3. Connection to one of our readings:
I relate two of my experiences to the Mike Rose book, Lives On The Boundary. The biggest thing I took away from that book was the idea of students being left behind by the school systems because they struggled with learning disabilities, but without one-on-one attention, they weren't able to break out of the stigma of having a learning disability or from simply being left behind because no one cared enough to pay specific attention to them. I experienced two students who were both older gentleman that I guessed had some type of learning disabilities, who had never surpassed the literacy level of a 4th grader. I could not believe that something like that could happened, but I immediately thought of the Mike Rose book and wondered if either their disabilties had been ignored and they had just been pushed through the system, or if they had also been labled as learning disabled, and no one ever cared enough to pay specific attention to them to help them become more literate and receive the individual attention they needed. They may have also experienced feelings of inadequacy that caused them to feel like they were "stupid" or "dumb" and not smart enough to learn or excel in school. It really upsetted me to see that this continues to happen so frequently in society. I wondered how their lives may have been different if they had had a mentor/teacher that took an interest in them like Mike Rose did, and I wondered how they had gotten through their lives so far only having the limited knowledge they did. It also reminded me of Rose's book because it really hit me how important knowledge is, and how critical it is for students to learn and obtain and education to help them to reach their fullest potential and benefit society as a whole.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Final Blog Reflections On Service Learning Experiences #2
2. Consideration of materials and/or social space:
In these sessions, the materials most frequently used were books, computers, pens/pencils, dictionaries, and computers. I feel all of these materials were adequate for providing the full learning experience. It was such a blessing that the students are able to access these resources at the NALC, because they are all essential in improving upon one's literacy. The books were probably the most commonly used material because they contained the key information for the students, as well as essential guidance for the teachers. While it seems obvious that students require a book/textbook for literacy learning, the information given to the teachers can be undervalued because the student will not learn what they need to know unless the teacher is well-prepared and well educated. The teacher should be well-informed so they can know the students' needs and give them the appropriate information. If a teacher does not have access to materials that are expanding their knowledge and providing the students with neccessary knowledge, there are many obstacles the student will have to face. The computers are also a useful tool for learning literacy because the students can do additional excercises as well as learn how to navigate and work a computer, which is usually an essential skill for potential job opportunities. Having online and hard-copy dictionaries are also incredibly useful because they help students and teachers to grow in their knowledge of vocabulary and be able to look up something they may not know. Another important material was the different handouts and posters they have that provided hints and outlines for phonetic skills. These are useful tools for students because they provide quick references for students as they work on activities. They are good reminders for the rules of phonetics.
The arrangement of space is organized so that mutiple students can work and get tutoring at the same time. There are about 8-10 desks and 4-5 computers that are set up in the room for students during their lessons as well as students who have just come in to use the computers or study. While there are multiple tutoring sessions going on at once, it is not distracting or too loud. I have always felt as if the student and I were in our own room because the desks are set up with cubicles that allow for privacy and concentration. The materials mentioned in the previous paragraph are all easily accesible in the room creativing an environment that fosters learning and exploration.
In these sessions, the materials most frequently used were books, computers, pens/pencils, dictionaries, and computers. I feel all of these materials were adequate for providing the full learning experience. It was such a blessing that the students are able to access these resources at the NALC, because they are all essential in improving upon one's literacy. The books were probably the most commonly used material because they contained the key information for the students, as well as essential guidance for the teachers. While it seems obvious that students require a book/textbook for literacy learning, the information given to the teachers can be undervalued because the student will not learn what they need to know unless the teacher is well-prepared and well educated. The teacher should be well-informed so they can know the students' needs and give them the appropriate information. If a teacher does not have access to materials that are expanding their knowledge and providing the students with neccessary knowledge, there are many obstacles the student will have to face. The computers are also a useful tool for learning literacy because the students can do additional excercises as well as learn how to navigate and work a computer, which is usually an essential skill for potential job opportunities. Having online and hard-copy dictionaries are also incredibly useful because they help students and teachers to grow in their knowledge of vocabulary and be able to look up something they may not know. Another important material was the different handouts and posters they have that provided hints and outlines for phonetic skills. These are useful tools for students because they provide quick references for students as they work on activities. They are good reminders for the rules of phonetics.
The arrangement of space is organized so that mutiple students can work and get tutoring at the same time. There are about 8-10 desks and 4-5 computers that are set up in the room for students during their lessons as well as students who have just come in to use the computers or study. While there are multiple tutoring sessions going on at once, it is not distracting or too loud. I have always felt as if the student and I were in our own room because the desks are set up with cubicles that allow for privacy and concentration. The materials mentioned in the previous paragraph are all easily accesible in the room creativing an environment that fosters learning and exploration.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Final Blog Reflections on Service Learning Experiences
1. Connection to your own literacy experience:
In comparing my own literary experience with one of the students that I tutored, I would say that our literary experiences may have been pretty similar up to a certain point. For our lesson, we were primarily focusing on grammar and the pronunciation of long and short syllables. I remember learning a lot of this material when I was in elementary and middle school, but until now, had completely forgotten most of it. He seemed to have a similar experience, he kept saying that he must have learned all of it at some point, but I think he may have had some learning disabilities that had prevented him from being able to fully understand it. I believe he probably did learn all the material in school at some point, but he was able to only partially learn it because of some learning disability, and was passed through the system without someone realizing he never actually learned some fundamental knowledge because he needed to know. Not only that, it is possible the teachers assumed he was just being lazy or wasn't smart enough to learn the information, when in fact he had a disability preventing him from learning it the way he should. I was so fortunate in my education because I was always in very small classes where the teachers were able to be fully in tune with each student and their needs. I always knew that if I didn't understand something, I would be able to get the individual help I needed from a teacher. It was really interesting that my experiences have opened my eyes to the differences and similarities in our formative literary experiences.
In comparing my own literary experience with one of the students that I tutored, I would say that our literary experiences may have been pretty similar up to a certain point. For our lesson, we were primarily focusing on grammar and the pronunciation of long and short syllables. I remember learning a lot of this material when I was in elementary and middle school, but until now, had completely forgotten most of it. He seemed to have a similar experience, he kept saying that he must have learned all of it at some point, but I think he may have had some learning disabilities that had prevented him from being able to fully understand it. I believe he probably did learn all the material in school at some point, but he was able to only partially learn it because of some learning disability, and was passed through the system without someone realizing he never actually learned some fundamental knowledge because he needed to know. Not only that, it is possible the teachers assumed he was just being lazy or wasn't smart enough to learn the information, when in fact he had a disability preventing him from learning it the way he should. I was so fortunate in my education because I was always in very small classes where the teachers were able to be fully in tune with each student and their needs. I always knew that if I didn't understand something, I would be able to get the individual help I needed from a teacher. It was really interesting that my experiences have opened my eyes to the differences and similarities in our formative literary experiences.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Last literacy training session!
Last week I also had my last literacy training session. The session was awesome because it was with one of the girls I had worked with before, that I had specifically requested to work with again. She was a really sweet young woman from Taiwan and we spent most of the time talking about "Falling In Love", which was what the lesson plan was about, which was fun because I was able to learn all about love and relationships in her culture. We went through a lot of vocabulary and reading comprehension relating to this and she did a great job.
Final literacy tutoring!
Last week I had my second to last tutoring session. I worked with two wonderful people, one was an elderly black man and another was a young Asian man studying at Vanderbilt. Both sessions went really well. In the first session, the elderly black man and I worked a lot on long and short syllables. He did a pretty good job with it, but seemed to have trouble differentiating long and short vowels, but we went over a couple of tricks for figuring it out and I think he was improving by the end. The second student was a really sweet Asian man from South Korea. He wanted to work on conversation a lot so we talked for a while and I was able to hear all about his studies at Vanderbilt and how it is hard for him to work in study groups because he gets left behind since he doesn't know the language. We talked about various vocabulary words and did some reading comprehension, which he did a great job on. What he really wanted help with was his pronunciation, so we were able to do a lot of repetition, which hopefully helped him with that.
NALC first time
I was not able to post about my first experience at the NALC, so I wanted to take a moment to share my experience. The first time I went, I remember being really nervous about whether I was going to be well-equipped to teach the lesson. I've never been the best at grammar, and I was nervous I may need to teach something that even I didn't understand. Fortunately, that was not the case. Although I did not have much time to review the lesson plans before the sessions, I was able to quickly glance over them to see what we needed to cover. My first student was an older black woman who was originally from Nigeria. She had an incredible faith, and we enjoyed talking about her beliefs and her family. We went over different vocabulary and spellings of words, which she had a pretty good grasp of. She also did a lot of work on the computer to work on her computer skills, which appeared to have improven since her last session. The next student was a white man in his forties. Because of his age and his race, it seemed he was just an average American man, so I was surprised when I learned his reading/comprehension abilities were at a 4th grade level. I could not believe it! He was in a GED class, so we worked on some of the word problems for math that he couldn't understand and went over some reading comprehension exercises. He seemed to learn a lot during the lesson, so I was really happy about that.
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