Blog #10: The End: Tuesday Dec 13th
The final taught I have about my WLe are the following. I think of my taught in questions because I mainly always think of questions to help my taught flow through well. But I think about if I Did I communicate and help the students at all? Are the students going to look up to me during their life’s or remember what i have done for them?I think these taughts because I know that even though i gave a lesson plan and used special effects to make sure the students are focused on the lesson well, but I wonder if its just gonna stay in their minds for the whole year. How will this experience affect what WLE you look for next year? I feel that the expeince I has here at Bret Harte Middle School will affect the way I behave at an internship because I feel that the school has taught me how to be professional and when to be a professional. Also the skills of collaborating with each other that me and my mentor did has helped us alot get through alot of things in his class much faster.
Blog #9: Life at my WLE: Tuesday Dec 6th
Today I did my WLE project. My project was a history lesson plan on the Empire of Mali and its rule from 1250-1500. What I was trying to teach the students was how Mali was able to succeed as an empire and its strength it had for over 300 years and why it was a really powerful empire. I made a keynote lesson plan that consisted of notes and questions for the kids to answer. As an Intern from day one I believe I have improved in patients, confidence and organizations. I believed I have improved on these skills because when I first started as an intern, I was always unconfident about if I was helping the students find the correct answer or if I was giving false information. But I knew that in order to be organized, I need to set up goals for each day I was in my internship for each student I pull out and I always knew that I should go and ask my mentor about what assignments I am helping the students on and what basic information is needed. Since I was able to do this, I was able to be more confident and organized. Also when I started my day at my internship, I was un-patient with the students. I think I was inpatient with the students because I hated repeating the same piece of information or the same questions like about 5 times. But I learned that I had to be patients towards these students because mainly their minds are still devolving and if I took a deep breath, then I would be more calm which helped me be more nicer to the students.
Blog #8: Professionalism: Tuesday Nov 29th
In order to find my WLE and get hired, I had to call up my former teacher’s and look online for places/ work area that offered Internships. I first tried medical hospitals, but they did not have internship opportunities for high school students. Then I tried my old middle school teachers and asked a well known teacher Mr. McHugh if I could intern for him. He replied accepting. The most effective way of looking for a job and getting hired is by searching on job sites that have many listing of companies or work places hiring people. But in order to get that job, you have to meet the qualifications and standards the company enforces or is looking for. If you meet the requirements the job applicant wants from you, then you will get the job. As a result of my WLE, I think being a professional or a responsible adult in the work world means you are always organized and confident. I believe this is true because if you are an organized person, you would have the ability to have all your documents organized which will help you finish your task quicker. Lastly confidence will come through if you know what you are talking about really well because with confident you will be determined to confront your audience or convince someone better if you have the knowledge of your topic and a better understanding of it.
Blog #7: What I learned, Reflection: Tuesday Nov 22nd
What I have personally learned about myself throughout this whole WLE experience is that I can be an organized, patient, confided and helpful person if I set my mind to it. I believe this because when ever I go to help a struggling student during class time, I would try to remain calm and not stressful, and I use my knowledge to help the student out. I would then use confidence to check if I am helping the student right by quickly asking my mentor if I have found/helping the student correctly during my WLE. The challenges I mainly faced were helping struggling students. This was a challenge in my option because whenever I would pull out a student to help them with their work, they would then be missing that day’s lesson plan. So what I did was to make sure that the students that were pulled out of class went after school to me or my mentor and ask us what they missed while they where gone. Another struggle I faced with the struggling student is controlling them. I found this difficult at first because I did not know how to control students or even get a students attention and make sure a student is focused and on task with their work. But I was fortunate to learn this from the school librarian when she told me to be little bit nice to the students but also have a strong thrust towards them. The life lesson that I learned from my WLE in general is that in order to communicate with people in any type of profession, you have to be organized with information, patient with waiting to talk with others or help these who are struggling and lastly those who have enough knowledge on their topics will have a better chance of persuading their audience much better. My creativity was put into use when I was making a keynote. An example would be when I used the inspector option of my keynote to make special effects come on to the keynote to make sure students would be more focused in class
Blog #6: Leadership Skills: Monday Nov 14th
You should answer the following questions in the form of a LONG PARAGRAPH, using full sentences, proper grammar, and spell check. You will get full credit for giving SPECIFIC details and examples from your WLE day. Blogs are due by MIDNIGHT on FRIDAY.
- 1.What leadership skill(s) am I using the most? (Think Critically, Complete Projects Effectively, Collaborate Productively, or Communicate Powerfully?)
- 2. How well am I using this leadership skill at my WLE? How could I improve?
4.What leadership skill does my mentor use the most? Why?
Blog Post Number 5
Today in my WLE, I worked with kids in my mentors class who had problems with their grades. What I did was I looked up what class assigments, and then I showed my mentor the students name and what assisments they are missing. After showing him what each student was missing, we decided to pull out a few students and let each of them do one specific assiments to raise their grade up.So when I took those individual students about, I had to bring them to the library, because it was the only quite working environment available for the students at Bret Harte. For period One, I took out 5 students and had most student complete their Muhammad Timeline. My Second Period did complete their Muhammad Timelines too, but my 5th period class was unable to finish because of the lack of time and support I had to give to the students. In my 3rd period class, I only helped my mentor with making sure students where focused on their classwork by walking by each student and checking what they where doing and if they where on task. I was unable to have any students get pulled out of my mentors 3rd period not because of its an 8th grade class, but because most of the class in failing or not even close to passing the class. We have tried many methods for the students to pass, and y mentor and myself even offered extra credit during the notes but only certain students were doing this assignment. Also we where not in the libary 5th period because the Library was closed, so unfortunately, we had to go to another teachers room for the class period and the class noise was pretty loud and hard to work in. In my 6th and final period class, thankfully, no one had to be sent out because the students in that class had complete all or most Assignments with A's or b's for their grades. After all his classes were over, usually we would have to tutor kids after school, but we didn't today, because we had to attend a teacher meeting. While I was in the meeting, i grapped a history text book, and looked at the lesson I would possible have to teach. We decided that I would teach his class about the Empire of Mali and Mensa Musa. Also we decided that we could have the students take notes and also get into groups and answer questions after the lesson plan . Right now I know what I have accomplished right now is parts of the knowledge of my lesson plan, and a start on what the draft of the keynote will contain. I hope to have my keynote rough draft complete so that my mentor can give me feed back on what I can fix informational wise.
Blog Post Number 4
I have decided that for my project, I will be giving a lesson plan. This lesson plan will not be like what has been done in my middle school buta combinatipon of lesson plans given here at impact and lesson plan given at my internship. I came up with this idea one day when I was paying attention and observing my mentors lesson plan. I felt that it was educational, but the key aspect was that students were not fully engarded and where bored. I feel that the lesson plan I should make should have notes in it, but also a little bit of group and student interaction so they could try to problem solve or solve a question I give them. I am excited to give this lesson plan in 3-4 weeks because I feel like being a teacher more, because I feel that you can actually get prideful and actual benefit a students life if you are a teacher, Sure you get paid less, but a teacher is a person who wants to help every student and help them succeed if they are willing to try.Also i feel that my lesson plan will give the middle schools students a better understanding of what they are trying to learn. For the weeks to come now, I have to ask my mentor what lesson plan he will give the students on December, 13. From there I should then investigate what the unit is about so i can gather my information. After having all my information, I should then start on my keynote plan and put in what knowledge I have learned. After I am done with my keynote draft, I will then ask my mentor if all fact I have listed are accurate. Also I should ask ms.O'dell how she makes her history lesson plans, because I feel that if I ask a history teacher how they make their own lesson plans, then I would be able to make an interactive history plan too. Finally, I will have to practice my presentation a few times so I can have my plan memorized rather than looking at my keynote and get nervous infront of the students.
Blog Post Number 3
In my internship at Bret Harte Middle School. My main responsibility right now is to help grade paper for my teacher grade to input them in. Also another responsibility that I am now enjoying in internship is helping put students who struggle in my mentors class. What I do to help them is first check up on how they are doing in his class on my mentors grade book. I check what they struggle with so then when its the struggling students class period, my mentor allows me to pull the students over and get the assisments they are missing or need to make up in order to bring their grade up. So when I go to the schools library to help the students, they do not need to check what assiments they need to make up because I will already have the documents they need to work on. The reason why I take pride into this is because I feel that the students are actually working and some of them have already improve from having a F in my mentors class to a B. Some of these students are named Zaki M and Chris Walter. When I started working with these students, they where never trying in class because they felt little lazy and taught they where on top of their class, but as soon as I pulled them out of class and told them what they needed to improve on, they automatically started working hard. even though they have improve since I have met them personally, I feel that some students I have started to work with are just refusing to not try at all. For example in my mentors 5 period, when i pull the students to work with them, the students would be notified by me on what they need to do in class, but in-response the students refuse to do their work or do not put enough effort in their work. What I am planning to do now next week when I go back is maybe give the students some more support because I feel that since i go for a lunch break before I go help my mentor with his 5 period, I feel that I would easily just get alittle more lose and not have control of the students. So I will try to refocus during my lunch break so I can help the students in my mentors 5th Period.
Blog Post Number 2: My Mentor
My mentors name is Sean Mchugh or Mr.Mchugh. He is a 7th and 8th grade History teacher at Bret Harte Middle School. The typical day for Mr.Mchugh is in each class he makes his students grab their individual not books they have and write a journal prompt. Then he would go over the prompt with the whole class and see what the students wrote in their prompt. Then he would ether give them notes or go over class work. At times he would give the class time to work on any projects he has assigned. Mr. Mchugh became interested in Teaching because he loved helping people and kids with any work they need. The skills he has said he needed was just 4 years of college as a undergraduate then he went to get he teacher credential for a year. Then from there he went to the HUSD(Hayward Unified School District) took a subject test on history and passed it with a high score. From there he was able to become a teacher for the HUSD.
Blog Post Number 1 My Workplace
My workplace for this year’s WLE is at Bret Harte Middle School, in Hayward, Ca. This school teaches children from grades 7-8. The U.S government under the supervision of Hayward unified school districts publicly owns the school. The school is a old school building built around 1923 with modified security system and library up in a hill near Mission Blvd, In Hayward. When you go to bret harte you have to first go through the big hill on E street.Then after you are on the hill, you will then have to enter through the front entrance. The entrance is located where it says in big Letters BRET HARTE MIDLLE SCHOOL. As you enter in to the building, you will be on the first floor which is just two stairs that lead to the main school which is the whole second floor. When you are on the second floor, you will be near the library. As you are on the second floor near the library, you should walk left and walk forward and look to the left. As you look The school has over 20 employees, which includes teachers, and school staff. You should find room 12(Note its the second room as you start walking). My Internship employs teacher who have been certified to teach either history, English, math, science, physical education or music to teach at Bret Harte. In order to get this certification they would have to take a subject test and score a passing score in order to be certified. Most teaches at the school have 4 year college degrees and a teachers credential. The strengths of my WLE is that I can be able to help students who struggle in school and help them get on the right track by having one on one help like in impact. Another strength is I can observe what a teacher does in order to control their class and the skills they use to teach the class. So far I have notice any weaknesses except that the School district is making these teachers use outdated textbooks. This is a weakness because if the textbook is outdated, then the information is old and invalid. So this makes it hard for the teacher to try to teach their class the accurate information with Outdated textbooks. But even with this problem I am still able to assist the students with their class work or homework.
