In honor of my third anniversary of NCCC, I am posting more of my journal entries from that year. I sent this out to my team as a reminder, and it's amazing how much I've changed since then. Also, I really appreciate how others on the team (Thanks, Jill) have responded with their own journal entries from that period and how stunningly similar we all seemed, though we seemed so different back then. Perspective is a powerful tool.
Tonight's segment brought to you by PROZAC. Can you tell that I was in desperate need of some upon writing these?
8/2/06 11:50pm
CTI is drawing to a close and still so much to do, I feel almost overwhelmed. I do feel much close to my teammates but I feel like I will continue to grow closer still. Silver 7 is such an amazing mix of personalities. I'm sure we will all learn just as much from each other as we will from the people we will be serving. Spike trips have been moved until Monday due to Hurricane Chris and we're all pretty bummed about it, just because we are so freakin' excited about actually going somewhere and doing a real live project. We're scheduled to spend a week in Tallahassee with the Florida Trails Association building trails and then six weeks in Biloxi (living in Waveland) doing disaster relief volunteer management with the Harrison County long-term recovery committee. Don't really know what we are doing, but I"m sure we will find out soon enough. It will just be really hard to remain calm while "going with the flow." Gave blood today, and will attempt to run the Ameri-5K tomorrow. We'll see about that. I really wanted to give though.
8/4/06 12:50am
In the third floor lounges of 669 watching THE SANDLOT before getting up early to leave for Florida at 7am. Bringing back wicked good memories and bad memories. Such a great and under appreciated movie, I think. I volunteered to drive first tomorrow, don't ask me why. Spent today at Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach Center sorting clothes in the donation room for 8 hours (good ISP start, I'd say.) I'm still working on asserting my true identity without committing any verbal assaults. I made a comment about sorority slut barbie today upon seeing a particularly scanty tank top/skirt outfit and I don't think Jill appreciated it. I felt really bad about it, but it is something I am really used to doing at UGA with Emily and Alisha and Danielle. It makes me slightly homesick to realize that I can't make my normal jokes. It really is in good, clean fun, and I had forgotten Jill telling me she was in a sorority but the moment I made the comment I instantly regretted it. I didn't say anything after she told me it wasn't fair, and that was the end of that. where was the sense of humor? I miss my friends at home who honestly would have laughed at that comment and realized the absurd reality that is the Greek world. Here no one understands me, and I don't really understand my teammates. But, the important thing is we are trying. We're dancing around each other, but we are TRYING to become closer. WE are about to subject ourselves to a 9+ hour van ride in a 15-passenger van. We have to try if we don't want to make ourselves miserable. I'm frustrated at myself for not being as good, smart, witty, etc. as any of them, but I can't let them know. It will only make things worse between us. So I hold it all inside, how bitter at the world I feel, how rejected I feel, but I won't let them know...
AND EDITED FOR CONTENT BECAUSE IT GETS EVEN MORE SELF-INVOLVED...
Showing posts with label personality assessments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personality assessments. Show all posts
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Another of my assignments for LANG 7802
I'm on a roll and cranking them out. I might as well go ahead and post this one too.
Analysis of a Young Reader
Description of Assessment
For this assignment, I assessed B. B is five-year-old girl who lives with her mother and older siblings in a transitional housing collaborative unit in South Minneapolis.
(I help coordinate a youth tutoring and enrichment program in her building.) She attends Kindergarten full-time in the Minneapolis school district. The testing context was a tutoring center of the housing complex in which her family lives. B is a part of the tutoring and community program there and receives other such services from her building during the after school hours. I have known B for four months (since the beginning of the school year) and have been on many community outings with her and her siblings. The time was evening, after much of her after school programming had taken place. I know that B is a non-reader, and that much of her tutoring time is devoted to reading and phonics activities.
To begin the assessment I gave her a peak at the wordless book we would be reading, Follow, Carl by Alexandra Day and told her we would be reading a special kind of book with no words. I explained that the book is about a dog and some kids that do some very special things with the dog. I explained that I would read the first page and after that she was going to "read the book to me" by looking at the pictures and pretending I was blind, that I couldn't see the pictures and she was going to tell the story to me. She seemed confused by this, so I modeled the first page for her. It seemed like this was too much of a task for her. With the first page, she stared at the book, almost overwhelmed. I intended throughout the assessment to record her retelling of the story and jot down interesting phrases, however, never having administered this assessment before and never having worked with this child academically before, I ended up doing a lot more cueing and teaching and modeling than I did assessing, simply because she didn't have any knowledge of reading to assess. I still did tape record our conversation, but it was just that, a conversation that allowed me to see how much work we needed to do with literacy.
Type of Reader
B's initial reaction to reading when I suggested we read a book was to run away. She said a few times before we started that "I don't know how to read!" She also insisted that her head hurt for the first couple of moments of our conversation after I introduced the book. It wasn't until after I persuaded her to stay several times reassuring her that she could read this book and look at the pictures because the book didn't have words that she was reasonably happy with the task. She was still frightened she would say the wrong thing a lot of the time also. As she looked at the picture of the children stretching with the dog on the first page, I could tell by her worried look that she didn't know what to say. Either that, or she had no vocabulary to express it, but I didn't think that was the case because I had heard her talk at events and other activities. She responded when I phrased my assessments as questions, asked things like, "What are the children doing?" Instead of stretching, she replied that they were "playing." I wanted to see if she had a concept of where they were going to go, if she could make something up, so I asked, "Where do you think they are going to play?" She answered, "the park" with a question mark intonation to her voice.
At the next page, she seemed pretty confused as to what to say as well. We sat in silence for a good three minutes before I asked her to tell me what was going on in that picture. "Where are the children and the dog going?" I asked. "I don't know," B replied. "Where do you think?" I said back to her. She thought a little harder. "Maybe to the park?" she questioned a few seconds later. I turned the page. I thought it would be better to model this page, hoping she would catch on for the rest of the book. "I'm going to give you an example," I suggested. "Look at these children here! They are the same children as before. I see them jumping off the wall now. I wonder why they are jumping off the wall. The dog is carrying the little child. And there is a baby with a toy horse watching all the children jump off the wall. I wonder if she wishes she could play," I modeled. It was a pretty stupid modeling session, I thought to myself even after I said it out loud. Even stupider listening to it play back. I watched B's eyes sweep the page, taking it in. "What do you think?" I asked. Silence.
The next page was hopeful. She studied the page and suggested that they were chasing a squirrel up a tree. Even though they were just looking at it, I didn't correct. I just let her tell the story. But that was all she had to say. She kept studying the pictures. I kept expecting some questioning to come through, for her to ask about what it was that she was confused about, but then I thought, wait, we learned in class that students have to be taught to question when meaning breaks down.
We kept turning the pages together. B kept starting, her eyes sweeping each page, with not a lot to say about each series of events. Even on the page with the woman giving out the cookies, or pancakes, she didn't say anything for a good thirty seconds until I asked her if she thought those were cookies or pancakes they were begging for. It hit me later that B might not be familiar with the term "begging."
It occurred to me through this entire process that B is somewhere between a TACIT and AWARE reader, leaning more to the AWARE side of her reading. If she were a completely a tacit reader, I think she would have just skimmed through the pages without much thought. Instead, she sat and studied the pages. Even though she does not read, she has an understanding of print and gets the idea that books are opened from left to right and the story continues from one page to the next. She tries to understand. I think that she is aware of the breakdown in meaning, but lacks the strategies for fixing the problem, so she sits in silence and waits for someone to come to her rescue. She might lack awareness at times, but for the most part, I believe she just doesn't have the knowledge of how to fix reading problems.
Strengths
B's strengths lie in her hesitation for instruction. She knows that she doesn't understand what's happening on a particular page and she stops to study, she doesn't go ahead and skip it like many children her age would do. She does have an appreciation for the pictures telling a story, but didn't have much vocabulary to show it. Her eyes were sweeping, and her mind was working, but she didn't have much of a working vocabulary pool to express that knowledge, at the time of testing. B also holds strengths in her determination, and her hard work ethic. She realized that she was tired and went ahead with the activity as best she could. This will get her many rewards in school and in life.
Needs
I would say that B's greatest need is more modeling, more reading with this type of reading, and someone to gradually release the responsibility to her while reading with her. She appears to have an awareness of when she doesn't understand something, but doesn't know what to do about it. Perhaps some explicit strategy instruction about questions to ask when we don't understand what's happening, or some vocabulary instruction so that she has a bank of words to use when talking about a book such as this again. She also relies on adults for help in understanding, and non-verbal cues a lot, even though she can speak, so I suspect this is a confidence issue. She responded well when I praised her answers, so I think she needs a lot of verbal praise and encouragement from adults in her life. With time and experience, I feel that she will learn how to adapt to reading like a duck takes to water.
Suggestions
My suggestion for B would be to model, model, model and read, read, read. When adults read with her, they should start reading, but encourage her to chime in with ideas and don't shoot down any ideas she may have. Praise all ideas she may give with a "good idea" or "you're brilliant." Let her hear and experience new vocabulary for herself, and encourage her to experiment with it herself. I might also introduce the idea of accountable talk when discussing the books she reads, giving her access to phrases like "what do you think" and "why do you think that" and "find some evidence from the story to show me why you think that." I think that she is used to living in a large family and answering questions only when asked. This type of instruction would allow B to show that it is OK to speak up and let someone know what she knows. She's still early in her reading development process; I wouldn't suggest an intervention yet. She knows her letters and most letter sounds, and she works with a tutor doing phonics activities. All genres of text and picture books should be included in her reading library. I suspect that the uncertainty on B's part was due to inexperience. The more experience she has with it, the more she will feel comfortable telling a story in the future. Because I didn't finish the assessment, I didn't get to see if she could retell the story. It was already late, and B was showing signs of fatigue and disinterest. There's always next session.
Reflection
Because this was my first experience with assessing a non-reader, I feel like I learned a great deal about early literacy in this process. I have much experience assessing upper elementary students using standard assessments like running records and vocabulary lists other pre-packaged assessments. I have never had the experience of starting with a student from scratch like that before. It absolutely threw me for a loop how silent she became when she didn't understand. I definitely became more aware of how children make meaning while reading and how they don't communicate it all the time. I will definitely be more aware in my practice of eye movements and wait time when teaching and assessing in the future. I will definitely incorporate more observation and critical thinking activities in my classroom teaching practice.
Analysis of a Young Reader
Description of Assessment
For this assignment, I assessed B. B is five-year-old girl who lives with her mother and older siblings in a transitional housing collaborative unit in South Minneapolis.
(I help coordinate a youth tutoring and enrichment program in her building.) She attends Kindergarten full-time in the Minneapolis school district. The testing context was a tutoring center of the housing complex in which her family lives. B is a part of the tutoring and community program there and receives other such services from her building during the after school hours. I have known B for four months (since the beginning of the school year) and have been on many community outings with her and her siblings. The time was evening, after much of her after school programming had taken place. I know that B is a non-reader, and that much of her tutoring time is devoted to reading and phonics activities.
To begin the assessment I gave her a peak at the wordless book we would be reading, Follow, Carl by Alexandra Day and told her we would be reading a special kind of book with no words. I explained that the book is about a dog and some kids that do some very special things with the dog. I explained that I would read the first page and after that she was going to "read the book to me" by looking at the pictures and pretending I was blind, that I couldn't see the pictures and she was going to tell the story to me. She seemed confused by this, so I modeled the first page for her. It seemed like this was too much of a task for her. With the first page, she stared at the book, almost overwhelmed. I intended throughout the assessment to record her retelling of the story and jot down interesting phrases, however, never having administered this assessment before and never having worked with this child academically before, I ended up doing a lot more cueing and teaching and modeling than I did assessing, simply because she didn't have any knowledge of reading to assess. I still did tape record our conversation, but it was just that, a conversation that allowed me to see how much work we needed to do with literacy.
Type of Reader
B's initial reaction to reading when I suggested we read a book was to run away. She said a few times before we started that "I don't know how to read!" She also insisted that her head hurt for the first couple of moments of our conversation after I introduced the book. It wasn't until after I persuaded her to stay several times reassuring her that she could read this book and look at the pictures because the book didn't have words that she was reasonably happy with the task. She was still frightened she would say the wrong thing a lot of the time also. As she looked at the picture of the children stretching with the dog on the first page, I could tell by her worried look that she didn't know what to say. Either that, or she had no vocabulary to express it, but I didn't think that was the case because I had heard her talk at events and other activities. She responded when I phrased my assessments as questions, asked things like, "What are the children doing?" Instead of stretching, she replied that they were "playing." I wanted to see if she had a concept of where they were going to go, if she could make something up, so I asked, "Where do you think they are going to play?" She answered, "the park" with a question mark intonation to her voice.
At the next page, she seemed pretty confused as to what to say as well. We sat in silence for a good three minutes before I asked her to tell me what was going on in that picture. "Where are the children and the dog going?" I asked. "I don't know," B replied. "Where do you think?" I said back to her. She thought a little harder. "Maybe to the park?" she questioned a few seconds later. I turned the page. I thought it would be better to model this page, hoping she would catch on for the rest of the book. "I'm going to give you an example," I suggested. "Look at these children here! They are the same children as before. I see them jumping off the wall now. I wonder why they are jumping off the wall. The dog is carrying the little child. And there is a baby with a toy horse watching all the children jump off the wall. I wonder if she wishes she could play," I modeled. It was a pretty stupid modeling session, I thought to myself even after I said it out loud. Even stupider listening to it play back. I watched B's eyes sweep the page, taking it in. "What do you think?" I asked. Silence.
The next page was hopeful. She studied the page and suggested that they were chasing a squirrel up a tree. Even though they were just looking at it, I didn't correct. I just let her tell the story. But that was all she had to say. She kept studying the pictures. I kept expecting some questioning to come through, for her to ask about what it was that she was confused about, but then I thought, wait, we learned in class that students have to be taught to question when meaning breaks down.
We kept turning the pages together. B kept starting, her eyes sweeping each page, with not a lot to say about each series of events. Even on the page with the woman giving out the cookies, or pancakes, she didn't say anything for a good thirty seconds until I asked her if she thought those were cookies or pancakes they were begging for. It hit me later that B might not be familiar with the term "begging."
It occurred to me through this entire process that B is somewhere between a TACIT and AWARE reader, leaning more to the AWARE side of her reading. If she were a completely a tacit reader, I think she would have just skimmed through the pages without much thought. Instead, she sat and studied the pages. Even though she does not read, she has an understanding of print and gets the idea that books are opened from left to right and the story continues from one page to the next. She tries to understand. I think that she is aware of the breakdown in meaning, but lacks the strategies for fixing the problem, so she sits in silence and waits for someone to come to her rescue. She might lack awareness at times, but for the most part, I believe she just doesn't have the knowledge of how to fix reading problems.
Strengths
B's strengths lie in her hesitation for instruction. She knows that she doesn't understand what's happening on a particular page and she stops to study, she doesn't go ahead and skip it like many children her age would do. She does have an appreciation for the pictures telling a story, but didn't have much vocabulary to show it. Her eyes were sweeping, and her mind was working, but she didn't have much of a working vocabulary pool to express that knowledge, at the time of testing. B also holds strengths in her determination, and her hard work ethic. She realized that she was tired and went ahead with the activity as best she could. This will get her many rewards in school and in life.
Needs
I would say that B's greatest need is more modeling, more reading with this type of reading, and someone to gradually release the responsibility to her while reading with her. She appears to have an awareness of when she doesn't understand something, but doesn't know what to do about it. Perhaps some explicit strategy instruction about questions to ask when we don't understand what's happening, or some vocabulary instruction so that she has a bank of words to use when talking about a book such as this again. She also relies on adults for help in understanding, and non-verbal cues a lot, even though she can speak, so I suspect this is a confidence issue. She responded well when I praised her answers, so I think she needs a lot of verbal praise and encouragement from adults in her life. With time and experience, I feel that she will learn how to adapt to reading like a duck takes to water.
Suggestions
My suggestion for B would be to model, model, model and read, read, read. When adults read with her, they should start reading, but encourage her to chime in with ideas and don't shoot down any ideas she may have. Praise all ideas she may give with a "good idea" or "you're brilliant." Let her hear and experience new vocabulary for herself, and encourage her to experiment with it herself. I might also introduce the idea of accountable talk when discussing the books she reads, giving her access to phrases like "what do you think" and "why do you think that" and "find some evidence from the story to show me why you think that." I think that she is used to living in a large family and answering questions only when asked. This type of instruction would allow B to show that it is OK to speak up and let someone know what she knows. She's still early in her reading development process; I wouldn't suggest an intervention yet. She knows her letters and most letter sounds, and she works with a tutor doing phonics activities. All genres of text and picture books should be included in her reading library. I suspect that the uncertainty on B's part was due to inexperience. The more experience she has with it, the more she will feel comfortable telling a story in the future. Because I didn't finish the assessment, I didn't get to see if she could retell the story. It was already late, and B was showing signs of fatigue and disinterest. There's always next session.
Reflection
Because this was my first experience with assessing a non-reader, I feel like I learned a great deal about early literacy in this process. I have much experience assessing upper elementary students using standard assessments like running records and vocabulary lists other pre-packaged assessments. I have never had the experience of starting with a student from scratch like that before. It absolutely threw me for a loop how silent she became when she didn't understand. I definitely became more aware of how children make meaning while reading and how they don't communicate it all the time. I will definitely be more aware in my practice of eye movements and wait time when teaching and assessing in the future. I will definitely incorporate more observation and critical thinking activities in my classroom teaching practice.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
This is only slightly creepy!
Your Score: Ben
Don't forget to rate this test!
Ok, you're an evil mastermind scheming to take over the world. Or you're just really innovative and really independent. Either way, you're certainly a leader, and you manage to always be one step ahead of everyone else. You're really manipulative...or you could be, if you wanted to. Sneaky sneaky.
Advice: If anyone crashes on your island, make sure they respect your authoritah.
| Link: The (Better!) Lost Character Test written by overgrown_lolita on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test View My Profile(overgrown_lolita) |
Sunday, January 27, 2008
This might be fun
| Who Should Paint You: Salvador Dali |
 You're a complex, intense creature who displays many layers. There's no way a traditional portrait could ever capture you! |
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Another blast from the past...
As I browse back through my google documents, I was looking at some of my old journal entries from the beginning of NCCC. I thought I'd post it here.
7/12/06
2:55 p.m.
Today was another long day of in-processing bullshit. We got our uniforms in the morning, and we moved swiftly through the in-processing checklist to travel reimbursements to banking to lunch and ID badges. Half of the morning stuff I didn’t need, so I just kinda sat there while others talked, which I did all of yesterday as well sorta came to the conclusion that people like to hear themselves talk just for the sake of talking. I’m in my room now, for a brief couple of hours, until we have to go back to the 202 building for boot sizing at 4:30. I’m totally stoked we get to wear steel-toed work boots. I’ e never done anything where they were a requirement before, so of course I’m going to be stoked.
Getting to know my team a little better as well. This could potentially be a very good experience. I have a feeling that there will be 1 or 2 (probably girls) that I will end up being close to and the others will just be there. I know I am a person that takes a while before I warm up to everyone and right now I’m falling into my “quiet girl” mode. I want to break out of that role badly, but I know it will take some time. So far everyone is really nice. I also know that tonight after boot sizing we’re off to some “group bonding” activity Maggie has planned for us. Sounds interesting in theory, but I know I’ll probably end up putting my emotional guard up and not share anything. It’s probably going to be one of those group initiative thing that I hate any way. Who knows? We shall find out later.
I suppose I can go and list my team members and first impressions now. Maybe in ten months I can go back and reassess, because they will, most likely, will have changed.
Our team leader Maggie seems really sweet and excited to be here. Really excited and enthusiastic, though I’m wondering how long the façade will last. Certainly a person cannot keep things going for as long as ten months, without one gigantic happy pill. There has got to be an evil side to her, and I’m wondering when we will see it and how long it’ll last. Maggie also keeps saying how tired she is and how she hasn’t slept that much, but when ever we ask her a question she’s right on the ball, so I don’t get it. I totally trust her with my documents and paperwork, and believe she will be an amazing leader this year.
Interesting reading, now that I'm a year and a half removed from the whole situation.
7/12/06
2:55 p.m.
Today was another long day of in-processing bullshit. We got our uniforms in the morning, and we moved swiftly through the in-processing checklist to travel reimbursements to banking to lunch and ID badges. Half of the morning stuff I didn’t need, so I just kinda sat there while others talked, which I did all of yesterday as well sorta came to the conclusion that people like to hear themselves talk just for the sake of talking. I’m in my room now, for a brief couple of hours, until we have to go back to the 202 building for boot sizing at 4:30. I’m totally stoked we get to wear steel-toed work boots. I’ e never done anything where they were a requirement before, so of course I’m going to be stoked.
Getting to know my team a little better as well. This could potentially be a very good experience. I have a feeling that there will be 1 or 2 (probably girls) that I will end up being close to and the others will just be there. I know I am a person that takes a while before I warm up to everyone and right now I’m falling into my “quiet girl” mode. I want to break out of that role badly, but I know it will take some time. So far everyone is really nice. I also know that tonight after boot sizing we’re off to some “group bonding” activity Maggie has planned for us. Sounds interesting in theory, but I know I’ll probably end up putting my emotional guard up and not share anything. It’s probably going to be one of those group initiative thing that I hate any way. Who knows? We shall find out later.
I suppose I can go and list my team members and first impressions now. Maybe in ten months I can go back and reassess, because they will, most likely, will have changed.
Our team leader Maggie seems really sweet and excited to be here. Really excited and enthusiastic, though I’m wondering how long the façade will last. Certainly a person cannot keep things going for as long as ten months, without one gigantic happy pill. There has got to be an evil side to her, and I’m wondering when we will see it and how long it’ll last. Maggie also keeps saying how tired she is and how she hasn’t slept that much, but when ever we ask her a question she’s right on the ball, so I don’t get it. I totally trust her with my documents and paperwork, and believe she will be an amazing leader this year.
Interesting reading, now that I'm a year and a half removed from the whole situation.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
ISFJ once again
Just for shits and giggles, I took the MB analysis and got the same result as I've always gotten.
I guess I just really am a die-hard nurturer with a warm heart. Damn personality.
I guess I just really am a die-hard nurturer with a warm heart. Damn personality.
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