First I probably learned too much about the food industry, and that if I want to eat well and feed my son healthy foods, I'm going to have to spend more time and money on food & shopping.
I learned that I can rewrite the two most important chapters in Double Deuce (when we find out who did it and Spenser and Hawk confront the killers) and change the point of view from first person to omniscient.
And as usual, and most importantly, I learned from my students. I discovered more about which reading skills are the most challenging and then tried to come up with ways to work on developing and mastering these skills. Implied main ideas are a real hurdle. Remembering what topics and main ideas are (not just being able to identify them in a reading, but knowing what they are) is another problem area that we worked on all semester. For the writing class, remembering what introductory elements are is just as challenging.
So each semester, Dr. Wahl and I find new ways to work with these skills and hopefully our students build the skills they need for the classes they will take in the future. (Next semester we will start annotating the readings from the very beginning -- that is one of several adjustments we have talked about making for next spring).
I learned things about each of my students -- too many to go into -- but one of the best parts of the job.
