Collaboration With My Mentor Teacher

My video followed the story of Frances Collins-Moore, a counselor at Marshall Fundamental High School. Her story highlights many topics related to school counseling including the importance of being flexible with professional duties, working directly with your student population, communicating with parents, student and teacher advocacy, and the importance of self-care. She worked as a teacher for ten years before transitioning to school counseling and has worked in a direct counseling role for the last ten years. I really appreciated her holistic approach to school counseling. She recognizes that different approaches are needed with different students in order to properly motivate them and address their concerns. She also sees herself as a

For my field placement this semester I have been placed in School Lane Charter school located in Bensalem, PA. This charter school takes great measures in making sure their students get the best quality education. School Lane is an inclusive school, which means that students with or without disabilities are able to learn together, in the most least restrictive environment. I am placed in a first grade classroom this semester in Ms. Cameron’s room. The student who I chose to observe is Ben. Mrs. Cameron picked this student for me because it appears that he has some academic struggles followed by some deficits in social interaction and repetitive behavior such as, rocking back and forth. However, he has yet to be evaluated thus

While in High School, I was involved in the Peer Tutoring program. Although I had already been involved with the several other programs, I knew from an early age that a Special Education teacher was what I wanted to do. Helping students achieve their goals and help them to succeed in life was my true calling. But the desire to help the most challenged student drove me beyond regular education. The memories of my Peer tutoring experience kept me striving to be a

I approach collaboration as a team player, and I believe students need more than one person to guide them to their full educational potential. Also, active and prepared participation of weekly PLC meetings with the teachers of my special education students to plan collaborative curriculum have increased results in math and reading substantially. Participating in co-teaching furthers my repertoire of knowledge to assist my students. I have learned a vast amount from sharing and consulting with colleagues regarding students, observing mentoring teachers, and planning activities to ensure growth in students.

Week two of field observation at Crestone Charter School. My Second week of field observations was really fun and interactive. I had the opportunity to work with several students from the k-1 class with special needs. We traveled to several reading stations and did a read along with the fourth and fifth-grade students. At arrival, I met with the main Para, Ammie Morphet and was informed that Lexi whom is one of the charter schools highest priority/needs students was the student I would be working with. Lexi usually has a personal in class Para that works with her throughout the day, but she was out sick. Since I know Lexi and have personal experience working with her we came to the conclusion that it would be best if I assisted with Lexis daily routine and any other classroom needs. This allowed Mrs. Morphet to attend to the other students she had previously scheduled for us to meet with.

She also realized that being in a classroom all day was not for her. When talking to Mrs. Cruthirds you could clearly see she loved her job and was filled with so many stories about her job. She seemed excited when talking about what she has done and still doing and has been encouraging to me. She said that she believes that children generally do not care what you think until they know and think that you care about them. This meaning that she is working to show them that she cares so in turn they will care about themselves and the future too. She does what every counselor does and that instills hope by showing you care. I like her belief or theory on this. I want to be able to show children that I care about them and for them to know and believe that they have someone that cares about them. I never realized until working in the school how many kids feel like no one cares about them and when they realize someone does you can see the light in their eyes. Mrs. Cruthirds talked about seeing the change in students as she began working with them. She said that students fall to peer pressure most of the time, so when you start working in groups with them or with their class as a whole you can see their thoughts changing on certain topics along with behaviors. The therapeutic skill that she uses most with her student is keeping in touch with them. Even when their problem has been solved she will call them in just to check in and remind them that she is always there to talk if

For my Field Experience I chose to observe at Krahn Elementary which is a part of Klein Independent School District. After my approval, I was assigned to four teachers and their classrooms. I observed at Krahn Elementary on six Tuesdays between 15 September 2015 and 27 October 2015, and more or less followed the schedule that was given to me by the Assistant Principal Ms. Shannon Strole. From 8:30 am to 9:15 am I observed Ms. Judy Burkes, who is a third grade Math and Science teacher. Her classroom is comprised of twenty students which range from average to below average learners and a student with ADHD and another with autism. For most part of my observation, M. Burkes had been working with her students on fractions and multiple digits addition and subtraction. From 9:15 am to 10:30 am I observed Ms. Lisa Parker who is a Math co-teacher and resource teacher at Krahn Elementary for grades K-5. During my assigned time, Ms. Parker usually joined Mr. Duru’s fifth grade class of twenty three students as a co-teacher and when required would pull out a group of six students after initial instructions from Mr. Duru and would teach them the concepts separately at a slower pace. This particular group of students with special needs was mostly seen to be focusing more and more on mathematical word problems. These students were students with Learning disabilities, behavioral issues and one of them was a student with ADHD. From 10:30 am to 11:15, I was with Ms. Janice Bluhms, who is a

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I am interested in working with elementary or high school students. Working with these students in the school setting, I will be giving the chance to advocate and work with them and other organizations to assist in achieving a positive outlook on social, academic, personal and career development. Consulting and collaborating with parents, teachers, school administrators, medical professors, and other professionals in the medical and counseling field will also contribute to increasing my knowledge in staying with the counseling trends and strategies that will affect the development of students.

Those simple instructions helped the students to get into their daily routine. With the increased discovery and changes in special education, the kids will benefits from newly developed technology in the future. During lunch, the students sat at the table with their peers. I felt like the school needed more set of hands; in other to achieve their desired goals. Ms. Gonzalez was a very happy and hardworking teacher who loved her job. I asked Ms. Gonzalez what motivated her to become a special education teacher. She said that she was motivated by her son. She had a three year old son who was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Conduct Disorder (CD). She said during the initial stage of her son diagnoses, she felt hopeless, frustrated and taught she will not be able to take care of her child. She attended a lot of seminars and training on how to care for a child with such disorder. After series of training, she was able to care for her child and love her child just the way he was. When her child got older, she decided to become a special aid teacher. Her goal was to share her story; as well as educate the parents on how to care for children with disabilities and ways to reduce parental anxiety and frustration while caring for their

She says that it is best not to wait because the sooner an intervention is in place the earlier the student can be helped. When asked about professional development opportunities that would benefit the staff in her school district, she said there should be more trainings on understanding about the emotional disabilities students have. Hurd also believes that staff members should have more skills in how to handle student behaviors. Spending time training staff about these issues will allow for a better relationship between students and staff (K. Hurd, personal communication, November 20,

Although it would hard to donate time and money to build space station in space on mars or on the moon. they need to build a space station on the moon and get a picture of it that way people on earth know where it is and maybe we can see it from earth in a telescope.

For my fieldwork experience, I went to a school called Hartvigsen. Hartvigsen is a wonderful school that specializes in providing an individual with success, courage, and growth. They create a special rehabilitation program to fit the needs for each student. They believe in caring and sharing to contribute to a positive environment and a team is built on the cooperative efforts of individuals. The dates I shadowed were January 24th, 31st, February 7th, and 14th. Hartvigsen has 16 classrooms; 6 elementary, 6 secondary, and 4 post high. The school has more than 200 students that regularly attend each day. The age groups range from 5 to 22 years old and there were several diagnoses that are common, but the three I saw the most were Autism, Down

After watching the video my feelings towards the death penalty haven’t changes, but instead gave me yet another reason why it should be taken out of our system. I do strongly agree with Warden McAndrew that the death penalty should be abolished. Not just from what he said in the video, but also from what we have learned in class and my own moral beliefs.

Collaboration between teachers is a key component to professional development that will lead to higher student achievement. There is a need for schools to set up time for teachers to be able to collaborate together. This allows for teachers to help each other, matchup content, teach each other new and best practices, troubleshoot student issues just to name a few of the areas that collaboration time can help foster within a school. The key is to build time for teachers to be able to collaborate during the school day or week. This collaboration time needs to be between grade levels, departments, and cross curricular when needed. For many schools this is an afterthought to the school schedule or a fleeting thought after the master schedule is completed. A principal needs to keep an open mind to any strategy that will enable the teachers to be able to collaborate for the good of the students and the school.