 - 300 Classes Down
September 19, 2010 - 400 Classes Down
October 19, 2010 - 500 Classes Down

Notice that the midway point of this challenge is exactly 6 months after I began this, so that will put me right on track! But, again, this is just a bit of a prediction because anything can happen, so I will try to follow this schedule as best I can, but please know that there are no guarantees!

Well, that's about all that I have for you right now. Please remember to check the classes page for some upcoming classes that I will be having, both on EduFire and WiZiQ, and remember, don't forget to follow!

P.S. WiZiQ is so nice that they put another blog post up about my challenge! Thanks WiZiQ!

Look at it here!

Taking A Break

I know that I have been very slow and I haven't had that much progress lately and if I keep it up, then we won't get this 1000 at all! So, I have decided to take a little break until my school year is over. I still have to grade papers, make finals, layout last minute assignments, and everything! Thus, it is too hectic of a schedule for me to keep up with. You have to remember that I come straight from my high school teaching my students there, then I come home and teach three classes online for 4 hours. The conclusion is that I don't have enough time to get anything else done!

However, it is a very good thing that we only have 12 more days of school left. Starting June 4th, I will be back teaching online and I will have to perform some double-time when I teach then to keep up with my quota. But, I will have a much better schedule and everything will be a lot easier for everyone!

So, I will see you all on June 4th! Bye! :)

What Is With That 3rd Class?!

Well, another week..another 11 classes down!

Throughout this week, I have realized that I do not have the stability or stamina in order to teach 3 classes straight through. So, what I have decided to do is to basically just do my first two classes (Algebra I, Psychology) and then take about an hour break and post my third class. Nobody has the physical willpower in order to teach constantly...well, maybe except me.

As some of you know, I also teach high school along with my online career, so believe me when I say that I can teach! Starting June 4th, I will be teaching a lot more classes per day since that is truly the first day of my summer vacation. I will probably do a couple in the morning, a couple in the afternoon, and a couple at night because you can probably guess that I am a bit behind in my classes. I MUST catch up!!

So, that's basically my theory for this week. Stay tuned for how my next week goes and if any improvements have to be made! :)

P.S. I have been recently been getting some actual interested students to maybe pay for a private lesson or two. Please do not forget that if you would like a private course or lesson, then do not hesitate to send me a message either at ablair2391@yahoo.com or on Skype at the address of austinteacher. :)

25 Through - How Am I Doing?

OK, I have taught 25 classes now online, but we're going to see exactly how they are. Throughout this ordeal, I have just been teaching away and have gotten some pretty good results. There is one person (and probably more) that think that I may be burning myself out a bit and he is a very great online instructor on WiZiQ. As some objectors to this project said before it started, "Quality is better than quantity". This is a statement that I totally agree with, but as I replied to one person, "I know of the balance between quality and quantity, but what if sometimes, a person does quite a lot of classes and as they progress throughout their challenge, their quality gets gradually better as they move on." This is what I believe will happen.

Now, I know that there was a bit of a slump and there still is with my teaching, but I promise you that it is over. As I stated, I only want to continue doing this if I give the best classes that I possibly can and that is most certainly what I will do. I am taking a weekend break, but starting Monday, I will give it my all! Some things that I have noticed about my teaching are:

- My voice stinks. I just have always not liked my voice when I hear it online, but many other people always compliment me about it. I was in the school chorus for about 8 years and I was the lead bass, but for some reason, I just have never liked it. So, that is one thing that I always try to improve.

- I lecture way too much! I'm just getting so tired of going on and on and on about something (e.g. the brain) and absolutely nobody responding to it! It is so freaking frustrating! So now, what I am trying to do, is to create some presentations and show my students pictures and illustrations about what we are discussing and make sure that they are able to interact as best as they can.

- People just don't care about the subjects. I have known this for quite a while, but about all online students want to learn is English. Which is very good, but not good for me as I am an academics instructor. The reason that I am not an English teacher is that I don't have the patience to have somebody sound out the word, "boat" or "exciting". It just isn't good for me. I like to see people participate, ask questions, and learn something new!

Please remember that the purpose of my participating in this program to begin with is so that I may find certain things that my students like and dislike, so that I can become a better teacher. I believe that this formula is proving very good already!

Also, I have decided that WiZiQ will not be my only source of online classes and that I will also be doing some classes for this on EduFire. This is a very great learning platform and I have always been happy to teach with them! In addition to this, I have decided to switch over my Algebra II course to a Biology course which I have found that a lot more people are interested in this kind of a subject. But, who knows? My Algebra I and Psychology courses are still running very smoothly, so I will be keeping those until somebody says it stinks!

Don't forget to check out the classes page for my upcoming classes online and also to look at some of the recordings from my past classes and make sure to comment on anything that I may need to improve on or give me a compliment so I have the power to keep going!

Am I Doing Something Wrong?

I have taught almost 20 classes so far in this project and I feel that as I am teaching them that I may be doing something wrong. Every class that I teach, I feel like that there is absolutely no connection between me and the students because they just do not want to do anything. That is part of why I am doing this is to improve my teaching technique and I need your help into figuring out what I am doing wrong and how I can improve it.

Don't leave me out in the dark! I just taught 3 more classes today which is very good, but that is when I started to notice that I was just drifting through the lessons which is not what I want by doing this project. I still know that I need to step up my game as 20 classes is not very good so far, so I will be teaching some more. Please leave something in the comments below. What am I doing wrong? Are my lessons interesting? My courses? How do I improve myself?

Thank you.