Typical Week

A few of you have asked me what my typical week is like. This is what my class schedule is. This does not include all the bus travel time, which I was going to include but it is hard to capture because for example on Tuesday mornings I take a bus to a road where I try to get a taxi. I actually take a taxi about 30% of the time. The rest of the time I wait around until a good hitchhiking opportunity. So it's impossible to actually capture how much time I am standing on the side of the road. 

Mondays

7:15-8:15              Co-planning session
11:15-12:15         Co-planning session
12:15-1:45           Class with 5^th Year

Tuesdays

7:30-8:30              Co-planning session
10:35-12:05         Class with 4^th Year
12:05-1:00           Co-planning session

Wednesday

8:00-9:30              Class with 5^th Year
10:05-10:50         Class with 5^th Year
10:50-11:35         Co-planning session

3:00-4:15              Session 1 of my English Class in town (beginner)
4:30-6:00              Session 2 of my English Class in town (advanced beginner)

Thursdays

7:45-9:00              Co-planning session

10:35-12:05         Class with 5^th Year
12:05-1:00           Co-planning session

                -OR-

12:15-1:45           Class with 5^th Year
1:45-3:15              English Class with Counterpart

Fridays

10:50-11:35         Class with 5^th Year

My second class - April 17

On Wednesday, April 17th, I co-taught my second class. The Theme was Community Businesses and the Objective was to Identify the Characteristics of the Successful Businesses of the Community.

We had to co-plan the class with our counterpart. We had made plans to meet her at 9am at the school but by 945am she still had not shown up.  One of the other people at the school is relatives with her neighbor so he called his relative who went to her house and told her we were waiting. 20 minutes later she showed up. She said she had forgotten about our plans to meet, which is very likely since we made the plan over a week before. Regardless, we were able to plan with her and as a result, she was able to co-teach the Information section.

The PC has a format we are supposed to follow and we have been incorporating it into our lesson plans.
- Motivation
- Information
- Application / Practice

In the information section, she listed and described the 5 Factors to generate ideas
1. Local Resources
2. The things people like
3. Ways to improve the quality of life
4. Skills & Abilities
5. Interdepartmental Commerce

For the fun part (application/practice), we had then meet in small groups and each of them had 1 of the 5 Factors. Each group had to make a list of whatever part they were given. They had to highlight the things that were relevant to their region. To close the class we went over their lists and reinforced how an individual can use the 5 factors to improve their business or develop an idea.
Overall, the class objective was met and I think the students had fun!

My first class - April 3 - La Creatividad

On April 3rd, I taught my first class. The theme was La Creatividad (Creativity). I taught the equivalent of 11th graders. They are a loud bunch and there are a lot of them, over 30.  Luckily in our school class sizes are relatively small. In some cities, classes are 70 students or more. We had co-planned with our counterpart, a teacher of OTV. She is currently teaching Medio Ambiente (Environment) so we just show up with our Emprededurismo class (Entrepreneurship) and teach. The teacher and her students are great sports about letting us practice. Classes in Nicaragua typically consist of definitions that the teachers dictate and the students write down verbatim. Classes are not very interactive and the course we are here to teach encourages active participation and group work. 

I started the class with What is Creativity? to encourage the students to think outside of the typical answers of arts and crafts.  I then continued into why it is important in business.  The lesson included an explanation of the Osborne Model, which is a way to improve ideas that already exist. We used the example of a microbus and then they used the example of a bicycle in small groups.

Overall, it was a success. I was very nervous about teaching in front of 30 students for 45 minutes in Spanish but they achieved the objective and I think had fun in the process. 

I had my site mate takes some pictures...