Reflection on My Mentorship - SLO Assignment

After mentoring at Chestatee Academy for the past two years, I've realized that I have a strong passion for teaching. Even though I am not going to college to become a math teacher, I know that I definitely want to become one some time later down the road. One thing I learned about teaching, however, is that teachers are very limited by how they have to teach. Also, there are a lot of other responsibilities that teachers have to deal with, such as discipline and frequent meetings. Despite all these downsides, teaching is more interesting to me now, and even though middle school is filled with pubescent odors and raging hormones, I think that is where I would like to end up as a teacher, opposed to my previous dream of becoming a college math professor. Middle school students have so much fun and excitement for learning, and I think it is the best time for a teacher to impact a student.

Me with Mrs. Brooksher's class celebrating my
acceptance into Georgia Tech. (Source: Myself)

I have gained a very great student teaching experience, probably much better than most student teachers get to have. This was due to having such an amazing mentor and such outstanding students. I was given a lot of freedom in the classroom, being able to grade and teach when I pleased. Because of this, I was able to do something different this year than I did last year to get the most out of my experience. This year, I tried to have a closer relationship to the students. This made teaching them more fun for me, and I was able to become a role model to them. I showed them that its cool to learn nerdy types of things whenever I would bring in my yo-yo and my Rubix cubes. Getting to know the students really made this year worth while. I plan to give them my phone number at the end of the year so that I can stay in touch with them and so that they can ask me questions about high school.

Mrs. Brooksher and me.
(Source: Myself)

Through the Honors Mentorship Program, I found a lifelong mentor in Mrs. Brooksher. She will probably be a future job reference for me, and I plan to visit her classroom as much as possible. The best advice I would give to future HMP students is about finding a great mentor. I was lucky with my mentor because we had already known each other and she had already knew my passion for math and learning. However, I feel like many students can find a mentor like I did. Finding a mentor that you already have some sort of relationship with helps a lot. Your mentor will have more trust in your abilities which will lead to more freedom and opportunities from your mentor. Also, once the mentorship begins, you should develop your relationship with your mentor to something that will go farther than just one or two years of high school. This will allow you to have a truly genuine mentor.


Joining the Honors Mentorship Program was one of the best decisions I made in high school. I gained a great experience and made great relationships. I'm going to miss going down to the middle school every day, but I can't wait to make surprise visits to Mrs. Brooksher's classroom in the future.

A Path to Follow

Mrs. Brooksher has been very inspiring to me lately. She has been working very hard handling her busy schedule, and its made me think about what I would need to do to be in the type of position that she is in. I would first gain a degree in mathematics and then take education courses to receive my teaching certificate. While being in school, I would first try some substitute teaching, and then I would begin student teaching. After I would find a job, I would work a few years until I could teach advanced level classes. During that time, I would get very involved in the school I work at by things such as joining committees. If I could do all of that, I would be in a very successful position like
Mrs. Brooksher.

Because she has been so busy lately, I have been given more responsibility in the classroom. For one thing, I'm having to answer just about all of the students' questions while they are working on classwork. I really enjoy doing this because I get to be closer to the students. Another task that I enjoy which is new is that I get to make copies for Mrs. Brooksher. I really think that its fun to make copies as long as I am using the older copying machine. Sometimes I have to use the brand new copier, and its too advanced for me to know how to work without knowing much about how to use a copying machine. I have also been helping Mrs. Brooksher a lot with her grading. I use to think grading was pretty fun, but because there has been so much lately, its starting to be a little boring. However, I'm am still very glad to be more involved in the classroom.

How I Worked On My Project This Week

This week, I worked on my visual for my recorded presentation that I eventually will have to do. At one of the next seventh-grade math meetings, I will give a short presentation on why teachers should use brain teasers in class more often. My visual will be a PowerPoint, and the first few slides will be brain teasers that I will give to the teachers to get them involved and interested in the presentation. Then, I'll explain some pros and cons about brain teasers. The next slides will explain my experience with brain teasers as a student, and why they are a benefit to the classroom. I am still undecided on whether or not I will include a quote from my annotated bibliography. I may end up cutting some information from my PowerPoint so that the presentation is not too long.

My Plan for My Final Project

For my project, I will be researching brain teasers and puzzles and their effect on students' learning ability. I want to discover if brain teasers are a tool I should use regularly in my class if I become a teacher one day. My current essential questions that are driving my research are: "How does the use of brain teasers in class help students develop their problem solving skills and improve their learning environment? Also, how can I persuade teachers at my mentorship to incorporate brain teasers into their lesson plans?" Besides the components that are required for this project, such as the annotated bibliographies and the video presentation, I may have a way to show brain teasers that create excitement and a desire to learn in students. This could be in the form of a PowerPoint. For my "real inquiry", I will probably use a interview with my mentor about how effective she thinks brain teasers are. It will be good to have her opinion because she would know the pros and cons of using brain teasers in class.

The Essential Question for My Research

Essential Question:

"How does the use of brain teasers in class help students develop their problem solving skills and improve their learning environment? Also, how can I persuade teachers at my mentorship to incorporate brain teasers into their lesson plans?"

Over the past two years, I have been able to do a lot of brain teasers with Mrs. Brooksher's class. I like to do this with them because the students think that they are really fun, but I would like to know if it improves how well they learn. I feel like brain teasers helped me learn more in the classroom as I grew up, and I would like to know if it is the same for other students. Also, I am excited to discover if they do promote greater learning because then maybe I can persuade teachers at Chestatee Academy to use more in class. This would allow me to leave a positive impact on the place that has done so much for me. This question does show that I really want to find an answer because it incorporates an action that I would like to achieve by the end of my research.

What My Mentorship Has Been Like / An Influential Class

My mentorship is a lot different from how it was last year. I've been doing a lot more grading for Mrs. Brooksher, and a lot less teaching. This is because Mrs. Brooksher has even more content to cover this year than she had last year, and she also seems to have more grading to do than before. However, I do enjoy getting to learn a different side of teaching than I did last year. Whenever I am not grading, I am helping students one-on-one as I did before. One of the things that is a little disappointing this year is the brain teasers. Because of both Mrs. Brooksher's and my busy schedule, I have barely been able to do any brain teasers with the class. However, I understand that Mrs. Brooksher has to make sure she covers everything she has too.

One class that helped me with my mentorship is the calculus class that I had last year. This is due more to the teacher I had, Mr. Skogman, than the actual class itself. Mr. Skogman is a teacher who is very knowledgeable in his content area and is very likable. This is how I try to model myself after to Mrs. Brooksher's students. He finds a way to explain math in a higher and more academic way than most high school teachers. I try to do this with the students because I feel like it would be good for them to be learn math in a way that will prepare them for high school. Mr. Skogman is highly respected not only for his mathematical ability, but also because of how entertaining he makes class feel. He is able to make students laugh in a very nerdy way. I thought that if I was like this with Mrs. Brooksher's students, than they would see me as the cool high school kid and would be able to learn from me better. I think that modeling myself after Mr. Skogman has worked well, and I this is the type of teacher I will be.

Youth in the Workplace and Social Intelligence

Besides experience, the youth face many challenges when entering the workplace. One of which is the ability to have a relationship with coworkers, especially bosses, that are of a different generation. One reason it is difficult is because the culture of today's youth is much different than the culture of older generations. Because of this, young employees and bosses can come off as rude and disrespectful to each other. The following link is to an article that discusses how young potential employees can fix this problem.

http://growingleaders.com/blog/first-soft-skill-develop-students/

This article suggests that the youth lacks social intelligence. Social intelligence is the ability for a person to empathizes with someone and build a connection with them, despite any differences. Social intelligence is important in the workplace because it allows to work to be done between employees despite differences, such as age. This can keep employees and bosses from coming off as rude to each other. Social intelligence also can create a good first impression to a boss for applicants and beginning employees.

Something that I noticed about this article is that it classifies all of the youth into one group. It assumes that all youth is the same, and it points out only negative characteristics about the youth. It also places the blame for the disrespect in the workplace completely on young employees, when bosses are also to blame.