I had my first class of the new year yesterday - Practicum is a yearlong experience for senior psychology majors - each student (16) will be located at a local service agency and will spend 8 - 10 hours each week on site under the supervision of a master's level professional. They spend 2.5 hours back in class processing their experiences. I am always nervous the first day of classes yesterday was also the beginning of my complete use of our new technology on campus called Tegrity - this captures the video from class as well as anything that we use from the class computer. I will be using this in all classes and students seemed excited (albeit a bit nervous) about it - they can go back and review class anytime they want. A couple of Practicum students were in Sports Psychology and I used it there so they were very comfortable. I did an interesting exercise where I sent the students out of class for half an hour in pairs - each student was to "interview" the other for 15 minutes and then when they returned to class they had to introduce their partner to the rest of class - since interviewing, listening and responding are such an important part of this class, it turned out to be a great exercise. The most common comment: "I have known him/her for a couple of years now but never knew all of this about them" - good job everyone.

Sports Psychology and Theories of Counseling this afternoon and yup, still nervous........

take care and be well and, as always please keep the members of our military in your thoughts and prayers AND additionally, please keep all those here in the beautiful State of Vermont in your thoughts and prayers as well as SO many areas have been devastated by the flooding from Hurricane Irene - the pictures from all over the State are incredible. I am a huge lover of covered bridges and watching one just be swept away by the raging waters was heart-wrenching.

Dave