What are your personal goals for the remainder of the semester at your placement site?
How, if at all, do these goals align with the overall goals of your partner organization?
(It's OK if they don't)
Do you currently have what you need to accomplish these goals?
(If not, where can you get the support you need?)
My personal goals for the remainder of the semester at my site is to gain more confidence in my abilities, learn more through one and one and group interaction with the students and to improve on my communication skills. The Student Success Center through their work as a result indirectly build confidence in the students and their abilities thorough the support the counselors, teachers and volunteers provide to each student. Finally, I believe that I have the support that I need to accomplish these goals. Everyone is very helpful at the Center and is alway willing to offer help.
ReplyDeleteNow that you've all be in your placements for a bit and are starting to figure out different ways to work effectively with your students I want you to consider the following questions:
ReplyDeleteI personal goals for the remainder of the semester at my site are to address problems with the kids focusing skills and distractions between eachother more quickly instead of being shy to get them back on track.
These goals don't neccessarily align with my partner organization's mission statement. However, it does serve the purpose of keeping the kids focused on their homework and reading, which does help the overall goals of TreeHouse Books.
I think that I do possess the skills to address the children more readily (which will be more effective). I just need to make the effort to be more consistent. The challenges come into play when the kids get an attitude with me and shut off completely. I'm trying to find a happy medium so that they don't get pushed to their limit and we can stay focused on learning.
@ Rebecca
ReplyDeleteIts hard not respond instantaneously when the students get distracted.One of my fear is that if i do it will probably come off as me being mean. What I do is step back and decide what should i do and then respond.I have the luxury of having two others students who can help. This is a skill that a individual definitely has to work at. Hope u find a good balance
My personal goal for my placement site is to get more comfortable with public speaking. I have always been introverted, especially with speaking in front of a classroom. I feel like with younger kids, it should be less intimidating but in reality, it's just as scary. I am trying to find a comfort level because I am going to have to use the public speaking skill everywhere I go in life.
ReplyDeleteMy personal goal aligns with my site's personal goal in a small way. The Student Success Center wants us to be leaders and show that college students are well-rounded people. It would be a really good trait to show if I could be more confident in speaking in front of the students. Public speaking is a good life skill and will benefit me in the Student Success Center and in my future.
@ Kellian
ReplyDeleteI think that we share similar goals. Mrs. Sasko, Ms. Hill and Mrs. Harper are great supporters in the program and they help the students, as well as us. We learn something new every week because we encounter different students so the student and leader interaction will become really familiar to us.
Right now my goal is to spend as much time as possible with the kids. I stared late and the kids have been testing so I haven't spent a lot of time at my site.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy working at my site, and I want the kids to see AVID as a resources that is there to help them succeed. However, I do not feel that I can get the message across if do not spend more time with the kids. I would hate to end the semester with the kids not knowing the value of the AVID program.
@kellian I know with time you will gain the skills you desire just keep at it and remember confidence starts from within :-)
ReplyDeleteMy goal for the remainder this semester at Tree House is to encourage the students to read and finished book they have started and to have them understand the homework they have to complete that day. These goals go along with the mission statement at Tree House and they provide me with the tools I need to accomplish these goals.
ReplyDelete@Jamala
ReplyDeleteI think that is a good goal, this kids that you work with definitely need to see that you committed to the work and they will hopefully follow your example.
One personal goal I have is I would like to start to see a change in the children’s learning and them getting better at their reading and math skills. Another goal I have is still just to have the kids feel more comfortable working with me, since I’m kind of new to them and I’m only there once a week
ReplyDeleteMy goal is the main goal of Tree House. They are all about getting the children to read and do math better.
Yes I do think I have what is needed to accomplish these goals. I’m very good at math and breaking it down and explaining it. The support is also there at Tree House if I need extra help.
@Kellian
ReplyDeleteI think those are great goals not only for these placement sites but in life. This is a great opportunity for you to get the experience you need. Also its great that there are always people willing to help!
At Benjamin Franklin, my goal for the rest of the semester is to keep the interest of the students during the game. By keeping their interest, I believe that they will learn something from the game that they will keep with them till they are accepted to college and even after that. The information that is in the game will hopefully help these students become more interested in preparing for college. Preparing the students for college is the main goal of the Student Success Center. The jeopardy game that we prepared at the beginning semester is really helping the students learn information about college in a fun and interesting way. Presenting the information in this way makes the information appear more interesting to the students so that they actually learning something.
ReplyDelete@ Jamala
ReplyDeleteI think that it is amazing that you enjoy working at your site and that you have the resources to help you succeed.
My goal is to establish a more structured AVID Tutorial process at Deburgos. I also want to get a group of dedicated tutors after the completion of this course. I feel that this aligns perfectly with the schools and AVID. They need as many tutors as possible. I have everything that I need to accomplish these goals.
ReplyDelete@Jamala
ReplyDeleteI think that it is wonderful that you are enjoying your site. I think it is great that you have the necessary resources to succeed.
@Chansophea
ReplyDeleteThis experience is a great way to practice public speaking... not like you really have a choice either way... but the more you do it, the more comfortable you will become.
Rebecca Tokar
My goal is to get every students in my group to participate in the group discussion and for them to help their classmates on their problem. Even though they are showing interest in the discussion, there is always some students who don't want to get involve. I think i don't have enough knowledge about how to make everyone to enjoy the session yet, but i'm improving by asking other students in the group on how they think would be effective. With the help of the students, i think i can accomplish my goal by the end of the semester.
ReplyDelete@Jill
ReplyDeleteI think so too. If i can find a way to make the session fun and interesting, the students will be more engage and learn more. And hopefully they will remember some of what they learn in these sessions, and it will help and prepare them for college.
One of my personal goals is to create better, thought-provoking questions that will equally prompt all the students to answer. I would like to see them all engaged and not distracted by each other. This goal applies to the premise of AVID, but is already expected of the students going into the program. They are expected to respect each other; one student is to be at the board with a question while all the other students help find the solution as a group. My students often don’t like help from each other and don’t maintain enough focus to finish the problem. My class teacher is very helpful; she realizes the problems that arise with these students and tries different strategies each week. One week she gave a candy prize to the most engaged student. This past week she announced that the students are now being graded on how well they participate in these tutoring sessions. The grade is a big incentive for them; they were much more engaged this week than they have been in previous weeks.
ReplyDelete@ Ellyn
ReplyDeleteI hope the children feel more comfortable with you and allow you to help them. I also hope you have enough support at your site to help you reach these goals. It's hard to establish authority with the kids without anything to hold over their heads (like a grade), but they probably still look up to you.
So far this semester has been a great experience working with the kids. I think what I have taken out of it most is watching the interaction between my placement site's teacher and the students. Personally, i always find it very difficult to judge how stern I need to be to come off as an authoritative figure. That is what I struggled with most this semester. I wanted to find a balance between being the students "peer" and also a "role model." I do not feel as though I have successfully found this balance yet and therefore my general goal for the end of the semester is to find this balance. I think that I need to give more of an authoritative impression to the students. So, I plan to implement more techniques to try to control the kids when they are acting out of hand and hopefully they will come to respect me enough to stop first when I say something and it will not have to come down to the teacher yelling for them to stop.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed that a lot of what my fellow classmates have been writing about are in regards to what the AVID students will get out of the program. Though it may be a little selfish of me, I find myself more interested in analyzing myself through this experience and examining how I am changing and/or growing.
I think that my "introverted analysis" relates to AVID in Philadelphia because it is specifically a new program to the schools and city. Therefore, there are many kinks and tweeks that will needed to be made for it to be a successful program. Over time I am confident that the program will be a very successful and promising oppurtunity for Philadelphia students, however because it is the first year being practiced, the structure of the program seems to be lacking a little. Tutoring in general is a new experience for me. I think that my personal growth and the trial and error mentality that I have had to adapt correlates with implementation of the AVID programs in Philadelphia. There is a lot to learn and improve on, however we both have made a great start.
@ Jessica Wisloski
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement about trying to keep students on task. It is difficult because many students seek attention individually even when it is not their alloted time to speak. It can be very frustrating and challenging to equally devide your attention amongst the students. I think that a candy prize ia a creative way to get the students to be more concerned with their behavior, however, I don't think that that technique will continue to work, nor should it. A large part of what I think AVID is trying to implement in it's students is a desire and drive to do well in school for themselves with the future in mind. Short term benefits, such as candy, may be a quick fix to get students to cooperate, however in the long run, short-term appeals will not work. Instituting the mind set that good grades and doing well in academics is "cool" is something that does not come naturally to many students. It is like a habit that they have to get themselves into.
I think that the second part of your statement made a lot of sense. Giving the students grades on their participation will ultimately make them think about the future and how they act out in the present will ultimately affect them in the future. It is good to implement some forethought into the students.
Some of my goals would be to make breakthroughs with the students that are'nt forced. Now that Ive had around 10 hours I've started to see how i can be effective, by keeping an upbeat pace around the focus question at hand. I do this by always asking questions and drawling pictures. This goes hand in hand with Avid because eAVid's job is to get kids to learn by using the logic they already know to build more knowledge.I think I'm there but i can be better in my approach and but i guess that comes with time. FOr example on thursday i drew a drawing of the kids focus question, this attracted other kids and they worked out the problem in a little time.
ReplyDelete