It is already MARCH! I can’t believe the time has gone by so fast.
As my third week at being at SEEDs comes to an end, I have formed relationships with most of the students and staff. Now that I have a familiar face, the students feel more comfortable around me and I have proven to my supervisor that I can establish an instructor-student relationship, regardless of my age.
This week I wanted to focus on how SEEDs incorporate job skills into its program. I stayed in the newsletter department. Although this class doesn’t have any artistic or hands-on work, students are learning about different computer programs, such as Publisher, and how to use social media as a voice. Each student chooses what he or she wants to write about. Once a topic is chosen, he or she conducts research and, after the instructor helps edit, writes the final draft of the article. These are the same steps we learned when attending grade school when learning how to write a five-paragraph essay. We all had to learn the basic rules to writing before learning how to write with our own style.
On a different note, I was able to do some work with the students. Acting like an instructor, I followed Mary Ann’s instructions and helped assist and make tags for the products for the next big sale. Each student had his or her own job, whether it was hammering, filing, stamping. While looking over the students, I focused my attention to the nonverbal student. Andy was hammering around the edges of the tags, but has a tendency to wander off in his mind and after he finished one job. A goal for him is to keep to his work space and to ask for more work to do after he finishes. This forces him to speak at least a minimal amount. So after he finishes one tag, I only looked up to him and didn’t say a word until he said he needed another one to work one. After the first three attempts, he caught on very quickly and I was very proud of him!
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| Steps to creating the tags |
It was a very exciting week for me and I love to see everyone working hard for the next big event!
Grace
Is writing generally easier for the students than speaking? Also, do the more verbal or non verbal students have an easier time with writing?
ReplyDeleteWriting tends to be difficult for everyone, whether the student is high or low functioning. It's a skill that everyone learns slowly.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting grace! How much of a noticeable difference have you seen from the student interactions from the beginning to now? How much have they improved?
ReplyDeleteHey Sebastien! I am only able to see short term differences; however, any significant changes in behavior usually take about 6 months to several years. Since I've only been here for 3 weeks there's only so much I can physically see.
DeleteI love your blog Grace! The technique you used with Andy was very interesting! Have you worked with him a lot previously in order to build that sort of a relationship and in order for him to have caught on so quickly?
ReplyDeleteHey Shir! Yes, I've been focusing my observations around him and introduced myself to him very quickly.
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