Blog 14 : Third Interview Preparation

1. Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?
• I plan to interview my mentor, Jenna Baumann. She has been teaching special education for plenty of years and has been rewarded a higher position in the school, vice principal, because of all the great work she has done for the school and students. 
2. Verify that you have called your interviewee to schedule an interview.  What is the date and time of the interview? 
• Friday, February 12, 2016 at 1:30 PM. 
3. Phrase an open-ended question that will help you find research resources that would help to answer the EQ.
• What is the technique that really captures the students attention and help them learn?
4. Phrase an open-ended question that will help you think about other useful activities you might do to help you answer the EQ (IC2, possible experts to talk to, etc).
• Who / What do you believe helped you learn the most about teaching special education?
5. Phrase two open-ended questions that help you to understand your interviewee's perspective on an aspect of your EQ. 
• What helps with the students focus on their work and keep them from keeping distracted?
• Do you believe that my EQ is a open ended question? Do you believe that I can get more than one answer for this question?
• Since my mentor is easy to talk to, it is quite easy to keep the conversation going. I'm also very close with her to the point where I feel comfortable to be straight up with her and ask what she thinks of my EQ. 

Note for me 

(The interview transcript  is due to turnitin.com with the 5-minute audio excerpt and entry to the blog on Friday, February 19th. In addition, you need to turn in the verification sheet to your house teacher)

Blog 13 : 10 Hour Mentorship Check-In

• Where are you doing your mentorship?

• I am doing my mentorship at Anderson Elementary School. 

• Who is your contact?  What makes this person an expert?

• My contact is my mentor, Jenna Baumann. She's an expert because she has worked with special needs children for many years. She has been my brother's teacher for the last two years and the improvement in him is astonishing. Therefore, I knew Mrs. Jenna would be a great mentor, because of the impact she has on her students. 

• How many  hours have you done during the school year? (Summer Mentorship Hours and Mentorship Hours should be reflected separately in your Senior Project Hours log located on the right hand side of your blog)

• I've done about 15 hours. I haven't updated on my mentorship log though. ):

• Succinctly summarize what you did, how well you and your mentor worked together, and how you plan to complete the remaining hours.

• I help with the students, make copies, clean, and just help whenever my mentor / school may need it. My comfort level is very strong with my mentor only because I would always volunteering before I actually asked her to become my mentor. We kinda already knew on another because of my brother. I plan on remaining my hours with the same school only because I'm already familiar with everyone in it and I also plan only finishing my hours with my brother when I work with him. 

Blog 12 : Holiday Project Update

• It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you do over the break with your senior project?
•  Over winter break I was unable to attend my mentorship because the school was off for winter break too. However, my little brother was assigned homework to do over his winter break, and I was the one to sit down with him for an hour each day helping to complete his homework. Also, since my brother has special needs I needed to use some of the techniques I learned from my mentorship in order for him to learn and finish the homework. 
• What was the most important thing you learned from what you did, and why?  What was the source of what you learned?
• I learned that each student learns differently. My brother can fully learn only with the technique of hand-over-hand. But others students learn by repetition or speech. The source that I learned was a possible answer for my EQ and I was able to notice when helping my brother do his homework.   
• Your third interview will be a 10 question interview related to possible answers for your EQ. Who do you plan to talk to and why?
• I plan to interview my mentor, Jenna, because in my previous interview she was able to provide me a lot of research. I also find her interview to be the most helpful from my research so far. With the information she gave me I was able to come up with my EQ, and therefore I feel like she would be the one to help me the most with my possible answers.