March to College Day Postponed

I just recently found out that due to school-wide testing on Thursday, we will not be able to have March to College Day on March 10. It has been advised that we have March to College Day after their students come back from spring break. By then, objectives for the CRCT test would have been taught and they will only be reviewing. Thusly, the tentative date for March to College Day is April 14th. We will also be having an assembly to encourage the students before they take their CRCT. I will send out information on the assembly when the details have been worked out. If you have any questions or concerns don't hesitate to contact me.

March to College Day Update

Greetings Mentors,

I hope you all are having a great semester. As you know, March to College Day will be held on Thursday, March 10th. In order for us to have a successful event it will take a collaborative effort from all of us! On March to College Day, we invite 15 of the students that we assist at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, to come to Georgia State and experience college life.

Since this event will be held on Thursday, I know you guys will have classes throughout the day. What we are asking of our mentors is for you to participate when you are available. Below I have posted the Itinerary for M2CD. Please email me back and let me know which events you will be participating in. Also, if you are not able to attend any of the events, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Itinerary

10:00am Students and Coach Carter arrive at GSU/Welcome
* Come out and meet the students, join in on the ice breaker, and help pass out breakfast.

10:30am - 12:15pm Students Attend classes/campus tour
* If you have a class that starts between 10:30 and 11:40, and you don't mind bringing a student to class with you so they can experience the inside of a college. classroom, let me know.

* If you are free anytime between 10:30 and 12:00 and are able to help give the students a campus tour, let me know.

12:20pm - 1:20pm Lunch/Discussion
* If you are available during this time, we will be having lunch with our mentees. This will be another time to get to meet the students if you aren't able to do so at the beginning of the day. We will also set up a panel for discussion. The panel will be comprised of NSCS members and officers. If you plan to participate during lunch, please let me know. (If you do not and you show up on the day of, there may not be enough food for you.)

1:30pm - 2:30pm Instructional Games
* As of right now, we will be playing two games. We will probably add in a third. Those two games are taboo and Math Jeopardy. Everyone will play taboo, but the math jeopardy will be geared towards the students. Both of these games will be male vs female.

2:45pm Students Depart

Tips for effective mentoring

Here are a few helpful things that I have picked up on not only in my mentoring at King but also through my experience as a calculus TA here at Tech.

1. Listen to the teacher--pay attention to how he/she explains new material. Try to use similar teaching methods and the same terminology that the teacher uses, so the students will more easily understand.
2. Watch the students as you mentor them--the ones that are falling asleep or talking with their buddies are the ones who probably are not learning the material.
3. Learn students' names--not only does this offer a sign of respect to them, but it will also help you when you need to call out one of the students mentioned in (2).
4. A rarer case, correct the teacher if he/she is wrong--this probably applies more often to those who mentor from 9-10 (with non-math teachers that have to teach math--see "How to mentor"). Today, in fact, I was in a social studies teacher's classroom and I saw that he was explaining a Venn diagram incorrectly. I interrupted him after a minute or so, but he was very glad I did and recognized that he himself is learning the material almost at the same rate as the students. 

Friday Mentoring Now Available

The Friday timeslots are no longer tentative! If interested in mentoring on Friday (or any other day), please email me, and you can start mentoring as soon as I receive a digital copy of your background check.

PACE Update 2/11/11

Greetings Mentors,

I hope you are having an excellent week. I want to give you a few updates on PACE at King Middle School.

1. First, we have been getting great feedback from Ms. Rainey and Ms. Ridley about our tutoring efforts. They are happy that we can assist them and even wish that we could come more often.
2. With that being said, there are a few concerns that need to be addressed. As a mentor, we need to make sure that we are teaching the concepts in the exact way that the teachers teach them. The students are getting confused because we may have different methods of solving a problem than the teachers do. In order to keep everyone on one accord, we just ask that you watch the  teacher as she explains how each problem should be done, and then help the students solve the problems using her method.
3. Not only do the teacher's look forward to us coming to mentor, the students do also. Just the same, if you are scheduled to mentor for a certain date and time, and you cannot make it, please let me know in a timely manner so that I can relay the message to our Liaison at King Middle School, Coach Carter. The students and teachers are expecting you at the time that you have given, and we want to make sure we can let them know ahead of time that you will not be able to attend. Next week, we will have a binder in the front office for signing-in. This will be used for statistics as well as keeping track of mentor participation points.
4. March to College Day will be on Thursday, March 10th. M2CD is an event where we invite 15 students from King Middle School to Georgia State University for a day. We will take them to our classes, give them a campus tour, provide lunch, and engage in other activities. We do expect our mentors to participate in this event as your schedule permits. There will be a more detailed email about M2CD sent out in the near future.
5. Finally, there will be no mentoring next week during the 9:00am slot, the students will be testing. Also, there will be no mentoring on Friday, February 18th. The students are out of school for winter-break.

Once again, I would like to say that we have been receiving great feedback about our assistance, and we want to keep that up and improve on the areas that we need to. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me. Have a great week!