ASPEN...take 4

I led the FINAL session on ASPEN for today. It was a disastrous day at school with millions of excuses as to why students did not have their projects to turn in, so I did not have the most positive attitude going into the session. My team leader had a few things to discuss, but that did not take long because we had just met on Friday for the professional day.

This last ASPEN session was fairly easy because we only had to change one setting in the ASPEN gradebook settings, and then, walk through how to add a course recommendation for each student. We will not complete recommendations until January, but this process does allow us to mark specific classes for the students without them being able to change their schedules (on the old paper copies). Students will also no longer be able to forge signatures because there are no more paper copies! YAY! This will not change the time that recommendations will take, however. I still want to have a conference with each child about what they are considering for the following year. It typically takes me 2-3 class periods to meet with each student and talk about college and course recommendations (since I teach mostly juniors).

My department was very receptive to this change on ASPEN and they have decided that this is the easiest change thus far! Walking them through the steps did not take that long. This session was slightly difficult only because teachers cannot actually practice with this, or they will be completing the recommendations for students! I am sure that they will have more questions once they start the actual recommendation process.

I am thankful for my department that they now have everything that they need in order to be successful with ASPEN this year. I know that other departments have not had as much support, and I have made myself available to them as well. I'm sure there will be follow-up sessions all year for this one!