Reflection Post: What are some things you accomplished this year that you are proud of?

           I have been able to accomplish quite a few things this year. One is unrelated to teaching: becoming a father! My son  was born in March of this year and we are still getting to know him as he gets to know us. 

Mother's Day 2014

On the teaching side of things, I got to work with some great kids from the Boys and Girls Club in a small group tutoring setting. 

 The job came my way through a local school contact. She had sent me on an interview that didn't pan out but she put the BGC on my radar. They were looking for certified teachers to work with their students after school for 45 minutes 2 to 3 days a week. These were students who had been identified by their respective site directors through teacher evaluations. 

We had a couple of days of planning with the Unit Director of the local chapter and she gave us what she envisioned for the program. (This was the first year for the program so we were the guinea pigs.)  She stressed the fact that she would leave it up to us to come up with the lessons or activities we wanted to do with the children. We were all ready to go. Those first few sessions were not my most favorite. I had a group of kids that made me really question why I chose this profession. After careful observation and prayer, I made a proposal to make a change to the group. The kids I had just couldn't work together so I picked the ones that I felt could and we made it work.

I know the ones I had previously needed me but with only a short time (45 minutes) to work with them, I had to make those moments count and I feel that I did. By the end, things were good and the kids had a blast. 

So that is what I am proud of this year: becoming and father and fostering a group of kids from the BGC. 


 

What worked and what didn't.

Well, as a "guest teacher" I do not have a classroom of my own to reflect on but as a tutor for the Boys and Girls Club, I can tell you what worked and what did not. 







What worked...

• Fraction Jenga War- You can read about my experience with this game here. This was by far THE most fun I had with these kiddos this year. They were able to see how fractions relate to one another and by the end they were able to really understand how they compare. 
• Board Games-They were learning without actually learning and it was so fun to just play a game or two with them with no specific agenda in mind. 
• "No-Peek"-This card game is a variation on a game called "Golf" that my in-laws love to play. The goal is to get as few points as possible by flipping over cards and replacing higher value cards with lower value cards. There is also the option of taking away entire rows of cards by matching three in a column. This hits those critical thinking skills and by the end I think they understood what they needed to do in order to get fewer and fewer points. 
• The group I had the privilege to work with this year- By the end of this year I came out with a great group of kids. We had to restructure the group after the first 3 months but I wound up with a good group of kids. I hope they had as much fun as I did. 

What didn't work...

• Paperwork-As much as I hate it, paperwork is necessary. It took just as much time to fill out the log as it did to actually do the activity I had planned. This form was created for us and it is a very nice form but I had to fill out one for EVERY STUDENT I HAD! It got to be a lot and at times I forgot to fill it out. 
  
   
• No connection with the student's teachers- This has been a failure on my part not to ask for this information. I did not have information on any of the students I was working with besides their first semester grades. I tried to work with them in the subject areas that were identified by I was not given updates on how they were progressing in class. I did not have any benchmark information to work with. Next year, hopefully I will get better intelligence or at least run my own type of assessment to see where they struggle. 
• Scrabble-I had the brilliant idea to introduce the kids to Scrabble and it was an epic fail. The group I had at the time (I switched kids in and out due to behavior) were not interested and did not really get the rules. These kids are in school until 4:00 pm, so it is a very long day for them so the last thing they want to do was "learn". 

Hope this was helpful! Make sure to see all the other reflection blogs out there!  Click on the above picture to go back to the original link!