Time management....bleagh.

Well, this is more or less a reflection on my 10 min. sociology presentation today, but it fits in to what I was saying about the group mini lessons.

Things certainly went better in the planning stages for me - I planned out my time, and had it done the night before, along with a couple of chances to run through it (and it took about 11 min.). But then presentation time came - I talked a little more about this topic here, a little bit more about that topic there - and pretty soon Alan is holding up the 1 min. left sign, and I'm only 2/3 of the way through my presentation. It would've been salvageable had I skipped a few things and moved on to my last example as a wrap-up - but instead I got verbal diahrrea, and perhaps a bit incoherent. I still remember looking at the screen as I fast forwarded through my slide presentation, and saying "Whoa, the Rhind papyrus - right, the Egyptians knew about Pi...then there was Archimedes - and he came up with a better value." Really informative!

Anyways, it was yet another reminder about how much I need to focus on what I'm doing/saying, and set REALISTIC expectations for what can be covered in a period of time. Those who have been in a classroom environment - did you have any system for figuring out how much time stuff would take, or was it more or less trial and error?