Blog 7- Second Interview Preparation

1.  Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert?

   My mentor is Ms. Aguirre , she works at Edgewood Academy in La Puente. She is a kindergarten teacher and she has been for a couple of years now. I feel as though she is some what of an expert in my topic because she works in the kindergarten workplace.

2.  What five questions will you ask them about their background?

1. What has been the most challenging experience while being a kindergarten teacher?
2. Was it a difficult time switching over from teaching older students to younger students? 
3. Do you think being a kindergarten teacher changed you as a person in any way? 
4. What was it like going into the teaching profession did you expect anything different from it? 
5. Is there anything about the education system that you wish you could change? 

Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?  

    My mentorship is working very well concerning my senior project, its given me very useful resources about my topic. The teacher and students i work with have made my senior project so enjoyable and its been a great experience overall so far.

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

     At first i was having a very difficult time with my mentorship because my mentor kept pushing back our meeting and set days for me to come in so eventually i just had to go out to find a different mentor. Something i could use help and assistance with is my time management skills for the senior project concerning my senior project. 

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

 I learned so many interesting and new facts while doing this interview. The person i interviewed was Ms. Aguirre from Edgewood Academy . She explained to me the importance on how to successfully run a classroom. She gave me an insight on what its like to be a kindergarten teacher. Ms. Aguirre taught me that even though patience is a given for teaching a kinder class you also need a lot of class control and she says that helpers come in handy especially with the younger students because they like being active.

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

   Additional resources that I received were books that were recommended and also some websites that could come in to use. The book i was recommended was "Common Core standards in diverse classrooms". Ms. Aguirre says that this book is very helpful and insightful for teacher of grades. I looked into a few of the website recommended and they held really useful information. Contacts that were given to me were other teachers one preschool and then elementary teachers as a resource to see how the children succeed over the years and to see how much they improve.

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me? 

My interviewee is qualified because she is a kindergarten teacher and my topic is teaching  kindergarten.  She knows what its like because she works in the field of teaching which is what i'm looking into. 

Interview 1

Blog 4- House Advisory Prep. 1

Throughout the course of the whole senior project I would like to learn about the most efficient methods to teaching in a kindergarten classroom such as how to keep all the students focused and involved in the lessons and most importantly on how to ensure that all the students successfully learn throughout the school year. I also want to get the whole experience of being in the position  of a kindergarten teacher, I want to see if i have what it takes to work in education with younger children such as the patience and teaching skills.

Blog 3 - First Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?
         For the interview I plan to interview a kindergarten teacher. The kindergarten teacher is my mentor and is qualified to teach younger students and that's what I want my topic to be about. My mentor is a reliable source for my interview because she works with teaching and working with the kindergarten students and that's what i want to look into as well for my senior topic 

2.  Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?
        What made you decide to go into the teaching field ?
        What grade did you want to teach when you decided to be a teacher ? Why?
        What is the most efficient method in teaching younger children to ensure that every child is understanding the curriculum ?

Blog 2- Summer Mentorship

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.
  My mentor this summer is Claudia Deleon from Diamond point elementary. Her phone number is (909) 706-8817.
2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice ?   
  I choose Mrs. Deleon as a qualified mentor because I want my topic to focus on younger children in education and Mrs. Deleon is a kindergarten teacher.
3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.
  What is the most effective way to keep every student's attention? , What's the best way for teachers to ensure they teach every student the lesson?, How do kindergarteners attitudes and school habits change throughout the school year?
4. What is the most important thing you learned from this experience? Why?
   The most important thing I learned was that it takes a lot of patience to work with the kids, and some kids take much more time and need more attention than others .
5. What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.
 I want my senior topic to be on education with younger kids and what the most efficient way to teach them . My Mentorship showed me that it's going to be a little more difficult with younger children and that it takes so much for teachers to keep every child's attention and be able to successfully teach and get the lesson across to all students.

 Senior Project Hours

Blog 1 – Senior Final Lesson/Interview Reflection

1.  What three lessons were most helpful for you to see, and why?

       Teaching Kindergarten by Daniela Diaz, Preschool Special Education by Ilse Gutierrez, and Teaching Elementary by Daisy Torres. I found these three presentations very helpful because they all relate to the topic I was thinking about doing for my senior project. The presentations ave me an insight into what my senior year can look like and it also gave me some ideas on what I could use as my essential question for my senior project. 

2. List one thing that you learned about the senior project in interviews that will help you get off to a good start?

        During senior and junior interviews the seniors I was paired with helped me a lot, calming me and telling me that senior presentation isn't as scary or bad as it is made out to be. They recommended to always stay on top of our work such as the research notebooks and mentor ship hours, and they also said it got easier when you didn't leave a whole pile of work left for the end.  

3. What topic(s) are you considering, and why?

      The two topics I was thinking about doing were: social work and teaching. After looking further into both of those topics i discovered i was more intrigued in teaching and it was also be very difficult to do anything in the field of social work due to confidentiality reasons.  So for my senior project I would like to look into teaching because it is a career path I have always wanted to find out more about. 

4. What EQ do you think might be interesting to consider in guiding a project like this? (Please don't worry about any sort of formula...we want this question to come from your genuine interest).

       " What are important factors contributed in efficiently teaching a kindergarten classroom?" 

5. What are some ideas you have about finding summer mentorship?

          For my summer mentorship hours I was going to begin working with a teacher towards the middle of the summer and help her set up her classroom for the following year and also help set up a schedule for what curriculum would be taught over the school year.