My favorite project!

At my mentorship (San Jose School) my mentor (Lourdes Gary) has the students draw a picture of themselves on the first day of class. She than also has hem draw a picture of themselves at the end of the year and you care able to see how different they look. What I mean by this is by looking at both pictures you can tell how the students have grown not just better drawing skills, but also as a student that's why this is my favorite project the students work on. Okay, in all honesty that's not the only reason its also because the pictures are so cute and make me laugh the funnier they look the better it really shows me what the students are like.

Blog 23: Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement
What are you most proud of in your block presentation and/or your senior project? Why?
The thing I am most proud of  (besides making time ) is that I was able to keep my nerves to a minimum. I was actually not nerves until I started to present because I have never been good at introductions. Although I was nerves I was able to calm myself down by the encouraging smiles I got from the audience, therefore, I want to say thank you to the people who smiled at me during my presentation it truly helped.

(2) Questions to Consider
a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your block presentation (self-assessment)?

For my senior presentation I would give myself a P+ because at the end I recieved positive feedback on how well I explain my content by including examples every time I explained a concept. I also had positive feedback on my how well my PowerPoint was done.

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?
For my overall senior project I would give myself an AE because I did extensive research. Throughout my project I aimed to go deeper into my essential question and answers in order to get a further understanding of teaching. I also networked with other teachers to be able to give me different perspectives on how they saw my answers.

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?
What really worked for me was having a wonderful mentor who's name is Lourdes Garay. She helped me from the very beginning till the end. She even helped me create my essential question and answers and helped me understand how each answer applied. She also helped me network with other teachers in order to get a different point of view. This showed me how different teachers handle different situations. She was also the one who introduced me to a book called "Setting Limits in a Classroom" by Robert J. Mackenzie and Lisa Stanzione. Without this book I don't know what I would have done. It had very clear and useful information that helped me explain all three of my answers.

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?
If I had a time machine I think I would go back right before I started my presentation and try not to second guess myself. Before my presentation I wasn't nervous. This scared me because usually ( every presentation)  I am always nerves, therefore, since I wasn't nervous I started to psych myself out, which didn't help me because it caused me to be unsure of myself.
(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.
My senior project is something that I will never forget. I want to be a teacher in the future because of the wonderful teachers I have had who have inspired me. Also the teachers who weren't the greatest have inspired me to want to be a better teacher hopefully at least half as good as the teachers who have been my inspiration. After that being said my project has helped me get a better understanding of my future career by doing extensive research and going to mentorship. My essential question has helped me get a better understanding on how a teacher could spend less time disciplining their classroom and more time teaching. Although throughout my project teachers would always ask me "Are you sure you still want to be a teacher?" the answer is yes. I know that teaching is a difficult career so in a way I got a head start on making it easier for me by doing the research and going to my  mentorship.

Blog 22: Mentorship

Content:

LIA Response to blog:

Literal

My mentor's name is Lourdes Garay and I have completed my hours at San Jose School in Pomona.

Interpretive

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to complete my mentorship with Lourdes Garay a wonderful mentor that allowed me an unforgettable experience. I was able to work with students as a whole class and one on one. This helped me grow as a future teacher and person. The most important thing that I learned from mentorship was to speak out when I knew something was wrong, such as a student misbehaving. One example of this is when my mentor and I were dismissing the students once they had cleaned up their desk. There was this one student who my mentor dismissed, but I didn't know that and he had a mess under his desk. I told him to clean it up and he said "no teacher already dismissed me", I than told okay, but after you clean up your mess. Although I told him that he still insisted on not cleaning up his desk, so I than told him more firmly and he listened and did as I told him to do. 

Applied

My mentorship has helped me with my essential question by allowing me to first-hand work with students and see how my mentor handles different situations. My essential question is "How does a teacher best set a learning environment where the majority of time is spent on teaching and learning rather than discipline?" As I have said before from the experience I have had with one of the students is that as a teacher part of having control of the classroom is having a firm "handle". In the end by having a firm "handle" there are less distractions and disruptions in the class.

Exit Interview

Content:

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

My essential question is : How does a teacher best set a learning environment where the majority time is spent on teaching and learning rather than discipline?
My answers are:  Structure which includes lesson plans, routines, seating arrangements, and being prepared.  My second answer is expectations such as classroom rules; and my third answer is parent communication. 
My best answer is: Structure, because a teacher who takes their time in planning an effective structure spends less time disciplining their classroom and more time teaching. All of my research and experience points to structure as my best answer without structure there would be chaos in the classroom.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
I decided structure was my best answer out of all three of my answers because of my mentorship. I was able to see how different teachers handled different situations which in the end bottled down to structure, I like how Robert J. Mackenzie and Lisa Stanzione put it "Structure it the organizational foundation in a classroom" which I completely agree with, which my experience and research proves correct.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

The only problem I faced was the lack of resources to my answers. Most of the information online was extremely repetitive because once one thing works really well in the classroom it spreads like wildfire. Therefore looking for articles and resources to support my answers soon became a tedious task. I tried looking for books to do research on, but I was only able to find one book that had useful information that my mentor recommended. The other books that I found had information that would only work in a perfect world such as, if you talk to the student that is  misbehaving they won't misbehave ever misbehave again. What I did to resolve this problem was to look for articles that were parent child based not teacher child based, since parents are the students first teacher the articles that I found were actually extremely helpful.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

My best source that helped me answer my essential question was no other than my mentor, Lourdes Garay. She is an incredible mentor, that I don't even know how I could possibly thank her. She truly helped me with my whole senior project.  She helped me construct a essential question and answers, figure out why the answers we created answered my essential question, offered ideas for my Independent Components and gave me other resources I could use. For my essential question she helped me network with other teachers to see how they taught differently from her this helped me gather  valuable information that helped me answer my essential question. Which leads me to my second best source my mentor let me borrow a book called Setting Limits in a Classroom by Robert J. Mackenzie and Lisa Stanzonie. This book was very resourceful it had information for all my answers. This book was so informative and useful that I would recommend it to all teachers.  Mackenzie  and Stanzonie are remarkably well authors in the book they provide me ideas, examples that I have included to explain not only my best answer but also my other answers.

Reach for the stars!

 

Today I helped students create this because they are learning about the planets, stars and constellations. This was a simple project that they were able to do, a hands on project to learn about The Great Bear constellation.  

Independent Component 2

Content:  
LITERAL
(a) I, Stephanie Marin affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
(b) I completed my Independent Component Two hours by doing extra hours at my mentorship which is at San Jose School with Lourdes Garay my mentor.
(c)  Independent Component Two hours
(d) By completing my hours at my mentorship I was able to get more experience with working with students. I was able to learn from my mentor how to handle different situations for example, what to do when a student doesn't want to put any effort in participating in class. I  also got to work with another third grade teacher, Mrs. Anderson which was refreshing. I saw how she handled different situations and taught differently form my mentor. I was able to work with groups of students that needed extra help in understanding a certain problem or on a concept. Although the pictures I have included not show me working with students since I am not allowed to take pictures of them I included pictures of other tasks I did such as help prepare for different activities or simply showcase students work.
INTERPERTIVE
As I said before I was able to work with two teachers who helped me by allowing me to work with the students and experience first hand how to handle various situations.
APPLIED
How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped. This Component helped me answer my EQ because I am able to use my experience at my mentorship to explain my answers for example, expatiations is one of them. It's important to make sure the students know what you expect of them. My mentor hands tickets as a reward for staying on task which they could use to gets prizes; my mentor gave me the ability to give students these which showed me that students who are rewarded or even thanked for staying on task helps them follow directions which decreases disruptions.



This a project I helped prepare for Dr. Seuss Day.



This is a Spelling Test I graded.

This is a math classwork worksheet that I helped hang up. 

This is a close up from the picture to the right.

This is a classroom project that I hung up.



This is a tree graph that the students worked on and I hanged up.

This a writing assignment that I helped the students with and hanged up on the wall.

This is a story summary that the students worked on that I hung up.

 

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

 

For Dr. Seuss's day the students did a project in which I pre-cut all the construction paper before hand; for this project the students wrote three of their goals on a paper arrow for example going to New York, keeping their room clean or passing their AR goal. After they finished doing their project I posted them all up on the wall and door.