Prompt # 4: Reflect on your time in the classroom to this point. How are you feeling emotionally, physically? Do you feel that you are getting through to your most difficult students? What strategies are working? What strategies are not? What are your next steps with student engagement within your classroom?

It hasn't been that long since I started the class and to describe the roller coaster of emotions in a paragraph would be tough. I've gone from laughing, disappointed, frustrated, ecstatic, and apathetic in that short of a time span. The good news is that are more jubilees sentiments than unpleasant. On some day the students seem eager to participate and engage in the classroom and on others its a struggle to even have them take notes.

The difficult students in class are becoming less troublesome. Since most do not have an idea of what economics is about, once we connect the real world to the material in class they are the ones most interested in participating; some even become so enamored that they blurt out questions and distract when lecturing, but that's a win in my book. I have to attribute the success catering the material to their reading and writing level and giving positive reinforcement when they participate. One of the biggest problems in my class is confidence, or lack their of, in students' school ability. Economics is not all mathematics, it actually studies human behavior as a whole so when a student is asked a question, most of them know the answer intuitively. I attempt to always ask questions that they would rationalize by just being themselves.

My next step in engaging the students in the classroom is to provide current data and intertwine the lesson plans with relevant world events. Most of the concepts in beginning economics is fundamental and finding information to relate is a bit difficult.