For my practicum, I chose to become a tutor with Lakeland STARS, which is a club where Scholars can apply to tutor kids at Paint Branch Elementary School (1-6). Ever since my first semester at UMD, when I got accepted to the program, I tutored on Wednesday's from 3:45- 6:00. My first semester, and part of my second, I helped a second grader with their math and reading homework. At Lakeland STARS, we usually help kids with their homework from 4-5, then fill out their journal with the prompts for that day, and after that there is usually a fun activity for the kids to do with the tutors. Since my third and fourth semesters of STARS were virtual, they were somewhat different. When we moved to a virtual environment, it was a struggle to adapt to the change, but as the semester progressed we got the hang of it. Virtually, STARS has started at 3:45 and ended at 5:30 on Wednesday's. While I had some difficulties this semester, and ended up not having a tutee, I still got to be a substitute for other tutors whenever they could not make it and got to help out. I've helped kids learn multiplication, work on addition and subtraction, improve their reading, and their inference-making skills.
0 Comments
I found my practicum through my Media, Self, and Society Scholars class. One of the first days of school, Lakeland STARS was mentioned in our class and we were encouraged to check it out and apply. We were also told that if we spent two semesters as a tutor for STARS that it would fulfill our scholars practicum requirement.
I love STARS, so I recommend looking into being a Lakeland STARS tutor for your practicum. There are many different things you can do to fulfill the practicum requirement; service, research, an internship, and there are even some classes you can take. It can be a bit nerve-wracking to reach out to a supervisor at first, but in the end my supervisor was helpful and kind. The easiest way to reach out to a supervisor is through email; make sure you are straightforward and clear. Be patient and if more than two days go by without any news reach out again respectfully. In the end, your supervisor just wants to help you and it's great to get to know your supervisor and reach out them. The biggest things I learned from being a tutor was how to be more patient and creative. Tutoring takes a lot of patience; sometimes kids will get frustrated when they do not understand their task and that can make it harder to explain something. Kids also get distracted easily and it can be a bit difficult to be patient and re-direct them to the task at hand. Lakeland STARS helped me work on my patience and I do think that I am more patient now than I was my first semester. I have also become a more creative person. Something that I have learned is that no person learns something the same way. I have explained addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in so many different ways. For example, if a person is more of a visual learner then I will make drawings in order to explain multiplication. So I'll draw two "bags" with "coins" (this is where the kid can be creative and they can pick whatever they want so it could be cookies or donuts in the bags) and I'll ask them how many "coins" I have if I have two bags. From there I'll explain that they just multiplied! Other kids understand it better if they just do addition and then quickly go through all the multiplication facts and memorize them. It has been challenging to come up with different ways to explain a topic differently, but it has helped me be more flexible and creative. An example of when I used my strengthened creative skills is when I gave a presentation to the kids about Media Safety earlier this year. Since it was a serious topic and I presented it to First through Sixth graders, I had to use my creativity to come up with a way to make it fun and engaging. Eventually, I chose to call it a "conversation" rather than a presentation and asked various questions throughout. My powerpoint presentation is only pictures and I think that helped keep the kids engaged and focused. I was surprised at how much interaction I got and at how many kids already knew some of the things I talked about. All in all, it was fun to give a unique presentation that challenged my creativity and my teaching skills. STARS strengthened my desire to be a teacher of some kind in the future. As a Lakeland STARS tutor I learned the importance of creativity and adaptability. While it was hard switching from an in-person to virtual format, in the end it was beneficial. I learned how to use different forms of media, such as Zoom and online learning websites, in new ways. This experience has shown me the importance of being able to adapt to change. It is clear that media is playing a bigger and bigger role in society and that this trend will continue. Thus, it will be important to take the creativity and adaptability skills I learned through STARS and apply them in my life in the future. I have thoroughly enjoyed being a Lakeland STARS tutor.
|
|