Budapest Orientation Part 2

This afternoon, a university students, Kate, picked me up to take me around Budapest. She had a class during the afternoon so I attended with her. The class was in a lecture hall with about 250 people,  not anything like Notre Dame. It was very interesting to see how the students acted during the lecture. There were the students in the first two rows that were paying attention and diligently taking notes, but as you went further back in the lecture hall there were students on facebook, utube, there were students txting, students having a full on conversation with the person next to them and even a students that put his head down and slept through class. It was so interesting to watch all of this happen (because that's all I could do, watch, I had nooooo idea what the professor was saying) I could easily see this happening in the United States. Although I have never taken a class with that many students, I have heard from peers what those classes are like. After class we came back to the house and she showed me her room and introduced me to her roommates.
 Next we went to see Sister Eva (accent over the E, So it is pronounced Ava) She gave me a tour of the school and I got to see a few classrooms. Sister Eva asked me about cooperative learning groups and if we used them in the United States, so I told her that as much as possible, I had the students work in groups. She told me that because of the old style of desks they had, it is very hard to do cooperative learning groups, but she is trying to implement them in the classroom. She told me about the old style of teaching, where students had to face forward and watch the teacher lecture, which was common in the United States also, but Sister Eva is trying to get away from that style of teaching, to one that gives students and teachers a little more freedom. After the tour and dinner, we walked around Budapest and Sister Eva showed me some more of the City. I remembered me camera this time, but it was too dark to take any pictures :( I promise to upload some soon!!