Reflection Paper

There are multiple reasons I am where I am today and why I’m going where I’m going. I have struggled in school ever since I can remember but without the people that I have had in my life I wouldn’t where I am today. But as I will talk about the teacher have played a huge role in the reason I am able to be where I am today.

For my service learning project I worked in Mrs. Evelyn Costa's first grade class at Meadowlane Elementary. Meadowlane is located at 4280 W 8th Avenue in Hialeah, Florida and was constructed in 1957. There are one thousand one hundred and seventy seven students enrolled at Meadowlane Elementary school. Meadowlane has fifty three classrooms and fourteen portables and there are one hundred and seventy nine students per grade level. The school was built on nine acres of land. The student population of meadowlane Elementary is comprised of 97% Hispanic, 2% White, and 1% Asian.

“Writing an essay is not difficult! I am actually great at it.” This is a common statement that I would formally say, and even believe. In the past, I had never felt the need to thoroughly revise my essays before. In all my past essays, I would work intensely on my first draft and then just turn the essay in. I never spent too much time re-evaluating my writing decisions before turning it in. This process had worked well for myself in the past, and as a result, each essay I turned it would be an easy “A”. When I signed up for EN100 I figured that it would be just like the other easy English class that I have taken. I assumed that I would work on an essay, turn it in, and then earn an A on it, but this was not the case. When I signed up for EN100 I figured that I could continue my previous essay writing methods, but that was quickly disproven. When I received my first graded essay, I was unsure why I earned anything but an “A” on it. It soon became clear to me that I was going to be required to change the way I formerly wrote my essays and spend more time with correcting them.

Over the course of the semester, there has been numerous amount of areas where I believe I have improved in comparison to high school. What has helped me in my writing is the writing class and the in-class writing workshop. The writing class that is located in the Kremen education building has helped me with my writing greatly because in the writing center the person in charge teach us lenses and we apply those lenses to the writing, draft, or reading that someone brings in. The in-class writing workshop has helped me because other students get to read my writing. This is helpful because I get feedback from many students and they let me know what needs to be fixed. A new tool I have been using is They Say I Say. The book is very helpful because of the information and examples it provides such as the templates. I have been applying the templates into my essays and I have seen a significant difference.

I come from a family of King and Queens. A home where my father owns many acres of land. A dad who knew me before I knew myself. Born knowing that he already knows my beginning and end. A household with a cross above every main entrance, and a family that sleeps with a bible under every pillow. I live in a community of celebration from left to right, where every little thing that happens, will easily spread around. All happening in a household with a vast selection of food, containing spices that can be smelled from miles away. I am from a family of people who are treated wrongly but still treat others right. Our DNA coming from the tropical, overfilled, bold and “The Giant of Africa” Nigeria, with our blood shedding green and white. Yet we reside in this small loving state of Rhode Island.

When Jesus was sent to be an example of how we are supposed to live, we were shown how to live out our faith in our daily lives. Jesus was faced with persecution, naysayers and even prosecution for His teachings. He was the very son of God himself, yet he still humbled himself to God and man. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus was witnessed washing the feet of the disciples. He was baptized by John and he taught the disciples how to spread the news about God’s love. He showed them how to bring hope to a hurting world. In some cases, people were killed for their faith, yet they believed so deeply in their relationship with God, that they continued to spread the gospel as Jesus had taught them. He developed relationships with people that were known to be thieves, liars and criminals. He taught us how to work among non-believers and that our life should be a reflection of our relationship with God. We think that it is hard for us to integrate our faith into our careers today, but we do not have to give our life for the freedom of our faith. When compared to the stories in the Bible, we have a great deal of advantages over people back then. King Harrod was willing to do whatever it took to protect his throne. He was threatened by the very birth of Jesus and ordered that every male child under two years old, be slaughtered. This was just the first that wanted to kill Jesus. His life was filled with people who wanted to kill him because they believed that his claim to be

The process to become an effective teacher passes through knowing how to develop a course syllabus, while placing my students at the center. As a future instructor at a university, I have to think through what makes class interesting, clear, and understood by the students. My primary concern and focus are my students. After reading through most of this week’s assigned topics and carrying out my research on the internet and the Walden library, I am convinced that as a future instructor my approach, theories of teaching, and those who I will teach are the core when preparing a course description.

The purpose of this project was to provide teacher candidates, such as myself, with an opportunity to gain experience in a preschool/pre kindergarten environment. I was given the opportunity to collaborate with the lead teacher in a pre-k classroom to learn about the daily classroom routines. I partnered with a child to implement in-class and out-of-class activities. Through implementation of these activities, I was given the opportunity to collaborate with the child, her mom, and the teacher to come up with age appropriate activities that interested my student. I completed my fieldwork at Kindercare Learning Center in Richfield, OH. I have worked at Kindercare for over a year and I was extremely excited to see what I was able to learn by doing my field work at my place of employment and learn more about the incredible child care center at which I am lucky to work. This location of Kindercare recently earned a 5 star rating from Step Up To Quality. The teacher in which I shadowed this semester was Ms. Jackie. Ms. Jackie has been teaching at Kindercare for a little over one year. She attended Bowling Green University, studying middle level education. She left school prior to graduation as she realized she did not want to teach middle school. Shortly after leaving Bowling Green, she received a job at Kindercare. She initially was hired as the preschool teacher working with the three year olds, but after about 6 months, she moved up to being the pre-k classroom lead teacher.

I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior when I was 20 years old. At that time I was struggling with my family, problems in school and toxic relationship with my boyfriend. Despite believing in God I still did not have the knowledge of his word and the spiritual skills to find the wisdom and spiritual resources. In the midst of all those difficult circumstances a miracle happened: the Savior chose me, one of my aunts invited me to a Bible study group where I was captivated by the love, forgiveness and guidance that the word of God and His Holy Spirit was giving me in that moment the peace which surpasses all understanding, so from that day I made the decision and went to my aunt's church, to a retreat and then baptized accepting Jesus as my savior.

Going into this term, I wasn’t sure what to expect. My initial plan did not include taking this course this summer. Somehow, Troy ended up changing the schedule and it worked out for me. At least, I thought it was going to work out for me. This term has been very interesting. The classes that I took are PSY 6645 Evaluation and Assessment and CP 6642 Group Dynamics. This paper is going to be about my experience in PSY 6645. I’m going to discuss concepts that were new to me, experiences that caused me to think differently, if I feel as if this course is meaningful, and what can be applied to my professional practice.

Writing is a tool that will be used throughout my lifetime. It is a tool that is worth taking the time to perfect because it will only be beneficial in the long run. On my writing assignments, I earn A’s, but I still have areas that I need to work on. The areas that I struggle the most would be with simple grammar errors such as the use of commas, writing with an active voice, and writing short,simple sentences. First of all, I often do not know where to place commas in my sentence. I struggle with this because I tend to add commas in the wrong place, so I have become confused with the proper use of commas. This is a small grammar error that I can easily correct by learning where and when commas are needed. I have also found and been told that I write in a passive voice when I should be using an active voice. This is a technique that I have to work on by practicing it and noticing the difference while I am writing and reading. Finally, I often write run on sentences or sentences that include unnecessary information. This makes my writing unclear and difficult for the reader to understand. I could improve by writing shorter and simpler sentences that include only the essential information to get my point across. I have noticed these mistakes in my writing and it has also been brought up by others, so I am currently working on improving it.

After reviewing this assignment, I learned that my approached was going to be a little different from what I was accustomed to doing with other assignments. In previous assignments I referred to a project that my company had completed and had control of from beginning to the end. In that scenario we were in control of and responsible for how far off we were from the schedule/task, cost, and projected finish time. Basically in this assignment the manager was there from the beginning as well; somewhere along the way the project manager’s focus has shifted and we have been given the responsibility to re-evaluate the situation and determine which direction should be taken to get back on track with cost and time. In this scenario the project manager has lost sight of his scope and time schedule.

I remember where it all started; I sat on the guard stand of an empty pool with a nagging mother texting my phone and time to kill. It was the summer before my senior year, the summer before I would make the most important decision of my life so far. I stared down at the blank list of schools in front of me; where to start? I visited a few campuses, and my mother put a few bugs in my ear, one for her alma mater, and the other for two historically black schools (HBCUs). I wrote the first down, placing it low on my list, but there was hesitation with the other two. My entire academic career have been in predominantly white environments; how would I navigate a majority black space?

I’m a light skin woman living in south Mississippi. I do not personally identify with a race of people. However, my family identifies themselves as Caucasian, I debunk race identification as an arbitrary made-up system employed to categorize people. I believe we are one race, the human race. I more identify with nationality as an American.

We are all strong. Some people never realize this, but everybody has an inner warrior. While it’s true that not everyone has great physical power, but mentally and emotionally everybody has some kind of strength. For me, I am not physically as robust or as athletic as some, but mentally I am strong. There are times when I bring myself down, but I know that my strong mind will soon return to its normal balance and pick me back up. There are times when I am down and I feel I may never be the same, but no matter what my mental strength lends a hand, and returns me to my ordinary routine. The perfect example of my strong mind is my relationship with swimming. My beloved sport, swimming, is meant for someone with a strong mental mind. Therefore, feel like I was born to swim.