Professor Jacob Dolence taught this course Tuesday/Thursday from 8:00am-9:15am. This course was slower paced to allow for more in depth and meaningful work. Each student came up with a problem that he/she cared about, then created a solution that could realistically be implemented. Some students worked in small groups, but I worked by myself.
Throughout this course, I worked on a solution to deviant behavior through the school system. As a future educator, at-risk youths are people that I am passionate about helping. If we can put prevention measures in place before those young people fall prey to those behaviors, we can dramatically reduce the number of incarcerated youths.
Fruits of Good Behavior Pitch Video
Throughout the semester, we worked on different sections of our project, including a pitch video.
At the end of the semester, we presented our work in the Symposium Day presentations.
My final product was a teacher-guided booklet for upper elementary schools to use as a prevention for bad behavior that would, unchecked, lead to delinquent behavior. There is a teacher’s copy as well as a student’s copy. The teacher’s copy has more information in it, including guiding questions and discussion points.
The booklet is set up with nine key values that students should display both in school and out of school. With nine values, the teacher can focus on one each week, following the traditional nine-week school calendar. Once a week, the teacher will spend about 15 minutes guiding students through activities and discussions related to that week’s value. With the booklet already put together, teachers do not have to plan for anything, and the only preparation they need to do is review the topic and discussion questions before doing them with the students. Teachers are also able to decide what day and what time each week he/she does the booklet value.
At the start of the activity, students read a short story, related to that week’s value, that leads to a few questions based on the story and tied into the students’ own lives. After students complete that section on their own, the teacher leads an activity or game, then leads a discussion about the activity and how it can relate to the value and the students’ lives. This is where the bulk of the learning takes place. After the discussion, there is a short take-home section where students complete a worksheet to tie together what they learned in their classroom.
This project was something that I really enjoyed and was able to learn from. As a part of the process, we had to interview potential clients for our products. My younger sister falls into the upper elementary range that my booklet is aimed towards, so I interviewed her. If I had not spoken to her about it, it would not have been successful. What I thought was fun and educational was actually boring, and students her age would not have even participated in the booklet activities. This part of the process opened my eyes to the importance of getting down to a kid’s level, a vitally important thing in teaching.
In addition to learning from the process, the product is something that I can take with me into my future career as well. As a future teacher, this product is made for my future career. If I end up teaching upper elementary, this would be something that I would use in my classroom. However, my goal is to teach high school. Despite this difference in ages, I can take this Citizen 410 project and adjust it for high school aged students.