HELP!!

Have you ever been in the midst of something you knew was going downhill - fast, yet there was no way to stop the fall?  Day 2 of research.  Ughhhhh . . . I'm beginning to loathe it again. As part of my desire to be cautious and reflective, I created a Research FAQ sheet. I reflected on the questions posed from day 1 - as well as questions I thought students would raise - and developed a one page FAQ sheet on hot-pink paper.  We went over it. I stressed the points that needed to be stressed.  I explained it.  I found examples on the internet to help explain it. I began a group example of reading an article and note taking . . . That's when it all began to crash and burn - not the internet - their brains and my patience. By the end of class, I wanted to shred all documents and start again. We salvaged what we could of the group example and then resorted to organizing student binders and throwing away papers. Wait . . .  did we learn anything?

Okay, so even the worse classes offer some gold nuggets for future reference.  Here are some I found.

• don't explain everything . . . students can only learn so much at a time
• keep it simple . . . focus only on one skill at a time, like note taking
• save some stuff for future educators . . . give students the correct citation format ahead of time, they have 3 more years of school to learn to do it on their own
• keep calm and together even when things are not calm and together
• be willing (and ready) to switch to something else
• find the fun