Blog 15: independent component 2 approval

1. For the next 30 mentor ship hours, I intend to prepare students for a math field day. My mentor is in charge of a group of students who have excelled in their class and are being considered to attend a math field day where they will go head to head with some of the brightest minds in the area. Here, these students will use their previous experiences and other skills they learned, to achieve the highest score and bring back awards for the school. I will be in charge of these students this year, I will act as a mentor for them. I will create lessons to prepare them for difficult concepts and subjects that will most likely appear in the field day. I will be going after school, and prepare the classroom, and then prepare students by teaching and assessing their strengths and weaknesses.

2. I will be helping students for 1-2 hours after school everyday, and I will also be setting up lesson plans and mock test to prepare them for what they might experience at this field day. I will also be attending the field day as their one of their coaches, since I am not a teacher, I will not be able to be the main coach, but I will work with the students regardless.

3. This will help me explore my topic more because it will show me what it is like to work with students of a high caliber, and also allows me to understand what it is like to work with students one on one. It will also show that through communication and relationships with the students, we can achieve more and perform better at the competition.

Independent component 1

• LITERAL
  (a) Write: “I, Nicholas Ayala, 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.
• Mr. Murillo
• "CPM EBooks." CPM EBooks. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2015.
• Dean, Ceri. "Mathematical Practices for Deep Understanding." Educational Leadership:Getting Students to Mastery:Mathematical Practices for Deep Understanding. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2014.
(c) Update your hours in your Senior Project Hours link. Make sure it is clearly labeled with hours for individual sessions as well as total hours.
• (d) Explain what you completed.    
• With the help of mentor, and through setting up previous lessons, I have set up a lesson that I will teach to my mentor's class. 
• INTERPRETIVE 
  Defend your work and explain its significance to your project and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  
  
• My lesson is important to my project because it gives me a chance to have a first hand experience with these students and allows me to implement some of the ideas that I learned and see what works and what doesn't. To prepare for this, I helped my mentor set up some of her lessons and sat in on her class while she taught to see what it was like. I also helped teach the Saturday school classes, and after school programs. 
• APPLIED
  How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate this. 
• This component is important because it shows me first hand what teaching students is like, and how they interact with the teacher, and what techniques are best to get everybody to understand what is happening. 

Extra Blog: January

This month in my mentorship, I worked with the students. More specifically, I worked with students in groups. The way my mentor sets up her class, is so that the students work together in groups of 3 or 4. She usually teaches a lesson followed by an activity, and that allows students to work together and understand what the lesson was about. I helped out by going around and checking to see that the groups were on the right tracks with their ideas. Through this I learned that for the most part, my mentor knows her students. She usually pairs up one or two of her lower kids with someone who is doing well in her class, and that usually lead to a collaberation between the students to get a mutual understanding of the topics. This technique seems to be really good because the students work efficiently and help each other out.

Lesson 2 Reflection

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

I am most proud of my activity, it was really creative and I think it worked pretty well. 

2. 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.

I believe I did a pretty good job, the only thing is that I didn't make time, but I was nervous and pretty much rushed through everything.

3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?

I think the activity and my power point were both well done. 

4. What didn't work? If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?

I would have gone back and practiced my presentation again and maybe added more info on my power point.

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

I think my answer 2 would be having a teacher who cares and is very open with their students.

Blog 12: Mentor ship 10 hour check

1. I am doing my mentorship in Pico Rivera, at Rivera Middle school.

2. My contact is my mentor, Mrs. Laura Murillo.

3. As of right now I have 15 hours.

4. In the 10 hours of service, I helped my mentor teach students, and walked around and helped her students who needed a little more one-on-one time. I also helped set up lesson plans.

Blog 11: Holiday Project Update

1. Over the break I worked on creating lesson plans that would help my mentor in her class, as well  as read a couple of books about working with teenage students and teaching math. Finally, I made posters that would supplement my mentor's lessons about equations and graphs.

2. I learned that many students are helped by a visual when being taught something. Students who didn't understand the subject would be able to use the visual to their advantage and figure out what was going on. Using posters lead me to figure this out.

3. I would probably talk to one of the 6th grade pre-Algebra teachers, Mrs. Gomez. Mrs. Gomez knows more about teaching using supplementary visuals, and other tools to help students than many other teachers.

Blog 10: EQ

1. I reviewed the rule of 3 for writing an EQ

2.a. This looks fast and sloppy and does not work well because it is too general.
     b. Yes. Frame work narrows the question down to a very specific topic. Takes a stance by having you choose a side. Specific enough for the topic.
    c. Yes. Framework makes the question more specific, and forces reader to take a stance.
     d. No. The framework is not that great, and is not that specific.

3. Revised EQ: What is the best technique to teach 7th grade Algebra in terms of maximizing scores on a standardized test?