March 23

The first readings went well. I am very impressed with the bills; you can tell students have put a lot of thought into it and they have done a lot of research. A majority of Block 2 had their bills to turn in, so we got did a lot of first readings, and only a little bit of committee work. Block 3, on the other hand, did not turn in a lot of their bills on the first day. We did as many first readings as we could, but a majority of the class was committee work.

It was interesting to see students working in their committees because this class doesn’t have a lot of small group activities. Some groups were very on task, discussing the bills in depth, and other groups were not quite as on task. I think one of the main problems was because all four committees were out in the hall. A lot of people are in the halls on a regular basis, so there were a lot of distractions. I think a better way to do this may be to have the four groups in the four corners of the room, and those students who are in the House Rules Committee or Senate Committee of Rules and Administration can sit in the middle. As it is now, if I am with the students in the hallway, helping them go over the bills, there are 10 students in the room with no supervision. My CT may be comfortable with this but I wasn’t really. It makes me nervous to let students watch themselves; I realize that they are 17 and 18 year olds, but they are still my responsibility, and leaving them alone sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.