Even though I learned much about Texas school finance in this course, I did not learn enough to rate myself as either “competent’ or “superior” in many of the Domain III – Competency 8 indicators. While I do have a better knowledge base in these areas, I didn’t feel like I could rate myself higher than “needs improvement” since I have not actually experienced these elements during my administrative experience.
The lectures were interesting, but only touched the surface of each topic and did not go into any depth. This made it difficult, in my opinion, to complete many of the assignments that required us to analyze a district’s data. I found myself digging deep into the resources to understand concepts and having to depend upon my district’s business manager and cohort member’s posts to give me direction into understanding the data. I would have appreciated a couple of district samples where analyses and conclusions drawn from the data were fully explained and rationale provided. Besides unclear directions and disorganization of wiki group assignments in the first week, this was one of the most frustrating aspects of this course.
My interviews and discussions with my business manager were extremely helpful in understanding many of the assignments in this course. I felt guilty having to ask her so many questions but am extremely grateful she took time from her daily routine to assist me.
I appreciate the wiki group process and found it a beneficial collaborative tool. However, I found the directions and the required multiple postings not efficient use of time or resources. I found myself posting the same information on the group wiki, the faculty blog, and then on my own blog. I think it should be streamlined so that we are not duplicating our posts. This may have been my own paranoia of being sure I posted it in the right place in order to get all my points (I’m obsessive/compulsive about that), but I did find the process redundant.
Next week, I am going to go back to the very first practice exam we took, and see how I can answer the finance questions to see if I have made any improvement.
Brenda, I truly got the majority of my learning throughout this course from my interviews with the Executive Director of Finance. I had several S's which were mainly due from the interaction with her. This is a short period to learn all the ins and outs of school funding and I don't think we were expected to know everything. I think the knowledge we got will get us started in the direction to learn more and more about school funding.
ReplyDeleteGood job, Brenda. I think we have all learned a lot in this course. I agree that the interviews were a good way to start learning some of this stuff.
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