Blog 22: Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Block Presentation and/or your senior project? Why?
- I was able to meet the time requirement of thirty minutes. At first I wasn't confident that I was going to make so, I feel proud that I was able to.

(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Block Presentation (self-assessment)?

      P       

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

      P 

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?






- I was able to find a mentor (Ms. De La Pena) that was willing to help me, we formed a really good relationship. She also referred me to Yadira Rivera who works in the special education department with a few highly autistic students, so that I could go observe her classroom.

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would have you done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?

- Have more structure in the classroom, speak a little more confidently. Have a more hands on experience with children that have autism; not just learning from observation.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors? Be specific and use examples.
- The volunteer work (mentorship) was enjoyable and it also counts for my community hours that I need for college. Also, knowing about autism helped me learn about other types of disorders which helped me learn about different types of behaviors. Now I am able to comprehend why some people act the way they do, when at first I didn't. 

Blog 21: Mentorship

Content:

LIA Response to blog:

    Literal

·     Log of specific hours with a total and a description of your duties updated on the right hand side of your blog

·     Contact Name and Mentorship Place: Valeria De La Pena, Cortez Magnet Elementary School

 

    Interpretive

     What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

- I gained more knowledge on the different problems students' in elementary education possess such as knowing how to read and write and solving math problems. Also, usually parents with autistic children are not usually involved with their school. Learning about their behaviors was another thing that helped me understand them.

   Applied

     How has what you’ve done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.

- Mentorship has helped me answer my EQ by just going to observe and help in the classroom. The whole day is full of routine, which involves a lot of consistency. My best answer is to have the students improve in their consistency since it is very essential to them. My other answers were having effective IEP goals and parent involvement.

Extra Blog Post: April

                     The behavior chart, each student has one clip and start at "Ready to Learn"                                                   

When a student has been on green or above on the behavior chart for a whole week, they get a bouncy ball from the gumball machine.

Once a student has completed and passed their color coded words, they fill in their gumball machine (ei. Peach words have a list of words and green words have another set of words). At they end if they finish all of their words, the students who passed get a pizza party.

                                                      Rare words for the students to learn.

                                                        Filing their English/History work.

Blog 20: Exit Interview

Content:

(1) What is your essential question and answers? What is your best answer and why?
- What is the best resource a special ed team can provide highly autistic students in elementary school in order to promote academic success?
- My three answers: Having effective IEP Goals, developing consistency, and parent involvement
- Best answer: Helping the student in developing their consistency
- Why is this my best answer?:  Usually kids deal with a lot of consistency in the first place and it is very much incorporated in daily life and in school.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
- With some of my recent research I saw some videos (ELIJA &CafeMom) that showed ways a student learned and they all showed ways of being consistent.

(3) What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?
- Problems like not being able to meet with one of my mentors due to the different schedules. Also, since I am going to mentorship at a school it's a bit harder for me to stay longer at mentorship because I also go to school.
- Resolve? During Spring Break I had the chance to meet with the mentor I had trouble seeing. I met with the her at least twice the whole day and got to observe the classroom and it's functions.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?
- Mentorship; Yadira Rivera, since I feel like she has more knowledge about it (with 19+ years of experience). Also articles written by Michelle Garcia Winner that talked a lot about improving in speech.

Be prepared with evidence and specific examples to support any response.  It is also significant to cite sources as you explain..

Independent Component 2: Blog 19

Content:

LITERAL:
(a) “I, Kimberly Gallardo, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”
(b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component
- Yadira Rivera, who works at Cortez Magnet who works as a special education teacher for kindergarten.
- Valeria De La Pena, who also works at Cortez Magnet as a first grade teacher.
(c) Provide a digital spreadsheet (aka log of the 30 hours). Post it next to your mentorship log.
(d) Explanation of what you completed. 
- I've completed 30+ hours of helping in a first grade classroom, mostly working with the students and helping the teacher events held inside the classroom. I also sat and observed in the special education classroom over Spring Break so that would be able to stay through the whole day.

INTERPRETIVE:
Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work. Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.

During Cesar Chavez Week

Easter

APPLIED:
How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped.
I was able to visit Ms. Rivera's classroom several times even though the schedule was a bit tough. When going to observe in her classroom I had a better understanding of how things worked inside and outside of the classroom. I now have a better connection with Ms. De La Pena as a result from all the times I've been to her classroom and learned more about her teaching style.

Extra Post: March

The kids made Abraham Lincoln out of construction paper and they also read books about him. 

As an activity the kids were told to make an "Olaf" out of marshmallows, candy, and pretzels sticks.

I mostly helped them with the eyes, the nose, and sticking the body together. 

Blog 18: Third Answer

Content:

Just like you did for answer 1 and 2 post your:

• EQ: What is the best resource a special ed team can provide high function children in elementary school to promote academic success?
• Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*
• The relationship between the teacher and the parents of the child should be positive and effective to the student's learning.
• 3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example)
• "The manner in which schools communicate and interact with parents affects the extent and quality of parents' home involvement with their children's learning. For example, schools that communicate bad news about student performance more often than recognizing students' excellence will discourage parent involvement by making parents feel they cannot effectively help their children."
• There are a lot of benefits of good parental involvement in their children's education, by getting ideas of how to help and support their children. (Such as learning about new programs the school has to offer.
• "There are other advantages for children when parents become involved — namely, increased motivation for learning, improved behavior, more regular attendance, and a more positive attitude about homework and school in general."
• The research source (s) to support your details and answer
• Interview 1

• Building Parent-Teacher Relationships

  By: American Federation of Teachers (2007)

• Concluding Sentence:
• A student should be able to go to school with a positive mentality and be able to get encouragement from their parents and the school.

Blog 17: Fourth Interview Questions

Contents:

1. What is the best resource a special ed team can provide high function autistic children in elementary school to promote academic success?

2. In what ways do you communicate with your student(s)?

3. How do you teach social rules/skills?

4. How do you define your teaching style?

5. How do you use technology in the classroom?

6. What would the routine of the class be on a regular basis?

7. What are the qualities to be a good teacher?

8. Have you ever been in a situation where a student has gotten too out of hand, if so what was the situation the student was in and how did you fix the problem?

9. What are actions/words you should not use while teaching an autistic student? 

10. What is the most significant way to grab a students attention?

11. What are your views on IEP Goals, are they effective?

12. What are examples of IEP Goals that have definitely not worked?

13. In this school who usually meets up for IEP meetings?

14. What are the roles of the different adults who also work in the room?

15. How are the adults/helpers certified in order to work in the classroom with the children?

16. What are some outside school activities or programs that are offered for the students?

17. What are the most effective ways to teach vocabulary to highly autistic students?

18. How do you know when a student is ready to pass to the next grade level?

19.  For you as a teacher, are there improvements you would want to make in the classroom during your years in teaching?

20. Has parent involvement ever been difficult (lack or too much)?

Extra Blog Post: February

The kids brought cereal boxes from home to make a Valentine's Day box to put their valentines cards inside them.

 

 

 

They counted candy hearts by their color (blue, green, yellow, pink, etc.) and made a graph

They measured the size of their boxes using paper clips.

Working on the worksheet.

Measuring their boxes with big candy hearts.

Counting his candy hearts.

Working on their graph.

Working on bar graph.

Blog 16: Advisory Meeting #2

Content:

Just like you did for answer 1 and the objectives for Purther's textbook work for answer 2 post:

EQ:
- What is the best resource a special education team can provide high function autistic children in elementary school to promote academic success?

Answer #2 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*:
- Provide structured programs that will help the students in helping them with consistency.

3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example):
- Community activities that will help the student experience real life situations that are not usually presented to them.
- An example of a minor program would be a program for brushing teeth. Students take home a step-by-step process for brushing their teeth. Since brushing teeth is a daily routine, this will help them with consistency.
- Reading programs are important for children, especially those with autism. A program with reading will help students with their vocabulary. (Since some autistic children have limited vocabulary, this would count as one of the most important programs)

The research source (s) to support your details and answer:
- ELIJAH School
- CafeMom
- Yadira Rivera

Concluding Sentence:
- Schools that will provide programs to children with needs will help with the child's consistency academically.

*Write your answer like you would write a thesis statement.  Please don't give us one or two words or start your sentence with by.
  

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

Content:

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

- I plan to go volunteer/observe what they do at Casa Colina, where there is a department for autistic children. I will also be going to different classes at an elementary school and get more information on how they teach the autistic students and what rubrics/grading/rules/... they use in the classroom.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

- Taking pictures of the work the kids do in class, and also of the activities they do inside/outside.

3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

- With this I will be able to actually see how lesson plans are made and how tests/quizzes are done. Also, I will be able to see which students are the ones that need the most help in learning.

4.  Post a log on the right hand side of your blog near your other logs and call it the independent component 2 log.

Blog 14: Independent Component 1

Content:

• LITERAL
• (a) "I, Kimberly Gallardo, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work."
• (b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component.
• Valeria.DeLaPena@pomona.k12.ca.us (Ms. De La Pena)
• Developing minds (site)
• The Autism Helper (Sasha; blogger)
• ʺIEP/Treatment Plan Objective Ideas" article
• (c) Provide a digital spreadsheet (aka log of 30 hours). Post it next to your mentorship log.
• (d) Explanation of what you completed
• During the 30 hours I've done a lot of the paper work the teacher would usually do and organizing the paper work. Recently I'm doing more than just that. For example, for Valentines Day each student brought to school a cereal box for their 'Valentine's Mail', and I had to wrap up the boxes in gift wrapping paper that was red, decorated with white polka dots with their name tag on top of the box. Also, I'm helping students with their writing when they need to write a paragraph about someone or something. 

• INTERPRETIVE
• Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work. *Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of 30 hours of work.

Putting up classwork on the walls.

Helping students in their writing.

 

 Checking vocabulary and grammar errors. For example, writing about Martin Luther King Jr. since it was MLK day and writing about his history.

 After they wrote about MLK, they created him by using construction paper and crayons.

 

 

• APPLIED
• How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped.
• It helped me understand that, first of all being a first grade teacher can be stressful on the paperwork, but it really comes a long ways. Also, there are a couple of students in class who don't really know how to write and so I am working on helping the students understand how to write. For example if a student does not know how to spell out a word, let's say "with", and they had originally written "wit" on their paper, then all I could say to them is to sound it out since saying to sound out the word is better than telling them how to spell it, it wouldn't really help  if I had done that. 

Extra Blog Post: January

I am still doing mentorship at Cortez Elementary. I'm helping out a first grade teacher, doing file work and whatever there is to do. Now that I was introduced with the autistic children in pre-k, I'm going to be doing my mentorship a lot more with them. There are only a few highly autistic children that go to the classes; each go different days according to their schedule.

On the month of February I hope to visit Casa Colina where I will be able to work(hopefully) with more kids that have autism.

Blog 13: Lesson 2 Reflection

Due Date: The day after your lesson presentation by 8:00 A.M.

Content:

1. Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?

- The only thing I would be proud of is my whole presentation template (not the one I turned in) because it had all the information I was going to give out, but couldn't really get to all of it.

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

                AP

       b.     Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.

               Justification of Answer: did not site quality research


3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?

- I was able to get feedback from students afterwards on what I had missed/didn't explain. (I need to explain what autism is, so that they understand better. Also, not many people really understand what autism is.)

4.  (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?
- Just make time to PRACTICE my presentation more.

5. Finding Value
What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?

- Something like keeping a positive mind and being supportive with the students' at all times.

Blog 12: Third Interview Questions

Content:

Post 10 open-ended questions for approval you want to ask an expert in the field of your senior project.  The first question should be your essential question and the other nine must be about the foundation of your essential question or help you answer your essential question.

1. What is the best resource a special ed team can provide high function autistic children in elementary school to promote academic success?

2. In what ways do you communicate with your student(s)?

3. How do you teach social rules/skills? 

4. How do you define your teaching style?

5. How do you use technology in the classroom?

6. What would the routine of the class be on a regular basis?

7. What are the qualities to be a good teacher?

8. Have you ever been in a situation where a student has gotten too out of hand, if so what was the situation the student was in and how did you fix the problem?

9. Are there any specific actions/words you should not use while teaching an autistic student? (sarcasm, idioms, etc.)

10. What is the most significant way to grab a students attention?


The interview itself is not due till Friday February 21st to turnitin.com.

Blog 11: Mentorship 10 hours check

Content:

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

- Cortez Magnet

2.   Who is your contact?

- Ms. De La Pena

3.   How many total hours have you done (total hours should be reflected in your mentorship log located on the right hand side of your blog like your WB)?  


-  44 hrs and 50 min.

4.   Summarize the 10 hours of service you did.

- Setting up the classroom and doing file work. Also working with the students, helping them in reading and math. Doing a lot of workshops such as art workshops.

5.   Email your house teacher the name of your contact and their phone number confirming who they should call to verify it. 

Senior Project, The Holiday

Content:

1.  It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you over the break with your senior project?

 - Since I do my hours working on Senior Project at a school I couldn't really do anything since they were also on break. But I did do some more research on my topic that way  I wouldn't get too behind. I also went to go visited Los Angeles twice over break to see their medical facilities; since LA has such a large population of people. 

2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did and why?  What was the source of what you learned?

- From visiting LA I know that there are an increasing amount of autistic children. Where I live I would probably see about one autistic child every week if I were to go out more frequently on a daily basis. But over in LA, in one day I've had seen about five; autistic children aren't easily seen going out during the day.

3.  If you were going to do a 10 question interview on questions related to answers of your EQ, who would you talk to and why?

- A psychologist that specializes in treating and helping autistic children. They would be the most helpful because they are the ones who really get to work with the children and are specially trained to help them.