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Post by Keturah Young on Jan 24, 2016 20:56:57 GMT -5
Hey everyone! So George asked me to kind of get this discussion going about 50 large. If you participated in the 50 Large tutoring, could you please comment and put the name of the student you worked with and what you helped them with?
Also, George also wants us to talk about our dream lesson plans. So I guess talk about something you've always wanted to teach or what you hope will be your trademark lesson that new students will look forward to every year. Thanks!
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Post by wmm12d on Jan 24, 2016 21:35:41 GMT -5
Hi Keturah. I met with A.J. last week as part of the 50 large program. He is a seventh grader, who said he needed help with civics, one of my areas, so I partnered with him. Unfortunately, when he signed-on to Plato, he "discovered" that he had no assignments to complete. However, I tried to use the time by getting to know A.J. and finding out what interests him. I asked him about his school assignments and what he thought of them. He said they were all on the computer, and that that was all they did all day; computer work. I then asked him about his process of answering the questions. He stated that he just clicks all the possible answers until the computer provides the correct answer. After going through and finding the answers, he writes all of the questions and their answers on a sheet of paper that he says his teacher allows him to use during the mastery test. I asked him if he thought he improved his reading by not reading the questions, and he said no. He knew his process wasn't helping him, but showed no interest in doing it any differently. I encouraged him to take the time and read every question, answer, and answer explanation as he went through the exercises. We discussed his favorite school subject, which he said was math. Then we talked about all the cool places where math skills are utilized in order to make cool things and can even lead to a great career.
Hopefully, I won't run into this scenario again, but if I do, I will be better prepared to handle the situation in a manner that includes a discussion about civics in general, and why history and government are important to him as he moves forward through his life.
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mju13
New Member
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Post by mju13 on Jan 25, 2016 15:03:43 GMT -5
Hi Keturah. I met with A.J. last week as part of the 50 large program. He is a seventh grader, who said he needed help with civics, one of my areas, so I partnered with him. Unfortunately, when he signed-on to Plato, he "discovered" that he had no assignments to complete. However, I tried to use the time by getting to know A.J. and finding out what interests him. I asked him about his school assignments and what he thought of them. He said they were all on the computer, and that that was all they did all day; computer work. I then asked him about his process of answering the questions. He stated that he just clicks all the possible answers until the computer provides the correct answer. After going through and finding the answers, he writes all of the questions and their answers on a sheet of paper that he says his teacher allows him to use during the mastery test. I asked him if he thought he improved his reading by not reading the questions, and he said no. He knew his process wasn't helping him, but showed no interest in doing it any differently. I encouraged him to take the time and read every question, answer, and answer explanation as he went through the exercises. We discussed his favorite school subject, which he said was math. Then we talked about all the cool places where math skills are utilized in order to make cool things and can even lead to a great career. Hopefully, I won't run into this scenario again, but if I do, I will be better prepared to handle the situation in a manner that includes a discussion about civics in general, and why history and government are important to him as he moves forward through his life. Unfortunately, it's a scenario that occurs more often than we would like it to. Last semester I worked with students at Second Chance and they used the Plato system for all their coursework. Most, if not every, student would use this method to find the correct answer to their question and would often skip tutorials and not take notes. While your tutee knew that this wasn't helping him in the long run, he also knows that changing his way of thinking would "slow him down" so to speak. These students are at institutions like Second Chance and 50Large mostly for behavioral issues that have arisen from their time in an educational facility and their main goal is to be able to leave these places and go back to regular high schools. To them, the means by which they achieve these goals don't matter, so it makes sense that your tutee doesn't want to change his ways of answering questions. To him he's probably thinking "Why am I going to put in extra time and effort into something that I can get done without trying"? It's very sad to have students who think that way and it's hard to try to change their thinking because it's something they're so use to and something they find efficient. We, as future educators, have to be able to guide students to find interest in our subject areas and, in my opinion, use technology where it's beneficial and not just unchallenging and effortless.
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Post by keturahyoung on Feb 8, 2016 16:05:44 GMT -5
I decided to go with 50 Large. I totally agree that mostly online work is a bit scary. I don't think that just because a student has behavioral issues, they shouldn't be allowed the opportunity for face to face instruction with a actually human. I worked with a student named Devante 2 weeks ago at tutoring. I found that most of his issues stemmed from lack of background questions. For example, he didn't know what the work mythological meant; therefore her couldn't answer the question. This reminds me of an article I read recently in an LAE course which discussed a phrase called "word poverty." It talks about how students who are impoverished know and can use less words compared to a child that is not impoverished. This is because students who are impoverished most likely have parents with a lower level of education and less resources, leading to less exposure of words (books), resulting in the gap between the two groups. So maybe Devante had never really studied mythology or the aspects of it, so he couldn't answer the question. However, he did enjoy the physics lesson a bit more because there was a video of a person speaking that was demonstrating activities. I just can't imagine being in a classroom watching a video of someone teaching when there is an adult human in the room.
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Post by sarahaubreyr on Feb 17, 2016 18:55:33 GMT -5
The student I met with has actually changed his name a few times, so I know for sure his last name is Fishburn. A few weeks ago I helped him with Spanish. This is honestly not a strong point for me, but we worked really well together. We used context clues and any prior knowledge he had to figure out what the questions were asking him to do. I feel as though this session went really well even though there were obstacles. He definitely did not seemed intrigued to be working with a tutor. My partner even brought a snack to kind of break the ice and he still seemed extremely shy about working with us. I also worked with him today and this time the subject was Trig. I am in no way an expert in math and he was heavily relying on me to help him. So I decided to take an outside source (another tutor) and she was able to help him with what he needed. I think it is important to not be afraid to ask for outside help.
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Post by SophinaA on Feb 21, 2016 7:25:24 GMT -5
Hey! I worked with Eric and I helped him with English prep. He knew what he was supposed to be doing but it was quite apparent that he had no motivation in order to accomplish the tasks. But i did my best to keep him on track by reading the questions when he became distracted to show him that I cared about what was happening. It is really hard because I completely understood why he kept getting distracted. Doing a lot of work on the computer is mentally draining even as a college student. When a student is stuck to the confines of a computer screen all day, the last thing that they are going to want to do is more computer work when they are being tutored. I really wish the tutoring that we did used other forms of text in order to help them besides computers.
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mju13
New Member
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Post by mju13 on Feb 21, 2016 17:04:26 GMT -5
Hey! I worked with Eric and I helped him with English prep. He knew what he was supposed to be doing but it was quite apparent that he had no motivation in order to accomplish the tasks. But i did my best to keep him on track by reading the questions when he became distracted to show him that I cared about what was happening. It is really hard because I completely understood why he kept getting distracted. Doing a lot of work on the computer is mentally draining even as a college student. When a student is stuck to the confines of a computer screen all day, the last thing that they are going to want to do is more computer work when they are being tutored. I really wish the tutoring that we did used other forms of text in order to help them besides computers. I agree with this wholeheartedly. It's excessive and redundant to have students working in the same conditions all day long. Even if it weren't just mentally draining, it's also physically draining for them as they're usually not allowed to move or get up to stretch while they're at school. They've probably associated a lot of negative feelings towards computerized work when it's actually a great resource! If only it was used to their benefit.
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Post by brittanysinitch on Mar 15, 2016 22:51:27 GMT -5
HEY! I'm not with 50 large, but I am doing a thing so I just came to say hello. Tomorrow I meet my student for Project Connect with Morgan and we are pretty pumped about it. Today we had our meeting with our mentor to discuss how things are going to work. It's exciting, because I have never worked with a student who has gone through the legal system and what not. I think it is going to be a meaningful experience and I hope to take away as much experience as you all did with 50 Large! I will come back with stories and experiences for all.
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Post by ashleyygreen12 on Mar 23, 2016 9:48:51 GMT -5
Guess what? I finally met with with my Project Connect student and she's pretty great. Her name is Lakin and she's 17. She seems like she knows what she wants to do but needs a bit of guidance. She's already taken and passed her GED (WHAT. YAY.) so in moving forward, we will be job hunting and preparing her for the classes she would need to take to join the nursing field. I'm really excited to be working with Lakin because despite her setbacks, she seems determined and even though I know working with every student won't be like this, I know this will be a valuable experience and I'm prepared to both teach and learn from Lakin. This week Thursday, i'll be attending her CAP and DJJ meeting and learning a bit more about the more legal side of her situation.
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Post by ashleyygreen12 on Mar 23, 2016 9:53:59 GMT -5
HEY! I'm not with 50 large, but I am doing a thing so I just came to say hello. Tomorrow I meet my student for Project Connect with Morgan and we are pretty pumped about it. Today we had our meeting with our mentor to discuss how things are going to work. It's exciting, because I have never worked with a student who has gone through the legal system and what not. I think it is going to be a meaningful experience and I hope to take away as much experience as you all did with 50 Large! I will come back with stories and experiences for all. I hope to talk to you more about your experience with working with a male I know you mentioned this in class) throughout this process because I've been talking to Krystal about taking on another student and she says she only has males (which I'm more than willing to work with) she just says that the male she would like me to work with is difficult and would require a lot more...like everything than with Lakin, which I'm prepared for. I'd just like to get another perspectives as soon as I meet with him this week.
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Post by brittanysinitch on Mar 24, 2016 12:07:13 GMT -5
HEY! I'm not with 50 large, but I am doing a thing so I just came to say hello. Tomorrow I meet my student for Project Connect with Morgan and we are pretty pumped about it. Today we had our meeting with our mentor to discuss how things are going to work. It's exciting, because I have never worked with a student who has gone through the legal system and what not. I think it is going to be a meaningful experience and I hope to take away as much experience as you all did with 50 Large! I will come back with stories and experiences for all. I hope to talk to you more about your experience with working with a male I know you mentioned this in class) throughout this process because I've been talking to Krystal about taking on another student and she says she only has males (which I'm more than willing to work with) she just says that the male she would like me to work with is difficult and would require a lot more...like everything than with Lakin, which I'm prepared for. I'd just like to get another perspectives as soon as I meet with him this week. Hi, Ash! Yes! We can talk about this more. I was honestly very nervous going into it, because I did not know what to expect. When I sat in the meeting and saw how "difficult" the student was being it made me even more nervous, because I want so badly to get through to these students. I was then introduced to a DIFFERENT student who is my actual student and he is apparently not as difficult. He is very energetic and seems happy to be in this program. I believe that at the end of the day these students just want a brighter future, they want to get out of there and become free. I have a lot of faith in you and I believe you can handle this, male or female. We can talk more about it this week, let me know how it goes!
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Post by colemanaj1776 on Mar 28, 2016 13:25:41 GMT -5
Last week I worked with Broderick. We worked on History. I quite honestly cannot stand how the program teaches history. It just has students read articles that are not engaging. I was bored helping him and I LOVE History. I feel that it grows difficult to get the students motivated in history through just the computers. I am not convinced that my student is actually learning this nation's history. I helped another student by showing that there's more to history than the computer work. I introduced many websites, videos, and film that present history in an exciting way.
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Post by colemanaj1776 on Mar 28, 2016 13:27:38 GMT -5
If i had to say a dream lesson plan, it would be on the Vietnam War. I haven't given it much thought on how exactly I am going to make it a trademark. I see this topic as one of vital importance. Society is greatly altered by the conflict.
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Post by sarahaubreyr on Apr 17, 2016 16:33:16 GMT -5
So since the semester has come to a close, I just wanted to point out I feel like the computers with the 50 Large group DO NOT help these students. I feel like they need an actual classroom setting. So many of these students have expressed to me how much they would rather have a teacher teach them instead of the computers. I think they would benefit more from that.
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Post by sarahaubreyr on Apr 17, 2016 16:34:23 GMT -5
Guess what? I finally met with with my Project Connect student and she's pretty great. Her name is Lakin and she's 17. She seems like she knows what she wants to do but needs a bit of guidance. She's already taken and passed her GED (WHAT. YAY.) so in moving forward, we will be job hunting and preparing her for the classes she would need to take to join the nursing field. I'm really excited to be working with Lakin because despite her setbacks, she seems determined and even though I know working with every student won't be like this, I know this will be a valuable experience and I'm prepared to both teach and learn from Lakin. This week Thursday, i'll be attending her CAP and DJJ meeting and learning a bit more about the more legal side of her situation. This is AWESOME! I want to know more about your experience! How is everything going?! This is a great update to read!
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