Blog 1: Summer Mentorship Component

Assignment: Job-Shadowing in an Algebra Class

Literal (Know)

Day 1- August 23, 2012 (5 hours)
Mentor: Laura Murillo
School: Rivera Middle School
Contact Number: (562) 801-5088

• Signed students into Mrs. Murillo's gradebook
• Collected homework from students, as well as passed out worksheets
• Observed Mrs. Murillo's lecture on integer review
• Repeated this process for 5 different classes

Day 2- August 24, 2012 (4 hours)
Mentor: Laura Murillo
School: Rivera Middle School
Contact Number: (562) 801-5088

• Organized books
• Collected homework and passed out new assignments, including a quiz
• Helped grade homework and quiz
• Put grades from the homework and quiz into the gradebook
• Observed Mrs. Murillo explaining all of the answers on the quiz
• Repeated this process for 5 different classes

Day 3- August 27, 2012 (5 hours)

Mentor: Laura Murillo

School: Rivera Middle School

Contact Number: (562) 801-5088

• Graded homework from over the weekend
• Put more grades into the gradebook
• Observed Mrs. Murillo giving a warm-up, as well as helping the students understand the homework
• Repeated this process for 5 different classes
• Helped a couple students understand their homework during lunch

Literal (Need to Know)

• How does the teacher have time to help out every single student should they ask for it?
• Which way of teaching ensures complete attention from the student?
• Why does the teacher insist on teaching the very basic form of a problem, instead of the actual problem?

Interpretive

I think the most important thing I gained from this experience was being able to help out a student. After watching Mrs. Murillo teach, I knew how to explain problems to a student. I do not mean that I learned the content from Mrs. Murillo, I mean that I learned how to make it seem simple for the student to understand.

Applied

By doing these 10 hours of job-shadowing, I realized that teaching Algebra was something that I am really interested in. I've always enjoyed math; it has been, and still is, my favorite subject. I was planing to do something math-related for my senior project. The reason I chose this subject was because the classroom feels like the right environment for me. Grading papers and helping students out made me feel successful, so that is why I am pursuing this topic.