Give me a T.... W.... S.... what does it spell?

The LAST hoop to jump through!... Well, it doesn't exactly spell that... but that's how I felt about it.

1. Challenging: I agree with whoever said that BYU didn't give us enough information about it!!! I had no clue what the TWS even was until my second cohort and even then, I would've had NOOOO clue what I was doing if I hadn't taken Social Studies during Fast Track over the summer. It would've been a serious disaster. So, yes, BYU needs to give us a little more info about it. Another challenging thing, which someone already said, was that it was SO repetitive!!! When I was writing the reflection section, I kept thinking, "Didn't I already write this???" All the student work examples, blah blah blah.... it's just unnecessary. Especially if you're interning... we teach for an ENTIRE YEAR with someone observing us WEEKLY and sometimes DAILY. I would think THAT would be good enough to determine if we're "good teachers" or not and if we can graduate. But, maybe it's just me. I'm just letting all my frustrations of the TWS out. :) And I could have gone about it all wrong but I didn't go through it thinking, "Oh wow, I'm learning so much" and "Ohhh I'm so glad I learned that for my teaching..." The things I've learned about my teaching have come FROM TEACHING and from being observed by my wonderful facilitator and CFA and the tips and ideas they give me. I didn't learn anything "new" by teaching a unit and handing in 97 pages of paper. (ok, I'm done venting...) :)

2. Valuable: NOTHING was valuable. :) ... ok ok, I'm just kidding. It was valuable to plan out an entire unit on my own and see it all unfold... but in reality... I did WAAAAY more for this than I ever have or probably will with a unit. Because I spent a whole class in the summer (Social Studies) working on it and getting it revised by professors. So it was quite a different scenario. But it was valuable to see how it all worked out. It was also valuable to create my own test. And I don't know who said it in a previous post but it IS hard!! I thought it would be much easier but the more I looked back at my test, the more I thought oh I should have changed that question, should've asked this instead of that, etc.

3. Stress Level: I'd have to say just about a 5... I usually get WAY stressed about stuff, but having it just be pass/fail made me WAY less stressed. And Teresa repeatedly telling me that I'd be fine and not to worry helped a ton too. Also, having taken Social Studies in the SUMMER with Fast Track, I already knew the grade, school, etc. that I'd be in for my internship, so I had the majority of the TWS already done. If that hadn't been done over the summer I'd be WAY more stressed. BUT there were no tears shed over this so I consider that to be low stress. :) The most stress has come from just being frustrated about doing it.

(Hopefully this post wasn't too harsh, Teresa... I'm just trying to be honest! That's what you said to do, right?) :)

-Chelsie