Graduate School

Six months from now I will have supposedly completed all the requirements for the MAE from Truman. Right now, I have to work on one major project with two components. The major project is my teaching Portfolio. This will run 40-90 pages of reflections about my teaching style and what I learned in my internship. It will also include "artifacts": copies of worksheets, tests, and student written journals. Most of this will be worked on once school is out. The entire due date for everything is July 15th. The smaller component of the Portfolio is a Unit Plan that I implement during the school year. This has to be keyed to the Missouri Grade Level Expectations and the National Science Standards. Everything has to be planned out ahead of time, and every detail covered. This Unit plan, including the worksheets and the tests will add 30-50pages to the portfolio.

All in all, it is no small project, but definitely doable. HOWEVER: my adviser is a stickler. The kind of Mentor who is blunt with criticism and short on praise. He's made students cry multiple times. He's picky with word choice and Language. (For example it's not "lab" it is "Laboratory"). People have gone through Reflections with 10 different revisions and still it's not up to his standards. He's one of those professors who make you a better teacher, but you end up hating him during the process.

The portfolio is where most people fail at getting there degree. It is usually put off a summer. Technically you have two years to complete it, but you get paid more if you have a masters degree than if you don't.

I'm afraid that my slacker tendencies will kick in, that I'll be lazy and won't get it done. That would be bad, very, very bad. This portfolio is just another hoop to jump through, and I'm not very engaged in it, so I could see the degree postponement happening. The good thing is that I like writting, so hopefully the reflection part of the assignment will be easier.

The thing is, I don't see my self satisfied as a science teacher for the rest of my life either... so what after the degree? There are lots of masters programs in Science that are available to teachers too. hmmm.