Blog 24 | Last Presentation Reflection

1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your block presentation and/or your senior project? Why?

• Im proud of completing my senior project. Mostly because the stress is now gone and I can finally sleep at night. But I was also gald to have been able to pass on my research although it did not come out to what I had hoped for I was able to finish this year off with a bang.

2) Questions to Consider

What assessment would you give yourself on your block presentation?  Use the component contract to defend that assessment.

• AP, why? Because I'm not optimistic to go for the AE. Mostly for the time and lack of creativity. Also I rushed my presentation a bit too much, I had so much to talk about yet I had to be nervous and rush what I had. I did not have my EQ posted in a creative way, so I believe I deserve an AP, although I did not show the required creative steps I did show information, useful, if not, then interesting information.

What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project? Use the component contract to defend that assessment.

• Overall, I would give myself an P, because I did a lot f research for my project, from Rosalilia Gradilla, to the staff at Uncommon Good. I was able to speak to a few other people at local mentorship programs as well and got my research based off them.

3) What worked for your senior project

• My mentorship. Access to mentor ship programs, and the helpful staff at Uncommon Good being able to provide me sources.

4)  (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your senior project?

• What didnt work was the working bibliography, at one point I wasnt able to find anymore sources, If I were to change something to improve senior project, it would be my second independent component. I was unable to get my interview from the public speaker, I wish I was more persistent, and I wish I was able to keep my teachers updated on what was happening

5) How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

• It helped me realize what was out there. In the way of a support system. Through my mentorship I found how helpful a Youth Mentorship program can be both educationally and socially. I plan to go back to Uncommon Good a create a future career based on them.

Blog 23 | Exit Interview Prep

What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

• How can youth mentor ship programs level the playing field for under represented students?
• Accessible
• Mentor ship programs, are either distant, unavailable to students who struggle financially or they do not exist to students in poor communities. Solving this issue helps mentoring programs level the playing field for the under represented.
• Mentoring
• Mentor ship programs provide mentors, these are important for the students, exposing them to college. This answer is to be worded differently,  this focuses on how mentoring relationships are beneficial to students socially and academically. A mentoring focused program is able to provide students with experience.
• Activities
• Many students, do not get mentors and do not get the opportunity for a head start in life, or college. Being able to have a mentor should be key. Mentor ship programs should provide other sets of "activities" that strengthen the students social and academic capabilities, like group based mentoring like the Hubs of I-Poly, or providing workshops, proving to be useful such as scholarship and college application workshops.
• Best Answer: Youth mentor ship programs can level the playing field for the under represented by being more accessible to students.

What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

• Having volunteered at Uncommon Good, I was able to see how accessible this place is. It is located in a safer non "ghetto" area, Claremont. This program is also a Non-Profit, meaning students aren't meant to pay a single penny for their mentoring/tutor sources.

What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

• Finding the essential question was one of my main problems, but once I was able to get a hold of this question I was able to find the key issues that my topic faces and how it can resolve them. Many of the issues that I found was that there aren't a lot of mentoring programs that can help every single student, another issue is that many under represented students don't have the motivation to get into a college finding a successful role model.

What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

• The most significant source for me was my 3rd interview and a journal/literature review called "Effectiveness of programs to improve post secondary education enrollment and success of underrepresented youth"

Blog 22 | Independent Component 2

This is where one of the mentor groups meet up at

Literal

• I, Jonathan Alvarado, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 32.5 hours of work.
• My sources are:
• Jesus Sanchez | Uncommon Good | Volunteer and Youth Coordinator
• Rosalilia Gradilla | Univeristy of La Verne | Coordinator of the Co-Curricular Community Engagement Program
• Dr. Gabe Veas | University of La Verne | Public Speaker
• Tori Weiston | Director | Youth Mentoring action Network | 
• Dr. Daniel Loera & Nancy Reyes | Director & Assistant Director | First Generation Student Success Program (FGSSP) at the University of La Verne
• Updated
• I completed a chart that compares 3 different types of mentoring programs. How? I went up to these mentoring programs and observed how they all worked. The chart remains unfinished and will be updated by 4/30/2016. There is still a few things missing in the chart such as the rate at which students are able to succeed better, which will come with an interview with Dr. Gabe Veas (Hopefully)
• What I did in this Independent Component was going out to different types of mentoring programs and observing what they offered to students. I took notes and made them neater to here (Click on the "here"). I was also able to find out what the differences in each mentoring program was. With this information I was able to find out how they helped underrepresented students. Such as the sub group of Uncommon Good which can be seen here, and the group of the Youth Mentoring Network in Claremont, where I was able to see what they did to help students

Blog 21 | Fourth Interview Reflection

Uncommon Good.

Note: I was unable to interview Dr. Gabe Veas and will hopefully interview him as a part of my IC #2. I interviewed Jesus Sanchez, he has shown the experience needed to share out his own personal story about mentoring programs and how well they effect students.

What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?

• The most important thing I learned from this interview was the ability of mentoring, and how well it impacts students. I also learned how under represented students receive a harder time to obtain help from resources such as Uncommon Good.

How will what I learned affect my final lesson?

• I will be using a lot of information from this and previous interviews where I will be hopefully citing them through out my presentation. I am also able to elaborate more on my answers with this specific interview which focuses primarily on my answers.

Interview

Interview 4 Prep

Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

• I plan to interview Dr. Gabe Veas, He did his dissertation on Mentoring is a current professor at the University of La Verne. He also is a Youth Speaker, in which he helps youth who are exposed to negative influences, he speaks out to these communities to give a sense of hope. I plan to interview him in the following weeks.

Post 20 open-ended questions you want to ask an expert in the field concerning your senior project. Your focus should be finding answers to your EQ.

• No Questions at the moment.
• I will be asking about what the youth face today when entering college. Or when developing to an adult. With his expertise I will hope to find out more of what Mentoring can do, and how students are impacted by individuals like himself.

Blog 19 | Third Answer

1) What is your EQ?

• How can youth mentor-ship programs level the playing field for under represented students?

2) What is your third answer?

• By creating a warm and welcoming environment, students will be able to perform better and ultimately enjoy their experience in the program, resulting in better focus for the student

3) List three reasons your answer is true with a real-world application?

• Creating a warm and welcoming environment has proven to show improvement among youth, they focus more in the program and classes.
• Youth tend to fall behind and lose focus at times, and now its even more easier to lose track of where you are at, and because of this students can stress out, by creating an environment where youth can feel comfortable students show better focus.
• This environment works out for students because it is a stress free "Chill" environment. Although some students tend to act a lil bit off, and do not entirely focus themselves on their education

4) Research Sources?

• Shown in my WB as well, it was mentioned for my first answer, Source #46/47/48

5) Concluding Sentence.

• Students need a stress free environment and creating this environment can help students, focus on what they need. Why does it help level the playing field? This helps students be able to work better in a stress free zone where they can focus all their attention to their school related work.

Blog 18 | Answer 2

Finding a needle in a haystack is pretty much finding another answer for my EQ

1.  What is your EQ?

• How can youth mentor-ship programs level the playing field for under represented students

2.  What is your first answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

• By being able to be accessible, affordable, and resourceful; youth mentor-ship programs can help level the playing field for under represented students, by providing them a place they can reach, be able to pay for these resources (If need be)

3.  What is your second answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

• The community is changing, families go into struggles that their kids do not get the chance to be able to give back to the environment. By providing a student with a mentor, the mentor can be the role model to the student, they will be able to giveback to their community and prove to be better academically and socially.

4.  List three reasons your answer is true with a real-world application for each.

• First Answer:
• Why does being accessible, affordable, and resourceful for a youth mentor ship program help level the playing field for under represented students?
1. By being accessible, students are able to reach the program by any means necessary, whether it'd be by bus or if they can get a carpool to the program. Another reason why being accessible is a key answer to my EQ, without a program being local or reachable, a student will never be able to go to the program or the student may not be willing to travel a lot.
2. By being affordable, the program either asks for a small price to be able to accept enough students, being affordable does not mean it has to have a tuition of sorts. The program can be free as well, just as Uncommon Good is, by being a non profit, although yes sometimes they have fundraisers but these are merely for the resources they provide students with.
3. If a program does not provide useful resources such as volunteer opportunities or different set of programs to expand a students knowledge, these opportunities are lost. Another resource for these programs are to provide Mentors, without these mentors students don't get a role model or help they deserve through high school
• Second Answer
• Why is a Mentor so important?
1. Provides a caring adult to a student
2. Student results in a better person and strives to do better academically
3. Mentoring brings the community back together, by providing others with "Care and Guidance"

5.  What printed source best supports your answer?

• Answer 1: Shown in my WB, Source# 46
• Answer 2: http://www2.ed.gov/PDFDocs/yyc.pdf 

6.  What other source supports your answer?

• Shown in source 47,48

7.  Tie this together with a  concluding thought.

• Both these answers has shown a unique view. my first answer focuses on how it will reach these students and how they can help them. My second answer focuses on only mentoring, and how well it can help students, although this answer is technically apart of my first answer but this primarily focuses on the students success.