Colossians 2:2-3

Poehler Lecture - Dr. Wentzel

2008-04-16T04:57:17Z

Tonight Dr. Wentzel spoke at Concordia's seventh annual Poehler Lecture, and he spoke on the process of Christian Education. When beginning his speech, Dr. Wentzel told everyone that it was his goal to change each and everyone within the hour. He also talked about how learning is the process of change, and teachers and administrators are the people who start the process of change in students. The biggest point that Dr. Wentzel talked about was his theory for helping students change and learn.

Dr. Wentzel had a great impact on me, especially in the context of being an education major. He has see the changes in education over the past 50 years and have seen the good and bad effects they caused. Because of many teachers like him, our schools are now changing once again. (I had the privileged of sitting right in front a education professor). Because these teachers have spoken up the government is seeing that just plain testing is not actually giving them the full evidence of a students ability or "smartness."

One of my favorite parts of the lecture is when he talked about forgiveness in the classroom. In todays society it is taught that once someone cheats, especially on a paper, they will be suspended or expelled from the school. According to our Christian beliefs this is not right at all, because we are taught to forgive and to give second chances. Also, it is proven that people learn better by their own mistakes than the mistakes of others that are just talked about. So, giving a student a second chance is giving the student yet another opportunity to learn.

In conclusion, I really liked Dr. Wentzel and I learned a lot from him lecture. He is a very smart and caring man, not only when associated with his faith, but also when he is talking about education.

Week 16

2008-04-07T19:44:10Z

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

This is the last week of the project so many hours were spent on the portfolio. Thankfully I did not have to say good bye to the kids at PLUS Time because I am going to keep helping there.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

I learned that putting a portfolio takes a lot of hard work and a lot of attention put towards the small details.

3. Evaluation. How would you evaluate your work on the project this week? What grade would you give yourself? Are you accomplishing the objectives of the project? Your personal objectives?

I did a good job this week, and I am super excited to be done!!!

Week 15

2008-03-30T18:43:54Z

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

These past two weeks were very different for many reasons; first there was a long break which meant that I really didn't see the PLUS Time kids even thought they still had PLUS Time. Second, I have been working a lot on my project to try and finish it up on time. Lastly, all the kids at PLUS Time have really bad spring fever and so the class levels are really low, while workers are at a high because they are also trying to get hours finished up.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

I do not think I learned too much this week, but I did find out that revising the papers is a pretty time consuming job.

3. Evaluation. How would you evaluate your work on the project this week? What grade would you give yourself? Are you accomplishing the objectives of the project? Your personal objectives?

I think that I have done a really good job with my project these past two weeks. At first I wasn't sure if I would get much done over Easter Break, but I did some good work.

Week 14

2008-03-17T03:59:40Z

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

This past week I have been working with the children and teachers at PLUS Time. I also wrote chapter 7 for the project.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

During this week I have learned that the children have more respect for the teachers and people who come in that have the same respect for them. When outside helpers come in and treat them like they are less than they are they do not respect or trust them. Also, the more fun that the people bring into the projects or "lessons" the more the children learn more, and the less they mess around.

Week 13

2008-03-11T14:51:56Z

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

This past week I have been working at PLUS Time. This week there was a lot of volunteers that showed up so it was very nice to see them interact and get new ideas about what to put into my book.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

During this past week I remembered how hard it was the first few times that I went to PLUS Time, because there are so many names to remember.

3. Evaluation. How would you evaluate your work on the project this week? What grade would you give yourself? Are you accomplishing the objectives of the project? Your personal objectives?

I think that I did a very good job, but I still wish that I would have more time to spend with the kids.

Week 12

2008-03-11T14:49:53Z

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

During the past two weeks I have spent a lot of time on my project both at PLUS Time and with the papers.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

While at PLUS Time I have learned that the more time spend with the children the more they will respect and trust you. Also, I learned that these children have a hard time attaching themselves to others because so many different people have come in and out of their lives and so they need time to start to trust people.

3. Evaluation. How would you evaluate your work on the project this week? What grade would you give yourself? Are you accomplishing the objectives of the project? Your personal objectives?

I did a very good job this week on my project. I have spent many hours working with the children, on the book, and on the paper.

Week 11

2008-02-18T17:03:28Z

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

This week I spend some more time at PLUS Time, including Valentine's Day, when the kids were all super hyper because of sugar. I also spend a lot of time on the PLUS Time book. I am now getting more and more forms that I need to put in the book.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

I learned that putting a book together is not an easy thing, and it is very easy to forget some important things that need to go in it if you are working on it alone. Also, I remembered that I love these kids even when they are super hyper. 

3. Evaluation. How would you evaluate your work on the project this week? What grade would you give yourself? Are you accomplishing the objectives of the project? Your personal objectives?

I think I did a really good job working on the project this week. I wanted to work more on the chapters, but I guess sometimes I just need to take one thing at a time.

Week 10

2008-02-11T16:46:01Z

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

During this past week I worked a lot on my PLUS Time book. I even got to meet with most of the teachers for PLUS Time to see if they can give me more input of what needs to be in the book.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

I learned that no matter how good e-mail is, when you need to get something done you need to contact the people face to face. I also learned that I get frustrated with people very easily, especially when they do not get back to me after I have talked to them 3 times.

Week 9

2008-02-05T00:25:57Z

Not a whole lot happened this week, as I caught a virus from the toddlers over at hand and hand. I spend most my week in been sleeping off a fever that just didn't want to go away. But those bed hours did get me started typing out my PLUS Time book. Right now I am waiting on feedback from the Director of PLUS Time on what else she wants in the book so I can keep moving on it.

Week 7-8

2008-01-28T19:41:18Z

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

During the past two weeks I have gone to PLUS Time and worked with the children and teachers. One of the days that I was there, many of the children were at home because they did not have school. I saw how easy it is for the teachers when they only have a few children. That is why it is important to push for small class sizes in schools.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

I learned that smaller class sizes are easier to handle for the teachers, and the children learn more at the same time.

Winter Break

2008-01-15T00:17:28Z

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

Over Christmas break I finished chapter 2 and worked a little bit on the book for PLUS Time. Writing chapter 2 over break was really different for me. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Because I spent a lot of time working on chapter 2, I did not have tons of time to work on the honors book.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

I learned a lot about the project this past month. Learning institutions across America are coming up with the same problems, but there really has not been an answer yet. Funding, is the major barrier in the amount of education the children will receive at school, but it is also the barrier that is keeping needy kids from participating in after school programs. Thankfully, PLUS Time has many backers and does not have a HUGE problem with funding, but it is always on the minds of the leaders.

3. Evaluation. How would you evaluate your work on the project this week? What grade would you give yourself? Are you accomplishing the objectives of the project? Your personal objectives?

I would have liked to have done more for the project over break, but being over an hour away from it, it was too hard to coordinate, but I still think that I did an ok job. I am now ready to fully dive into my project.

Week 6

2007-12-11T17:35:14Z

This past week and a half has been kinda crazy for me, but I have not gotten anything done for my honors project. On Friday the 1st I was diagnosed with Mono, and was told that I needed to take it easy, and that my schedule needed to be cut to 1/2 to 1/4 of what it normally was. So this week was full of sleeping, bed-rest, and getting better.

Now that I am finally feeling like myself, I am hoping to make up the hours I have missed and get my project back on task.

Week 4-5

2007-12-03T20:05:01Z

This week I spend at least and hour a day at PLUS Time, and I did many different things while I was there. First, I helped different children with their homework and played games with them. Then at the end of the week I did a couple child evaluation forms. There was a bunch of different questions and things that the child was asked to do, and then they were "graded" by what they did. This is used so that the government and PLUS Time can see what improvements the children are making

I learned that even though many of these children seem very smart, and they are in many different ways, they are not in the same range of "intelligence" as a child the same age that comes from better backgrounds. I have also learned that small gestures mean a lot to them. Just a high five, or "great job" puts a huge smile on their face. They need to know that they are accomplishing something, and that they are not failures. Working with the kids just strengthens my passion for them. I love to see them achieve new standards and see that they truly are smart and talented. I have also learned that no matter how much work or effort it takes to run an after school program, the results are worth it.

Week 3

2007-11-19T18:50:08Z

This week I finally was able to go to PLUS Time. While I was there I observed Anna (one of the student teachers) as she prepared for the kids to come. What most people do not know is that there is a lot of work that needs to be done before the kids come. I also got to see how the volunteers and teachers interacted with the children as they came.

This week I also got 12 different forms and sheets from PLUS Time staff. These sheets are different things that they use quite regularly.

I had a very slow week for my honors project, because I was still very ill. On Tuesday I finally went to the doctor and found out that I had not only bronchitis but most likely also strep. So I decided that I should be on medicine a couple days before I spent a lot of time with the kids. Not that I am starting to feel better, my project should start to take off.

Week 2

2007-11-12T21:19:12Z

This week I have only worked on Chapter 1 and talked to some of the leaders about getting paperwork from the start of PLUS Time. I was planning on going to PLUS Time and doing a lot of observations, but I came down with a pretty nasty bug already Sunday night. It hit me the hardest on Tuesday, and so I spent most of the week in bed or on a couch. I did really poorly on the project this week, but I learned that sometimes you need to take care of yourself before you reach further into homework. The more I tried to push myself the worse I felt, so I finally gave in and spend most my time in bed. Also, its not far to the kids to have me bring my sickness to them, when they may have a harder time fighting it then I do.