Blog #1 My Workplace

    My work place is an elementary school called Southgate Elementary. This is sort of a small workplace because it is an elementary school with mostly little kids there. My workplace is located in West Hayward in the Southgate area, and it looks like a regular elementary school. It has classrooms, a cafeteria, a number or portables and two playgrounds for the younger kids and the older kids. The younger grades are also separated from the older grades. A decent number of faculty works in my workplace since a school needs a teacher for each class, office administration and janitors. My workplace employs teaching staff that are 4-yr college graduates, but i am not sure about the other categories. My workplace serves their students, and has a goal to give each student the best education they can provide and have each student work to their highest ability. The strengths of my workplace is that it is very structured since it is a school. A weakness of my workplace is that some of the students attending the school are missing some basic academic skills that they should already have.

Blog #2

My mentors name is Mr. Brad Ward and he is a 5th grade teacher at Southgate elementary school. Their typical day is like that of a teacher, he comes to school and has classes all day and teaches his students. I think my mentor became interested in this field because he had experience of teaching in his past. I think to get his job my mentor needed to have attended a 4-year college  and graduated with a degree. My mentor has also worked other professions prior to his current job.

Blog #3 My Role

    My main responsibility at my workplace is to be a good mentor and guidance to the young school kids. I have to keep the kids on track in class and support them in anything they need help with. A regular day at my workplace is an adventure to me. First i report to my first class which is a kindergarten special ed class, i help sit all the little kids in a circle and sing nursery rhymes and alphabet songs with them. Then about 30 minutes later the little kids have snack time, so while the teacher is setting up the snacks for the kids i interact with the kids and then i sit them around the snack table. I then move on to my second class which is 4th to 6th grade special ed. In that class i was assigned a student i will work with throughout my whole internship. I help my student with his math, reading and other subjects and after that i evaluate his performance for the with his teacher. After my second class its recess, so i go out and play with the kids and interact with them more. After recess i have a first grade English class in that class the teacher assigns me 2 students to work with. I help the students with their alphabet and word pronunciations and also practice writing words with them. When we are done with that, they have story books which they have to read and i help them with words they have problem saying. After this class there is lunch, at lunch i play basketball or football with the kids and have fun with them, which is the funnest part of my day. And after lunch i have a 5th grade math class, in that class i sit in a table at the back of the class and any student who needs help with their math work comes to the table and i work with them. The kids in this class are older so it is easier to work with them. This a basic overview of my day at South Gate elementary.

Blog #4

    For my WLE  project i am thinking about doing an analysis on the progress of some kids in my WLE that i am working with at Southgate. I will then present to the Southgate faculty and staff my findings on the learning abilities in the student. I came up with this idea because i do a lot of one on one work with student at my internship, and i also stay an hour after school to help some students with their homework. I am excited to do this project because i want to see if the kids are actually learning more or less as i help them. In order to finish my project in 4-4 weeks i will need to make some sort of assessment to test the kid at the beginning of my experiment in order to measure what they know and then another assessment at the end to see how they have improved. I think i will make the assessment based on writing words, letters and also saying them out.

Blog #5

    At my WLE today, i worked with the children on their math skills and with the younger kids i worked on alphabet and spelling. My mentor talked to me and gave me ideas about what i could do for my project. He told me i could help with the after school tutoring program going on after school. So far for my project i have tutored my student and giving him his first quiz which i will use to analyze whether the method used to tutor him is working. In the weeks coming up i will keep tutoring my student, and then give him another quiz to measure if he has had any improvement.

Blog #6

The leadership skill i am using the most in my internship is Productive Collaboration. This skill is used a lot because i have to work with a lot of different kids and tutor, we collaborate with each other. I am using this skill well because i engage with kids one on one and help them on specific areas were they are struggling in. I can improve my use of this skill by being more open with the kids. This skill helps me do my work because like i said earlier, i help tutor kids and i need to collaborate with them. My mentor uses the skill Critical Thinking because he is a teacher and he needs to think well about what he is gonna teach, and create a good lesson plan for the day.

Blog #7

I did not go to my internship today because i feel very sick. My mom called the school and informed them. I will probably just rest at home and get some work and get some work done before thanksgiving.

Blog #8

In order to find the WLE i have, i had to do a number of things. First off all i went up to the school main office then i explained to them my WLE program and told them i needed an internship. Then i got forwarded to another teacher which is now my mentor. I contacted him and set up an appointment to meet up with him, i talked to him and he hired me.  The most effective way of getting a job and being hired is too make a lot of calls, and if you are called in be as professional as possible. Resulting from my WLE, i think being a responsible adult in the work world means being a mature professional and working with intelligence. I like my workplace because although i have to be a responsible worker i can still mingle and have fun with some of the kids.

Blog #9

Today at my internship i did the regular things i always do. I went to my internship, and went to all my classes to tutor kids and help out the teachers. As an intern i have improved in a bunch of ways. First of all i have become more familiar with the children which makes it easier for me to work with them. I have also gotten better at teaching the kids, and communicating with the teachers. One thing that makes my workplace a great place to work is the friendly environment, all the children are always happy to see me and at lunch they all want to play games with me. The teachers are also very happy to have me each day come to intern at south gate.

Blog #10

Some final thoughts i have on my WLE is that is was a very fun experience. On my last day the faculty at Southgate elementary had a little appreciation thing set up of me and the other mentors working there. I am really glad that i chose to do my internship  there. This experience i will have an effect on me in the future because since i have now had the experience of working with a lot of kids and tutoring job, i can now get a real job or help tutor young children in my free time.