6/2/2017 0 Comments Friday, June 2 1. I learned how to better explain how to use aurduino because before it was hard for me to communicate to others how to do the coding and I didn't understand how to tell others how to do it especially children. I also learned how to adapt my teaching style and teach the same or similar concepts to multiple age levels. This was especially important because we had to teach kinder gardeners, 3rd grader, and 7th graders how to code. The big age gaps meant I had to change how I taught every new class. 2. I am decently organized but a lot of the people who work here have a very organized work flow that I love and it makes me want to set of my workflow in such a way that I am just as productive like that. Also I like how the people who work at the thinkabit labs are professional but still have fun and enjoy there jobs it proves to me having a job can still be fun if you find the right environment to work in. 3. I see my life as one that can actually be enjoyable because I had fun working here and I always thought an office job like this would be something i would just have to taught it out to make money but I found if you find the right place to work at you can actually have a job that it fun to work at and that you don't dread coming to every day. It showed me that I can actually look forward to my future as being fun and not a hassle. 4. This internship showed me how I can adapt to situations with little direction or knowledge of whats happening it showed me I can deal with situations where there isn't always a person telling you what to do it showed me that I can improvise rather quickly and keep things moving at a fast pace an not losing people along the way. 5. This internship showed me again that I love to be in an environment where I feel like I belong and i have friends around me it showed me the type of environment that I want to work in when I'm older. This whole experience got me thinking about life and about my future and my plans to live in San Diego. 6. We learned how to communicate and a huge portion of a job is all communication. Emails, data, presentations, and other forms are all highly important to communicate to others. They held formal meeting at the thinkabit lab where people would look at what the thinkabit lab has done so they could hopefully replicate it at there own schools. Ill take with me that talking to people and working with there differences can mean you can get along with more people and be more productive.
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6/1/2017 0 Comments Thursday, June 1st2. Our project so to say was working at the Urban Discovery Academy to teach 3 different grades the thinkabit lab experience. I measured the successes by seeing that the kids we taught were genuinely interested in what we taught them. They had smiles on there faces and many wanted to go farther along in the process and learn more. We with our limited teaching experience were able to teach the thinkabit lab experience to kindergartners something that the staff at thinkabit lab had never done before. We are able to structure our own lessons and had to change them to fit each age group multiple times in a day. For example we had a 3rd grade class 7th grad class and a kindergarten class all in one day. We had to constantly adapt and change our methods to teach the class the best way.
3. I make a meaningful contribution because I have had teaching experience so I feel comfortable leading group activity's and working with children from all different age groups. Working with children to me isn't hard as long as you can adapt quickly to each groups needs. Also I have a strong work ethic so I am always willing to help. 4. Even though I don't want to be a teacher this experience has helped improve my skills working with children. It has helped me be able to switch my teaching level quickly. I haven't academically learned anything its more of things I have experienced that has made the whole thing so good. I have learned how to teach under pressure with little resources or prep time I found that out in kindergarten on the first day. 5. I think what we do at thinkabit lab which is often teaching the classes to the students. We inspire kids to think about there futures at a young age and teach them how cool the STEM field is. We had a meeting with officials from the Austin Texas school district who wanted to talk about building there own thinkabit lab inspired place. There I really saw the impact that this one site has in that it serves the huge San Diego Unified School District witch has thousands of kids who are in it. It has a positive affect on the community because it gets kids excited to learn engineering and helps them get started thinking about there futures. 6. Us teaching at another school wasn't originally the plan until we found out there was a dead week in our internship where we wouldn't be doing anything so it was suggested that we would go teach at another school to make up the time. Or engineering teacher was in contact with the director of the school the Urban Discovery Academy. We then arranged and met with the steam teacher and worked our our schedule and taught the class the while week teaching 6 different classes from 3 different grades. 7. One thing I Pride myself on is my work ethic I know that its strong and I will devote and get things done that have to be done. This experience really didn't teach me new about my work ethic or make it stronger but it reinforced it and made me more confident in myself and my ability's especially when it comes to teaching. This experience helped me become a better teacher and helped show me that I can do better than I think I can at teaching complex topics. 8. Photos of our time at the Urban Discovery Academy can be found in earlier blog posts. 5/25/2017 0 Comments Thursday, May 25Today we are finished teaching the thinkabit lab all but 3 classes that we will be finishing building on Friday. We are teaching in a STEAM class so it sees multiple grade levels. We teach 7th grade, kindergartners, and 3rd graders as I may have said in a previous post. Today we only taught 7th and 3rd and finished having the kids build and present there projects. Because of the schools no media policy I can't show the children's faces so many will have eyes drawn over
5/23/2017 0 Comments Tuesday, May 23When I hear self advocated I hear independence and ability to adapt to multiple situations. This week we are teaching the thinkabit lab at the Urban Discovery Academy in downtown San Diego, we are working with a variety of age groups from 7th graders to kindergartners so that brought up some challenges to how we adapt our teaching to different ages. We can't teach the Kindergartners the same way we teach the 7th graders and vice versa. We did 7th grade no problem because we all have taught them before, however none of us have done 3rd graders or kinder before so that was daunting at first. As it turns out the 2 3rd grade classes did very well when we taught them coding in my opinion just as good at the older 7th graders. Kinder was more challenging and that is where I think my self advocated spirit came out. Now I have worked at many camps where I have had to lead and teach young children but it was never with hard concepts like coding this scared me at first but it wasn't that bad after I was done. Kinder's do listen well but have a very limited attention span so they will get board fast. We split the kids into 4 groups of 6 so one of us could teach each group 1 on 1 to make it easier. We ran the kinders through an activity similar to the robotic turtles game that helps teach young children the basic concepts of coding. We taped a grid on the ground and had them stand in one square and they had to take directions from there group to move from the start to the x located somewhere on the grid. The person on the grid could only take very precise directions and could only do what the group said. This helps teach the importance of being exact and very precise when coding. Overall I feel like today went really well and I'm looking forward to the rest of this week.
5/18/2017 0 Comments Thursday, May 18Here are some photos of the thinkabit lab and the rest of the floor and where we work. There are also photos from the most recent class we had because we taught the whole class that day in preparation for next week where we will be going to the Urban Discovery Academy in downtown San Diego. We will take our knowledge of thinkabit and teach it to 7th, 3rd, and kindergartners. This has never been taught to kids young as kindergarten so we will have to modify the curriculum and the activities so that it is better suited to that age group. That will be the most challenging part of our externship because it has never been done before. Bellow are some more photos of us in action at the lab.
5/16/2017 0 Comments Tuesday, May 16I am really happy with this internship at Qualcomm it is a very nice and friendly environment to work in and I have fun whale I'm working. The work load isn't too much its actually just right because we need to work with the kids and do our side jobs for the thinkabit lab. I feel like we are in a really good spot for next week because we are teaching some classes this week to prepare for when we teach at The Urban Discovery Academy next week. So far its been really fun and I really enjoy it here.
5/11/2017 0 Comments Thursday, May 11Today we didn't have any students come in so we worked on planning what to do for our 3rd week and we emailed a school who would be interested in working with us that we will all go and teach at. Additionally we re organized the lab and the QWOW room. Yesterday we had another school from the Solana beach school district come in. We ran them through the same activity we gave the other class. I really learned about that they don't just teach them how to code. They get these kids thinking about there futures by showing them jobs that Qualcomm has to offer to get them started and they spend a good portion of there time just thinking of jobs that they want to do when they are older. Additionally they do an activity called SIV or Strength, Interests, and Values. It gets kids thinking about themselves and what they are good at so that it makes choosing a job that lines up with your interests easier. This promotes that choosing a job is not just about money but also about what you are interested in. Its my job to record the kids jobs they say so that the data can be gathered, I take this info and put it into a spread sheet that documents all the responses. I also handle permission forms and file import papers. Bellow are a bunch of photos from Tuesday May 10. They show us working before the kids get there and working in the Lab Here are some additional photos from today we finished up work from yesterday, cleaned the space, organized kits, and planed for our 3rd week where we will be teaching at another school.
5/9/2017 0 Comments Tuesday, May 9First day!!!Today was my first day at thinkabit and I was really impressed by the pace they have. It was really well put together and clearly organized, to me that is a sign if a curriculum is put together well. It was very structured with clear times and activity's marked out but it still allowed for the children to explore and have fun with the space. The day started when I had to get my pass at the front desk and I had to go up to the 6th floor where the lab is. I was introduced to Jen our mentor and was shown around by my piers who had been there before. I was shown where everything was and then we began to set up for the day. There is two main rooms that the kids spend there time a sit down area with bean bags all in rows so the kids can hear about the lab and Qualcoms history, and a little about what they do. They lean about the jobs that are offered through Qualcom and brainstorm what jobs they might want to do when they are older. Then after that activity they split into groups and start to brainstorm what they want to create. My job was to record all the jobs they said, tally them up, and put it into a spreadsheet logging all the data. I did this on a paper copy and a electronic copy as well and filed them away. After they brainstormed their ideas they went into the lab to learn about arduino and how to do basic servo programming. Once they understood how the servo programming worked the split into groups and began to build there projects using the servo as a moving part of the project. They presented their projects to the class and demonstrated what they created. After they finished we cleaned up and re organized everything for the next day. I like working with children so I am excited I can do it again and I like having things to do because it makes it not boring and keeps me doing something. I am not really worried about anything at the moment. Bellow are some photos from today
5/9/2017 0 Comments Thursday, May 4Before I StartedI along with 4 other students from High tech High International will be interning at Qualcom's thinkabit lab. This is a space where children from schools through out San Diego and surrounding areas come to lean about basic ardunio programming. These kids then take there knowledge and brainstorm a project idea in groups then build it at the end of the class and show it off to there piers.
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