March 9th- March 13th

This week the students of Shaw began PARCC testing. This meant that I had  a weird schedule. I would have periods 1 and 3 one day, and period 5,6, and 7 another day. My classes were shortened, which meant less time with my mentees and mentors.

When I did have my students we talked about success. Students defined what success meant to them, The answers varied from, "to me success is coming to school everyday," to "success means I will be the first in my family to graduate college."  Students defined success, discussed milestones in middle school or possible milestones they would like to see, and what internal and external barriers the students have that gets in the way of their success.

This week students did a review of vocabulary words by playing pitctionary. It was very interesting to see how the students would draw words like: EMOSMART, barriers, success, belief system, and other words from our glossary.  This was excellent review because students would explain the vocabulary words to students who possibly missed the day we went over some of these concepts, or students who simply forgot.

Today, students will do an activity called, "The Ripple Effect."  This activity is also knows as the consequence wheel, which is a graphic model of cause and effect. The ripple of this wheel can continue as far as the students wish. In the center of the wheel students have to state an action, with 5 possible outcomes, these 5 outcomes have outcomes , and it will continue as far as a student can think of a direct consequence ( I will post pictures of this next week).

Overall, the time I did have with my students was very productive even though is was not the normal full hour I usually get with my students.

Vocabulary Review