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. 

Blog 17 | Interview 3 Reflection

This picture was taken a week before the interview, this is where my interview took place.

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

• One of the biggest thing that I have learned from this is, you have to be very dedicated to be in a youth mentor ship program, at least working in one. Uncommon Good was a really great place to do my mentor ship for the past few month; although I am not done volunteering here I really would like to explain what I learned from this and how much of an impact this program has done to help youth and mentors From my interview I learned a lot about what a mentor was/is capable of doing, this helps out a lot with my answer in seeing that by being "Accessible, Affordable, and Resourceful," Mentoring is another answer, just plain mentoring. By focusing on just mentoring itself you can have many possibilities in pairing a student and many different outcomes. These outcomes are what is to benefit the student, and this mentor is also helping in creating this student a better person. So in a way what I learned from this interview, was a few more answers to my question,
• Access "Interview 3" Here

How has your approach to interviewing changed over the course of your senior project?

• A lot of things have changed throughout the course of my senior project, first off I found my self asking a few more follow up questions than I usually do, meaning I have shown way more interest to this topic. I have also found that I have "Up'd" my game in audio recording and a better place to set up.

Blog 16 | Independent Component 2 Approval

I will start to focus on the practices of Mentoring Programs

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• What I plan to do this time around (And not go off into something completely different) is, I plan to explore the different types of Mentoring Programs around the area. I also plan to talk to a few people who have done their dissertations on mentoring. I have already started talking to Rosalilia Gradilla, she is currently the Coordinator of the Co-Curricular Community Engagement Program. Here they help students reach out to programs such as Uncommon Good and help be a mentor to fellow students.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• I plan to record (Audio) my discussions I have with the Professors concerning their dissertations. As for the visits with the local Mentoring Programs I plan to (hopefully) take pictures of what they do.

3.  Explain how this component will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• Not only will I get to see the different programs I get to talk to Professors who have done research on mentoring.  The point of this is to see what other programs have to offer, in what ways do these mentor ship programs reach out to students, and do they help out the underrepresented, if so how?

4.  Post a log in your Senior Project Hours link and label it "Independent Component 2" log.

• Click here to see updated Independent Component 1 Hours and Independent Component 2 Format
• Scroll down until you reach the blue area

Independent Component 1

This is Jesus Sanchez, You may not be able to see it but that's the match we made in the folder

Literal

• I, Jonathan Alvarado, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 31.5 hours of work
• My sources are:
• Carlos D. Carrillo, Educational Program Director, Uncommon Good.
• Nancy Dufford, Educational Program Director, Uncommon Good.
• Jesus Sanchez, Educational Program Director, Uncommon Good.
• Updated
• I completed, a match, or in Uncommon Good terms a Mentor and Mentee match. At first I did not know what to do that would make me learn a bit more about Youth Mentor-ship Programs, until last month I decided that I would ask if I was able to match a Mentor and Mentee. Carlos D. Carrillo approved and as did Nancy Dufford. Both of who have already matched hundreds of students.

Interpretive

• My work that I have demonstrated here is what I would like to call, a really great experience. At first I was planning to help 8th graders learn about how to choose classes in high school, but because of my availability I was not able to do so. Click Here for the cards that I made. But this all did not work out, I was able to talk to my mentors and tell them what I can do, they offered to give me a chance at pairing a Mentor and Men-tee. With a couple days of planning me and Jesus, Click Here to see us discussing about our plans, Nancy took the picture, had decided for me to interview a college student coming from the Claremont Colleges. I wasnt able to take a picture of him, but I was able to take a picture of the picture that capture both the men-tee and the mentor. (As you can see above) Both me and Jesus managed to pair 'Josh' with Alejandro, me and Carlos however made the interview happen. I was not able to take as many pictures as I'd thought I would. For my next IC I plan to hopefully record or take pictures more frequently, or have the items that I have done in more of a log-like blog.

Applied

• This component really helped me see how things are done for Youth Mentorship Programs I also see how well and how not so well things can work out. There are a lot of Mentors who do not see how important mentoring can be. In one of my recent Interviews with Nancy Dufford, she tells me how much she would really love to match these students, but most mentors just somehow disappear off of the face of this earth. (Meaning most dont tell her where they're at)

Lesson 2 Reflection

1. What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?

• I am most proud of getting this over with, and the way I was able to present with somewhat confidence

2.a. What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation (self-assessment)?

• Low P or AP

   b. Why?

• I deserve either a low P or AP because I did not really explain who my mentors were, and I didn't really show much evidence or refer to sources as much. I did but it was only 1 source.

3. What worked for you in your lesson 2?

• What worked most was the activity, on how everybody was able to follow instructions.

4. What didn't work? If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?

• What didn't work was my time, I needed to practice a bit more just so I could hit the 20 min mark. Even though I did manage to do so, but I felt a bit more nervous for the ending portion.

5. What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?

• I do not currently have another answer.