Revision [2296]
Last edited on 2011-12-14 08:39:13 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Next, I conducted my interview of Dr. Duffy for the Canisius Wiki. I was so nervous but I think that it turned out alright. I used techniques that I learned in my public speaking class to try and make the interview as casual as possible, but still gathering the information that was required. I made sure to project my voice like I had learned in that class. By the time that the interview was over, it was time to pick up the students for their last grief counseling session.
When that was over, I spent time with the full time graduate intern at Park School (a school that Dr. Duffy is associated with and is assisting her in her internship) discussing test results. The tests that were used are tests that I have learned about in my assessment class with Professor Servoss (i.e. WISC-IV) but the amount of detail that they were discussing blew me away. Dr. Duffy would ask her questions about certain results and what those results told us about the student. I was still stuck trying to interpret their findings while they were off discussing what those results meant and what interventions they could use to assist the child. Even with Dr. Duffy breaking it down a little bit for the graduate intern, I could not understand what they were discussing or how they reached certain determinations. I could not keep up with what they were talking about. This showed me how much I still have to learn.
When that was over, I spent time with the full time graduate intern at Park School (a school that Dr. Duffy is associated with and is assisting her in her internship) discussing test results. The tests that were used are tests that I have learned about in my assessment class with Professor Servoss (i.e. WISC-IV) but the amount of detail that they were discussing blew me away. Dr. Duffy would ask her questions about certain results and what those results told us about the student. I was still stuck trying to interpret their findings while they were off discussing what those results meant and what interventions they could use to assist the child. Even with Dr. Duffy breaking it down a little bit for the graduate intern, I could not understand what they were discussing or how they reached certain determinations. I could not keep up with what they were talking about. This showed me how much I still have to learn.
Deletions:
When that was over, I spent time with the full time graduate intern at Park School (a school that Dr. Duffy is associated with and is assisting her in her internship) discussing test results. The tests that were used are tests that I have learned about (i.e. WISC-IV) but the amount of detail that they were discussing blew me away. Dr. Duffy would ask her questions about certain results and what those results told us about the student. I could not keep up with what they were talking about. This showed me how much I still have to learn.
Revision [2276]
Edited on 2011-12-04 20:33:11 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 18- December 1, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today I completed my hours at practicum. When I arrived, Dr. Duffy gave me a list of agencies to call. The CAO had been contacted already with a list of names of refugee students who are in need of winter jackets. Their agent, Joanna, had informed us that they would provide them for students in need. So far, they have not returned our calls or provided the jackets. I tried contacting Joanna again, but she was unavailable so I left a voicemail. There were a few other organizations that had not returned our calls or had missed appointments to meet with Dr. Duffy in regards to our resource center. Next, I looked over the resource center to make sure that things were in order and ready for the interns that will be there next semester. Dr. Duffy informed me that there are going to be graduate students from Niagara University who will be using the resource center for their studies.
Next, I conducted my interview of Dr. Duffy for the Canisius Wiki. I was so nervous but I think that it turned out alright. By the time that the interview was over, it was time to pick up the students for their last grief counseling session.
When that was over, I spent time with the full time graduate intern at Park School (a school that Dr. Duffy is associated with and is assisting her in her internship) discussing test results. The tests that were used are tests that I have learned about (i.e. WISC-IV) but the amount of detail that they were discussing blew me away. Dr. Duffy would ask her questions about certain results and what those results told us about the student. I could not keep up with what they were talking about. This showed me how much I still have to learn.
Today I completed my hours at practicum. When I arrived, Dr. Duffy gave me a list of agencies to call. The CAO had been contacted already with a list of names of refugee students who are in need of winter jackets. Their agent, Joanna, had informed us that they would provide them for students in need. So far, they have not returned our calls or provided the jackets. I tried contacting Joanna again, but she was unavailable so I left a voicemail. There were a few other organizations that had not returned our calls or had missed appointments to meet with Dr. Duffy in regards to our resource center. Next, I looked over the resource center to make sure that things were in order and ready for the interns that will be there next semester. Dr. Duffy informed me that there are going to be graduate students from Niagara University who will be using the resource center for their studies.
Next, I conducted my interview of Dr. Duffy for the Canisius Wiki. I was so nervous but I think that it turned out alright. By the time that the interview was over, it was time to pick up the students for their last grief counseling session.
When that was over, I spent time with the full time graduate intern at Park School (a school that Dr. Duffy is associated with and is assisting her in her internship) discussing test results. The tests that were used are tests that I have learned about (i.e. WISC-IV) but the amount of detail that they were discussing blew me away. Dr. Duffy would ask her questions about certain results and what those results told us about the student. I could not keep up with what they were talking about. This showed me how much I still have to learn.
Revision [2240]
Edited on 2011-11-17 12:10:29 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
I spent my afternoon organizing and putting administrative touches on the resource binder. Dr. Duffy was conducting testing with a graduate student from Niagara University for almost the entire afternoon. Being an undergraduate student, I was not allowed to sit in on the testing.
Deletions:
Revision [2239]
Edited on 2011-11-17 12:10:07 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 17- November 17, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today at practicum I spent a lot of time talking with Dr. Duffy and a graduate intern from Niagara about graduate school options and the job opportunities for after graduation. Dr. Duffy believes that this kind of thing should be part of my practicum experience, getting familiar with the school psychology field (i.e. benefits, salary, etc.). Up until today, I was under the impression that school psychologists made very good money for what they did. Based on what Dr. Duffy told me, this is not the case. Starting out as a school psychologist in New York State, you do not make more than around $35,000 your first year. This is nothing when you consider all of the schooling you have gone through to get to that point. School psychologists are paid very well in other states, even when first starting out. He also explained how in other states, such as Texas and Arizona, if a school psychologist does not have a doctoral level degree, they cannot call themselves school psychologists. They are psychologists who specialize in school psychology. These people are limited in what they can do without having supervision from a licensed school psychologist. This solidified my decision that I will be pursuing my doctorate degree in psychology. It does however make me question whether or not school psychology is the field of psychology that I want to receive my doctrine in. If there are other areas of psychology that will be more profitable for me, I would be crazy not to go that route. This information only raises more questions and encourages me to talk to more psychologists of different fields of psychology and have these questions answered in order to make the best decision for me. These types of things I never learned in any of my psychology classes thus far.
I spent my afternoon organizing and putting administrative touches on the resource binder. Dr. Duffy was conducting testing with a graduate student from Niagara University for almost the entire afternoon. Being an undergraduate student, I was not allowed to sit in on the testing.
Today at practicum I spent a lot of time talking with Dr. Duffy and a graduate intern from Niagara about graduate school options and the job opportunities for after graduation. Dr. Duffy believes that this kind of thing should be part of my practicum experience, getting familiar with the school psychology field (i.e. benefits, salary, etc.). Up until today, I was under the impression that school psychologists made very good money for what they did. Based on what Dr. Duffy told me, this is not the case. Starting out as a school psychologist in New York State, you do not make more than around $35,000 your first year. This is nothing when you consider all of the schooling you have gone through to get to that point. School psychologists are paid very well in other states, even when first starting out. He also explained how in other states, such as Texas and Arizona, if a school psychologist does not have a doctoral level degree, they cannot call themselves school psychologists. They are psychologists who specialize in school psychology. These people are limited in what they can do without having supervision from a licensed school psychologist. This solidified my decision that I will be pursuing my doctorate degree in psychology. It does however make me question whether or not school psychology is the field of psychology that I want to receive my doctrine in. If there are other areas of psychology that will be more profitable for me, I would be crazy not to go that route. This information only raises more questions and encourages me to talk to more psychologists of different fields of psychology and have these questions answered in order to make the best decision for me. These types of things I never learned in any of my psychology classes thus far.
I spent my afternoon organizing and putting administrative touches on the resource binder. Dr. Duffy was conducting testing with a graduate student from Niagara University for almost the entire afternoon. Being an undergraduate student, I was not allowed to sit in on the testing.
Revision [2238]
Edited on 2011-11-16 19:27:35 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 16- November 15, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today was a very exciting day at practicum. The first hour or so I spent working on the resource binder. From there, I had planned on observing my students for a class or two to have a good idea of their behavior in class before the SST meeting which was later on in the day. When I went to the class to observe my 5th grade student, the teacher informed me that they were getting ready to leave for a field trip. I went down stairs to Dr. Duffy to see what he wanted me to do instead. He told me that this would be the perfect opportunity to really see how this student interacts, not only in a classroom setting, but outside of the classroom as well. I was able to go to Kleinhan’s to listen to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) play while observing my student.
The student was very talkative on the bus going to Kleinhan’s. He had to be told to stop talking multiple times when directions were being given both when we left International Prep and when we arrived at Kleinhan’s. Anyone who could not behave on the bus or at the performance would not be allowed to go to the grand skate event that they are attending on Friday. This is an example of negative reinforcement for the students (if students continued to act appropriately, they would not have their privileges taken away).
My student frequently put his hands on his friends as well. For example, when the students were getting off of the bus, he pulled on his friends’ hood to try and hold him back so that other people could get leave their seats first. He was very physical with his friends, but never meant to intentionally hurt his friends. Throughout the performance he was constantly fidgeting. I do not think that he sat still for more than 10 seconds at a time. Even when he was moved away from his friend because they were goofing around, he continued to look all around (especially back at his friends) and would do things such as playing with his lips or with his hands in order to keep himself occupied. He even asked to go to the bathroom a number of times just so that he could be up and moving.
While listening to the BPO, there were some things that I noticed correlated to things that I learned sophomore year in my music class. I could hear certain instruments more distinctly than others. This is something that I would not have picked up on prior to that class. I also had a better appreciation for the musicians’ use of dynamics and articulation while playing than I ever had in the past. I did not think that a music class would ever be useful in the “real world” when I am not a music major. It made me feel smart noticing little things that I am sure most of the adult audience did not notice or appreciate in the same way.
When I returned to the school, there was only about an hour left before my day would be over. I spent this time learning about a check in/ checkout program that the counseling center would be starting. At the beginning of the day, students involved in the program would receive a sheet from the counseling center that they would give to all of their teachers. The teachers would rate the students’ behavior based on: preparedness, respectfulness, engagement, and punctuality during their class on a scale of 1 to 3 (with 3 being the best). This means that each student could earn 12 points per class each day. There are 8 periods in a day, which means that a student can potentially earn 96 points a day. Other comments such as homework assignments can be written in as well. The student brings the sheet home and needs to have it signed by their parent and then brings it back the next day. When they bring the sheet back, they receive the points that they earned the day before. When a student reaches a total of 400 points, they earn a snack ticket for the cafeteria. Their long term goal over a 6 week period is to earn 2,000 points. If they do so, they will be invited to the student/ parent breakfast later in the school year. This program is very similar to the behavior modification project that I did in my behavior modification class. The students have a long term goal that they are working towards in order to better their behavior. In order to keep from getting discouraged, there are smaller, more easily obtainable goals along the way. This is an example of positive reinforcement because the use of the snack tickets and the breakfast with their parents are being added in order to encourage better behavior. I hope that this program is successful for the International Prep students.
Today was a very exciting day at practicum. The first hour or so I spent working on the resource binder. From there, I had planned on observing my students for a class or two to have a good idea of their behavior in class before the SST meeting which was later on in the day. When I went to the class to observe my 5th grade student, the teacher informed me that they were getting ready to leave for a field trip. I went down stairs to Dr. Duffy to see what he wanted me to do instead. He told me that this would be the perfect opportunity to really see how this student interacts, not only in a classroom setting, but outside of the classroom as well. I was able to go to Kleinhan’s to listen to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) play while observing my student.
The student was very talkative on the bus going to Kleinhan’s. He had to be told to stop talking multiple times when directions were being given both when we left International Prep and when we arrived at Kleinhan’s. Anyone who could not behave on the bus or at the performance would not be allowed to go to the grand skate event that they are attending on Friday. This is an example of negative reinforcement for the students (if students continued to act appropriately, they would not have their privileges taken away).
My student frequently put his hands on his friends as well. For example, when the students were getting off of the bus, he pulled on his friends’ hood to try and hold him back so that other people could get leave their seats first. He was very physical with his friends, but never meant to intentionally hurt his friends. Throughout the performance he was constantly fidgeting. I do not think that he sat still for more than 10 seconds at a time. Even when he was moved away from his friend because they were goofing around, he continued to look all around (especially back at his friends) and would do things such as playing with his lips or with his hands in order to keep himself occupied. He even asked to go to the bathroom a number of times just so that he could be up and moving.
While listening to the BPO, there were some things that I noticed correlated to things that I learned sophomore year in my music class. I could hear certain instruments more distinctly than others. This is something that I would not have picked up on prior to that class. I also had a better appreciation for the musicians’ use of dynamics and articulation while playing than I ever had in the past. I did not think that a music class would ever be useful in the “real world” when I am not a music major. It made me feel smart noticing little things that I am sure most of the adult audience did not notice or appreciate in the same way.
When I returned to the school, there was only about an hour left before my day would be over. I spent this time learning about a check in/ checkout program that the counseling center would be starting. At the beginning of the day, students involved in the program would receive a sheet from the counseling center that they would give to all of their teachers. The teachers would rate the students’ behavior based on: preparedness, respectfulness, engagement, and punctuality during their class on a scale of 1 to 3 (with 3 being the best). This means that each student could earn 12 points per class each day. There are 8 periods in a day, which means that a student can potentially earn 96 points a day. Other comments such as homework assignments can be written in as well. The student brings the sheet home and needs to have it signed by their parent and then brings it back the next day. When they bring the sheet back, they receive the points that they earned the day before. When a student reaches a total of 400 points, they earn a snack ticket for the cafeteria. Their long term goal over a 6 week period is to earn 2,000 points. If they do so, they will be invited to the student/ parent breakfast later in the school year. This program is very similar to the behavior modification project that I did in my behavior modification class. The students have a long term goal that they are working towards in order to better their behavior. In order to keep from getting discouraged, there are smaller, more easily obtainable goals along the way. This is an example of positive reinforcement because the use of the snack tickets and the breakfast with their parents are being added in order to encourage better behavior. I hope that this program is successful for the International Prep students.
Revision [2234]
Edited on 2011-11-10 21:29:12 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 1- September 13, 2011 9:00 to 11:30 AM (2.5 Hours)
Day 13- November 3, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today at practicum, I worked on a lot paperwork for the resource center binder. I went through the binder and started making lists of all of the agencies in each section of the binder. This way, it will be easy to find agencies when they are needed and can be done quickly. It is very time consuming because there are twenty two sections in the binder, each section has at least ten to twelve agencies in it. When I put the brochures in each section, I had not alphabetized the brochures. This was another step I had to take before I started making the lists.
This morning there was also two meetings with two different agencies. The first meeting was with someone from the Salvation Army. This can be an incredibly useful agent with the weather starting to change so that students who do not have winter apparel have a resource that they can go to get some. The second meeting was with some from Horizon’s. This agency focuses on individuals who suffer from substance abuse. We are trying to set up some sort of workshop or resource for the students utilizing this agency. Many of our students have family members that deal with alcohol and substance abuse. These meetings took up a good part of my morning. As always, there was a grief counseling meeting for some of the students, and I went to the classrooms and pick up the students involved in this group.
The afternoon was spent working some more on the resource center binder. I only have a few days left of practicum, so I want to try and get as much of this binder done as possible before I am done. The next few days that I am at practicum will be primarily centered around the resource binder.
Day 14- November 8, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
International Prep was closed today for Election Day. The students were not at school today but the teachers were still required to meet. I used today primarily to do some more work on the resource center binder. With no students, hopefully this meant fewer distractions. I did however spend some of my morning making phone calls to houses which had students that had missed more than 10 days of homeroom thus far into the school semester. As a district, attendance is still a big problem that we are faced with. The parents were informed of upcoming events, and were even encouraged to become more involved in the school. If the parents are more involved, the students are more likely to become involved.
Another thing that I wanted to handle when there was not any students around is the bullying incident that I had been made aware of a few weeks ago. I spoke with the art teacher, Mr. Puffer, and asked him if he had seen any bullying incidents involving those boys. He said that he had not seen anything that stood out to him, in fact, these boys are all pretty close friends. My gut was telling me that this was not an incident that should require much attention and this information confirmed it.
Dr. Duffy also gave me some articles to read: one on dyslexia, and the other on ADHD. They were filled with information that I had not been taught in my psychology classes that I have taken thus far at Canisius. Dyslexia is something that I will be learning about next chapter in my Child Psychology class with Dr. Sanders. Maybe this article will give me a nice introduction on dyslexia. ADHD is something that is very commonly talked about in the classes. This article basically reiterated many things that I have already learned in my school psychology and behavior modification classes.
Day 15- November 10, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today was another busy day at practicum. I wanted to sit in on my students and observe their behavior in their specials (music, art, physical education). Today, the fifth grade girl only had music and I saw different behavior than I had seen when I observed her in her regular classroom. The other student was not in school today so I could not observe him. In her music class, she was very inattentive, but not distracting. She did not complete any of her work, which her classmates all did, but instead decided to doodle on the back of her paper. She was not at all involved in any of the academic conversation that was happening throughout the class. She acted as though she was in a world of her own. After speaking with her music teacher, he informed me that her behavior in the classroom is not as much an issue as her behavior in the hallway. In the hallway, she has no social boundaries and is not respectful of her peers. Dr. Duffy is leaving it up to me to implement an intervention treatment, something that I know I will need to be able to do if I become a school psychologist. I could use some kind of rewards system (positive reinforcement) like I learned in my Behavior Modification class. Likewise, I could implement negative reinforcement by taking away some free time, or a task that she likes to do, etc. It is difficult to know which intervention is going to be more effective (if either one) without really knowing the student. This is where the teacher would come in, because they should know her better than I do. This is something that was practically drilled into me in School Psychology with Dr. Lopata.
In the afternoon I had two more meetings. The first meeting was with the Heart Foundation, which focuses on Gang Awareness. This could be a crucial agency in helping our students who are involved, or know someone who is involved in a gang. We got as much information about this agency as we possibly could during this meeting. The second meeting was the CAO organization again. This time, we set up a time for them to come in and do a Country A and Country Z diversity workshop with our fifth grade students. The students will start out all together and will eventually be split into two groups (in two separate classrooms). One group will be Country A and the other Country Z. Each Country will have their own language (i.e. adding “ing” to the end of every word and the other adding a “z” to the end of every word) as well as their own religious rituals and customs. The countries will differ in all of these aspects. Gradually, students from one Country will be put into the other Country. It will be a good way to teach the students diversity and how important it is to respect other people as well as their values and beliefs.
I spent the rest of my day working on the resource binder still. I am so proud of myself for the amount of work that I have done on the resource binder thus far. I have come a long way, a lot farther than anyone else has gotten.
Day 13- November 3, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today at practicum, I worked on a lot paperwork for the resource center binder. I went through the binder and started making lists of all of the agencies in each section of the binder. This way, it will be easy to find agencies when they are needed and can be done quickly. It is very time consuming because there are twenty two sections in the binder, each section has at least ten to twelve agencies in it. When I put the brochures in each section, I had not alphabetized the brochures. This was another step I had to take before I started making the lists.
This morning there was also two meetings with two different agencies. The first meeting was with someone from the Salvation Army. This can be an incredibly useful agent with the weather starting to change so that students who do not have winter apparel have a resource that they can go to get some. The second meeting was with some from Horizon’s. This agency focuses on individuals who suffer from substance abuse. We are trying to set up some sort of workshop or resource for the students utilizing this agency. Many of our students have family members that deal with alcohol and substance abuse. These meetings took up a good part of my morning. As always, there was a grief counseling meeting for some of the students, and I went to the classrooms and pick up the students involved in this group.
The afternoon was spent working some more on the resource center binder. I only have a few days left of practicum, so I want to try and get as much of this binder done as possible before I am done. The next few days that I am at practicum will be primarily centered around the resource binder.
Day 14- November 8, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
International Prep was closed today for Election Day. The students were not at school today but the teachers were still required to meet. I used today primarily to do some more work on the resource center binder. With no students, hopefully this meant fewer distractions. I did however spend some of my morning making phone calls to houses which had students that had missed more than 10 days of homeroom thus far into the school semester. As a district, attendance is still a big problem that we are faced with. The parents were informed of upcoming events, and were even encouraged to become more involved in the school. If the parents are more involved, the students are more likely to become involved.
Another thing that I wanted to handle when there was not any students around is the bullying incident that I had been made aware of a few weeks ago. I spoke with the art teacher, Mr. Puffer, and asked him if he had seen any bullying incidents involving those boys. He said that he had not seen anything that stood out to him, in fact, these boys are all pretty close friends. My gut was telling me that this was not an incident that should require much attention and this information confirmed it.
Dr. Duffy also gave me some articles to read: one on dyslexia, and the other on ADHD. They were filled with information that I had not been taught in my psychology classes that I have taken thus far at Canisius. Dyslexia is something that I will be learning about next chapter in my Child Psychology class with Dr. Sanders. Maybe this article will give me a nice introduction on dyslexia. ADHD is something that is very commonly talked about in the classes. This article basically reiterated many things that I have already learned in my school psychology and behavior modification classes.
Day 15- November 10, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today was another busy day at practicum. I wanted to sit in on my students and observe their behavior in their specials (music, art, physical education). Today, the fifth grade girl only had music and I saw different behavior than I had seen when I observed her in her regular classroom. The other student was not in school today so I could not observe him. In her music class, she was very inattentive, but not distracting. She did not complete any of her work, which her classmates all did, but instead decided to doodle on the back of her paper. She was not at all involved in any of the academic conversation that was happening throughout the class. She acted as though she was in a world of her own. After speaking with her music teacher, he informed me that her behavior in the classroom is not as much an issue as her behavior in the hallway. In the hallway, she has no social boundaries and is not respectful of her peers. Dr. Duffy is leaving it up to me to implement an intervention treatment, something that I know I will need to be able to do if I become a school psychologist. I could use some kind of rewards system (positive reinforcement) like I learned in my Behavior Modification class. Likewise, I could implement negative reinforcement by taking away some free time, or a task that she likes to do, etc. It is difficult to know which intervention is going to be more effective (if either one) without really knowing the student. This is where the teacher would come in, because they should know her better than I do. This is something that was practically drilled into me in School Psychology with Dr. Lopata.
In the afternoon I had two more meetings. The first meeting was with the Heart Foundation, which focuses on Gang Awareness. This could be a crucial agency in helping our students who are involved, or know someone who is involved in a gang. We got as much information about this agency as we possibly could during this meeting. The second meeting was the CAO organization again. This time, we set up a time for them to come in and do a Country A and Country Z diversity workshop with our fifth grade students. The students will start out all together and will eventually be split into two groups (in two separate classrooms). One group will be Country A and the other Country Z. Each Country will have their own language (i.e. adding “ing” to the end of every word and the other adding a “z” to the end of every word) as well as their own religious rituals and customs. The countries will differ in all of these aspects. Gradually, students from one Country will be put into the other Country. It will be a good way to teach the students diversity and how important it is to respect other people as well as their values and beliefs.
I spent the rest of my day working on the resource binder still. I am so proud of myself for the amount of work that I have done on the resource binder thus far. I have come a long way, a lot farther than anyone else has gotten.
Deletions:
Revision [2225]
Edited on 2011-11-01 08:10:31 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 12- November 1, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Dr. Duffy was not in today but he left me a number of things to do. First, I moved all of the brochures from the local community agencies into a cabinet with many different mailbox slots. I added labels so that it will be easy to find the brochures when they are needed. This took about an hour because I had to alphabetize the brochures and make their labels.
Next, I made summaries of each section of our resource binder. This took a considerable amount of time because I wanted to make the wording just right. I wanted to be sure to include everything that was in each section without adding too much information and making the summary too long that no one would want to take the time to read it. Most of my day was spent doing this.
At the end of the day, I checked in with the student that I had been observing last week Thursday. I wanted to see if he acted any differently on a different day and in a different class. I was not surprised to see that he still acted very quiet and reserved. He had some difficulty staying focused, which is consistent with how he acted in his English class on Thursday. With this good of behavior, it makes me question why this child was referred to the school psychologist. Most of the students in his classes have much worse behavior than he has. The only thing that comes to mind is that he may have some kind of mood or personality disorder.
Dr. Duffy was not in today but he left me a number of things to do. First, I moved all of the brochures from the local community agencies into a cabinet with many different mailbox slots. I added labels so that it will be easy to find the brochures when they are needed. This took about an hour because I had to alphabetize the brochures and make their labels.
Next, I made summaries of each section of our resource binder. This took a considerable amount of time because I wanted to make the wording just right. I wanted to be sure to include everything that was in each section without adding too much information and making the summary too long that no one would want to take the time to read it. Most of my day was spent doing this.
At the end of the day, I checked in with the student that I had been observing last week Thursday. I wanted to see if he acted any differently on a different day and in a different class. I was not surprised to see that he still acted very quiet and reserved. He had some difficulty staying focused, which is consistent with how he acted in his English class on Thursday. With this good of behavior, it makes me question why this child was referred to the school psychologist. Most of the students in his classes have much worse behavior than he has. The only thing that comes to mind is that he may have some kind of mood or personality disorder.
Revision [2224]
Edited on 2011-11-01 07:41:55 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 8- October 18, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
The most exciting and time consuming part of my day was when I met with Dr. Duffy to come up with an intervention strategy for a student that he tested at the end of last week. Dr. Duffy had performed a Brown- Peterson test on this 7th grade student. This is designed to test working memory. I learned about working memory in my assessment class last year. Working memory is when information is stored and one moves onto another activity and then later recalls the original information given. The amount of given to perform a different task is gradually extended (beginning with 0 seconds, then 3 seconds, then 9 seconds, etc.). Dr. Duffy also performed the WISC IV, which tests one’s ability to use symbol search and coding. Symbol search and coding is something that again, I have learned about in my assessment class. If a student has issues with their working memory, their symbol search score should be higher than their coding score. Coding would be lowered if a student has to constantly keep looking up at the key, rather than doing things such as looking back earlier in the sentence, or even remembering certain symbols. The student Dr. Duffy tested is 2 standard deviations below the mean in regards to mathematics. In everything else (writing, English, etc.) she scored close to the mean or even 1 standard deviation above the mean. This student had a score of 53 when it came to applying problems. It does not get much lower than that.
With these results, Dr. Duffy diagnosed this student with Mathematics Disorder. I remember learning about this disorder in Child Psychopathology, with Dr. Sanders. This disorder involves deficits in reading numbers in simple addition or subtraction problems, understanding terms and symbols, attending to signs, understanding spatial organization, and memory for facts. Only 1% of school aged kids have this disorder. I learned that these students generally have social and behavioral problems. People have an assumption of “badness”. Because these students have difficulty with math they tend to stop doing their work. Other students do not want to be associated with a student that the teacher perceives as “bad” so they avoid them. These students also tend to have problems with social competence. They have difficulty identifying emotional expression of others, understanding social situations, and solving social problems. With this disorder being so rare, it is often undetected. This leads to a cycle of academic failure because they do not get the treatment that they need.
The most exciting and time consuming part of my day was when I met with Dr. Duffy to come up with an intervention strategy for a student that he tested at the end of last week. Dr. Duffy had performed a Brown- Peterson test on this 7th grade student. This is designed to test working memory. I learned about working memory in my assessment class last year. Working memory is when information is stored and one moves onto another activity and then later recalls the original information given. The amount of given to perform a different task is gradually extended (beginning with 0 seconds, then 3 seconds, then 9 seconds, etc.). Dr. Duffy also performed the WISC IV, which tests one’s ability to use symbol search and coding. Symbol search and coding is something that again, I have learned about in my assessment class. If a student has issues with their working memory, their symbol search score should be higher than their coding score. Coding would be lowered if a student has to constantly keep looking up at the key, rather than doing things such as looking back earlier in the sentence, or even remembering certain symbols. The student Dr. Duffy tested is 2 standard deviations below the mean in regards to mathematics. In everything else (writing, English, etc.) she scored close to the mean or even 1 standard deviation above the mean. This student had a score of 53 when it came to applying problems. It does not get much lower than that.
With these results, Dr. Duffy diagnosed this student with Mathematics Disorder. I remember learning about this disorder in Child Psychopathology, with Dr. Sanders. This disorder involves deficits in reading numbers in simple addition or subtraction problems, understanding terms and symbols, attending to signs, understanding spatial organization, and memory for facts. Only 1% of school aged kids have this disorder. I learned that these students generally have social and behavioral problems. People have an assumption of “badness”. Because these students have difficulty with math they tend to stop doing their work. Other students do not want to be associated with a student that the teacher perceives as “bad” so they avoid them. These students also tend to have problems with social competence. They have difficulty identifying emotional expression of others, understanding social situations, and solving social problems. With this disorder being so rare, it is often undetected. This leads to a cycle of academic failure because they do not get the treatment that they need.
Deletions:
The most exciting and time consuming part of my day was when I met with Dr. Duffy to come up with an intervention strategy for a student that he tested at the end of last week. Dr. Duffy had performed a Brown- Peterson test on this 7th grade student. This is designed to test working memory. I learned about working memory in my assessment class last year. Working memory is when information is stored and one moves onto another activity and then later recalls the original information given. The amount of given to perform a different task is gradually extended (beginning with 0 seconds, then 3 seconds, then 9 seconds, etc.). Dr. Duffy also performed the WISC IV, which tests one’s ability to use symbol search and coding. Symbol search and coding is something that again, I have learned about in my assessment class. If a student has issues with their working memory, their symbol search score should be higher than their coding score. Coding would be lowered if a student has to constantly keep looking up at the key, rather than doing things such as looking back earlier in the sentence, or even remembering certain symbols. The student Dr. Duffy tested is 2 standard deviations below the mean in regards to mathematics. In everything else (writing, English, etc.) she scored close to the mean or even 1 standard deviation above the mean. This student had a score of 53 when it came to applying problems. It does not get much lower than that.
Revision [2220]
Edited on 2011-10-27 14:00:54 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 9- October 20, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Day 10- October 25, 2011 7:30- 3:00 PM (7.5 hours)
I arrived at my internship early today to because I had planned on going out with the school social worker, Mrs. Ali, to do home visits. She had asked me to arrive early so that we could leave before the students got there and she got stuck at the school. We spent the first half of our day visiting the homes of certain students to get permission forms signed for additional educational services. These permission forms had been sent to the house many times but had not been returned. If they were not returned, the students would lose their services that help them with their disabilities. It was fascinating to me to see the different lifestyle that these students have compared to what I grew up with. I was easily able to see why students are acting out at school and not focusing on their academics. I learned a lot about children’s background/home life and the affect that it has on academics in Developmental Psychology and Adolescent Psychology with Dr. Kermis. These students do not have a support center at home. It is so easy for me to think “if they just focus on their school work, they can be just as successful as me”. Some homes had bullet holes in their siding. Other homes did not have siding because it had fallen off and the family does not have the finances to replace it. How can students focus on their academics when they have so many personal issues at home? A lot of the students whose home we visited were part of a single parent family. I learned in Adolescent Psychology that children who are raised in this kind of atmosphere are not as likely to be successful as those who are raised in two parent homes. Seeing where these students live forced me to look at the students in a new light. I almost pity these children.
When we returned to the school, there were stations set up for the college fair that International Prep was hosting. Seniors were sent down first to receive information, ask questions, and request more information to a number of different local colleges. Juniors were sent down after, and finally sophomores were sent down. It was encouraging to see these students given an opportunity to succeed and make a better life for themselves than what they are currently living. I took advantage of this opportunity and requested information from a couple of colleges as well for graduate school.
From there, Dr. Duffy informed me that he had carried some more bags of donations upstairs to my office. I was shocked when I saw how many bags. Six of the big black garbage bags full of clothes for the students. I spent the next 2 hours folding and sorting the donations. With winter coming, these donations will be going very quickly to the students who need it.
I finished my day by calling a few agencies to set up an appointment to meet with Dr. Duffy and give him more specifics about their agency and workshops they could provide for us. Unfortunately, by the time these workshops are put into place, I will be done with my practicum and will not know how successful they are.
Day 11- October 27, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 Hours)
Today started off very slow. Dr. Duffy had mentioned on Tuesday that today I would be starting to sit on students’ classes and observe their behavior. I spent a little while locating the schedule of specific students and planning out when the best time to observe them would be.
Next, I attended a meeting with Child Abuse Prevention Program (CAPP), an agency which I set up to come in and meet with Dr. Duffy about their programs. They mentioned different programs such as healthy relationships, which focuses on relationships with peers, family and teachers, as well as pregnancy and STD/HIV prevention. We are now going to try and coordinate a time that works well for both the school and CAPP for these workshops to begin. I may be able to sit in on some of these workshops if they begin soon enough.
The most exciting part of my day, the thing that I have wanted to do since I began my practicum, was observing students in class. I did not let the student know that I was going to be observing them because I did not want their behavior to change in response to me. I remember Dr. Lopata saying that in my School Psychology class. The students that I observed did not fit the stereotype that I had made for students that a school psychologist would deal with. I assumed based on what I had learned in my School Psychology class that school psychologists generally deal with the students who misbehave in class. Neither of the students I observed fit that description. The fifth grade girl was very polite and raised her hand whenever she had a question. She was one of only a few students who had memorized the vocabulary so she appeared to be doing well in class. Even when she was in the hallway, she did not cause any trouble with the other students. She stayed in line and did not talk. Her teacher told me after class that a better time to observe her would be in her specials classes (i.e. music, art, physical education). That is when she seems to be acting out. The eight grade boy was also not a student I would have thought needed to be observed. He arrived to class a little late but had not yet missed anything. His classmates had entered class and there was a lot of talking and running and inappropriate school behavior. When the student I observed walked in he walked in very slowly and went right to his seat and began working on the class warm up assignment. He was not a student who spoke up or liked to give answers. He seemed to mostly keep his head down at his seat. It was difficult to determine if that was because of his personality or if it was because he had missed the last class and did not know the answers. One thing that stood out to me with this student was that he seemed to have trouble staying focused on his work. When the class was supposed to be reading and doing individual work he would stop reading every minute to minute and a half. Sometimes he would start talking with his classmates, other times it was just to play with his pen. There were a couple of instances where he had to have directions repeated to him in order to get his work done. With the information that I observed and the symptoms that I learned about in my Child Psychopathology class with Dr. Sanders, I am wondering if this student has ADHD. I will need to observe both children again in a different setting to further understand their behavior routines.
While I was observing the 5th grader, her teacher pulled me into the hallway and informed me that a different student had reported being bullied by his classmates. I talked to the student and tried to get as much information about the bullying as I could. I remembered that both Professor Servoss and Dr. Lopata had expressed the importance that good rapport has when talking with a student. I did the best I could to make him feel comfortable with me even though I was such a new face for him. I reported the bullying incident to Mr. Merrick, the school counselor. He told me that if I wanted to, I could handle this case. I plan on talking with the teachers in which he reported bullying during class and seeing if they have noticed anything inappropriate. I also plan on talking to some of the students and asking them if they have noticed this student having any problems with other students. Based on their responses (both the students and the teachers) I will make a judgment as to which course of action I should take next.
Day 10- October 25, 2011 7:30- 3:00 PM (7.5 hours)
I arrived at my internship early today to because I had planned on going out with the school social worker, Mrs. Ali, to do home visits. She had asked me to arrive early so that we could leave before the students got there and she got stuck at the school. We spent the first half of our day visiting the homes of certain students to get permission forms signed for additional educational services. These permission forms had been sent to the house many times but had not been returned. If they were not returned, the students would lose their services that help them with their disabilities. It was fascinating to me to see the different lifestyle that these students have compared to what I grew up with. I was easily able to see why students are acting out at school and not focusing on their academics. I learned a lot about children’s background/home life and the affect that it has on academics in Developmental Psychology and Adolescent Psychology with Dr. Kermis. These students do not have a support center at home. It is so easy for me to think “if they just focus on their school work, they can be just as successful as me”. Some homes had bullet holes in their siding. Other homes did not have siding because it had fallen off and the family does not have the finances to replace it. How can students focus on their academics when they have so many personal issues at home? A lot of the students whose home we visited were part of a single parent family. I learned in Adolescent Psychology that children who are raised in this kind of atmosphere are not as likely to be successful as those who are raised in two parent homes. Seeing where these students live forced me to look at the students in a new light. I almost pity these children.
When we returned to the school, there were stations set up for the college fair that International Prep was hosting. Seniors were sent down first to receive information, ask questions, and request more information to a number of different local colleges. Juniors were sent down after, and finally sophomores were sent down. It was encouraging to see these students given an opportunity to succeed and make a better life for themselves than what they are currently living. I took advantage of this opportunity and requested information from a couple of colleges as well for graduate school.
From there, Dr. Duffy informed me that he had carried some more bags of donations upstairs to my office. I was shocked when I saw how many bags. Six of the big black garbage bags full of clothes for the students. I spent the next 2 hours folding and sorting the donations. With winter coming, these donations will be going very quickly to the students who need it.
I finished my day by calling a few agencies to set up an appointment to meet with Dr. Duffy and give him more specifics about their agency and workshops they could provide for us. Unfortunately, by the time these workshops are put into place, I will be done with my practicum and will not know how successful they are.
Day 11- October 27, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 Hours)
Today started off very slow. Dr. Duffy had mentioned on Tuesday that today I would be starting to sit on students’ classes and observe their behavior. I spent a little while locating the schedule of specific students and planning out when the best time to observe them would be.
Next, I attended a meeting with Child Abuse Prevention Program (CAPP), an agency which I set up to come in and meet with Dr. Duffy about their programs. They mentioned different programs such as healthy relationships, which focuses on relationships with peers, family and teachers, as well as pregnancy and STD/HIV prevention. We are now going to try and coordinate a time that works well for both the school and CAPP for these workshops to begin. I may be able to sit in on some of these workshops if they begin soon enough.
The most exciting part of my day, the thing that I have wanted to do since I began my practicum, was observing students in class. I did not let the student know that I was going to be observing them because I did not want their behavior to change in response to me. I remember Dr. Lopata saying that in my School Psychology class. The students that I observed did not fit the stereotype that I had made for students that a school psychologist would deal with. I assumed based on what I had learned in my School Psychology class that school psychologists generally deal with the students who misbehave in class. Neither of the students I observed fit that description. The fifth grade girl was very polite and raised her hand whenever she had a question. She was one of only a few students who had memorized the vocabulary so she appeared to be doing well in class. Even when she was in the hallway, she did not cause any trouble with the other students. She stayed in line and did not talk. Her teacher told me after class that a better time to observe her would be in her specials classes (i.e. music, art, physical education). That is when she seems to be acting out. The eight grade boy was also not a student I would have thought needed to be observed. He arrived to class a little late but had not yet missed anything. His classmates had entered class and there was a lot of talking and running and inappropriate school behavior. When the student I observed walked in he walked in very slowly and went right to his seat and began working on the class warm up assignment. He was not a student who spoke up or liked to give answers. He seemed to mostly keep his head down at his seat. It was difficult to determine if that was because of his personality or if it was because he had missed the last class and did not know the answers. One thing that stood out to me with this student was that he seemed to have trouble staying focused on his work. When the class was supposed to be reading and doing individual work he would stop reading every minute to minute and a half. Sometimes he would start talking with his classmates, other times it was just to play with his pen. There were a couple of instances where he had to have directions repeated to him in order to get his work done. With the information that I observed and the symptoms that I learned about in my Child Psychopathology class with Dr. Sanders, I am wondering if this student has ADHD. I will need to observe both children again in a different setting to further understand their behavior routines.
While I was observing the 5th grader, her teacher pulled me into the hallway and informed me that a different student had reported being bullied by his classmates. I talked to the student and tried to get as much information about the bullying as I could. I remembered that both Professor Servoss and Dr. Lopata had expressed the importance that good rapport has when talking with a student. I did the best I could to make him feel comfortable with me even though I was such a new face for him. I reported the bullying incident to Mr. Merrick, the school counselor. He told me that if I wanted to, I could handle this case. I plan on talking with the teachers in which he reported bullying during class and seeing if they have noticed anything inappropriate. I also plan on talking to some of the students and asking them if they have noticed this student having any problems with other students. Based on their responses (both the students and the teachers) I will make a judgment as to which course of action I should take next.
Deletions:
Revision [2209]
Edited on 2011-10-20 11:49:05 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 4- October 20, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Things at practicum today seemed to start off well. Sometime after I left on Tuesday and before I arrived here today there were about 4 or 5 garbage bags full of donations for the food pantry. I spent the first few hours of my day separating the male clothes from the female clothes and folding them. I then went on to sort them by size (small, medium, large) for each gender. I now have a fairly solid foundation for this pantry. When this was done, I walked around the school and collected the 6 students who are attending the grief counseling sessions on Thursdays. During the meeting, I made phone calls to local agencies requesting more information for our resource center and to have some of the agencies come into the school and do workshops with our students encouraging healthy life choices.
The second half of my day was spent putting together the student resource center binder. All of the pamphlets and articles that I have received thus far were hole punched and placed into their individual section. The next step is to compose a list of all of the agencies in each section so that making contact with the agencies can be done quickly and efficiently when necessary.
Things at practicum today seemed to start off well. Sometime after I left on Tuesday and before I arrived here today there were about 4 or 5 garbage bags full of donations for the food pantry. I spent the first few hours of my day separating the male clothes from the female clothes and folding them. I then went on to sort them by size (small, medium, large) for each gender. I now have a fairly solid foundation for this pantry. When this was done, I walked around the school and collected the 6 students who are attending the grief counseling sessions on Thursdays. During the meeting, I made phone calls to local agencies requesting more information for our resource center and to have some of the agencies come into the school and do workshops with our students encouraging healthy life choices.
The second half of my day was spent putting together the student resource center binder. All of the pamphlets and articles that I have received thus far were hole punched and placed into their individual section. The next step is to compose a list of all of the agencies in each section so that making contact with the agencies can be done quickly and efficiently when necessary.
Revision [2208]
Edited on 2011-10-19 22:21:54 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 7- October 18, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
This morning started out like every other day at practicum, I made phone calls to contact more agencies and began physically putting together the binder for the student resource center. I labeled dividers that corresponded with the table of contents. Next, I took any brochures that had already been dropped off at the school and placed them in the binder in their respective section.
The most exciting and time consuming part of my day was when I met with Dr. Duffy to come up with an intervention strategy for a student that he tested at the end of last week. Dr. Duffy had performed a Brown- Peterson test on this 7th grade student. This is designed to test working memory. I learned about working memory in my assessment class last year. Working memory is when information is stored and one moves onto another activity and then later recalls the original information given. The amount of given to perform a different task is gradually extended (beginning with 0 seconds, then 3 seconds, then 9 seconds, etc.). Dr. Duffy also performed the WISC IV, which tests one’s ability to use symbol search and coding. Symbol search and coding is something that again, I have learned about in my assessment class. If a student has issues with their working memory, their symbol search score should be higher than their coding score. Coding would be lowered if a student has to constantly keep looking up at the key, rather than doing things such as looking back earlier in the sentence, or even remembering certain symbols. The student Dr. Duffy tested is 2 standard deviations below the mean in regards to mathematics. In everything else (writing, English, etc.) she scored close to the mean or even 1 standard deviation above the mean. This student had a score of 53 when it came to applying problems. It does not get much lower than that.
Dr. Duffy asked me to come up with an intervention procedure to help this 7th grade girl. It was so cool to have to think like a school psychologist and create a treatment (something that I had done in my school psychology class but it was different knowing this was a real situation). After much discussion with Dr. Duffy, I had come up with a list of things that need to happen in order to help this student. First, she needs a lot of repetition of her basic calculations to make her fluent. Right now, she has the same skills as a 1st or 2nd grader. By teaching her basic calculations, her cognitive capacity is not spend doing basic calculations, but instead she can focus more of her time doing problem solving. A good way to help her with this is by using flashcards. Dr. Duffy explained to me that this student should be getting about 80% of the pile correct in order to positively reinforce her. Another thing that this student should have is a calculator on exams. This will allow her to get her calculations done more quickly. However, this would mean that the student needs extra time to complete her exams because she will be using her calculator to do simple calculations, which other students will know without using the calculator. This will slow her down throughout the exam. Because this student is so far behind, she will need to be linked to an outside agency in order to get her tutoring. Her teachers should focus more on giving her visuals when presenting math problems, rather than verbal directions for her to follow.
Implementing an intervention was so exciting. There were so many angles that I had never thought of prior to the treatment. I am looking forward to doing more.
This morning started out like every other day at practicum, I made phone calls to contact more agencies and began physically putting together the binder for the student resource center. I labeled dividers that corresponded with the table of contents. Next, I took any brochures that had already been dropped off at the school and placed them in the binder in their respective section.
The most exciting and time consuming part of my day was when I met with Dr. Duffy to come up with an intervention strategy for a student that he tested at the end of last week. Dr. Duffy had performed a Brown- Peterson test on this 7th grade student. This is designed to test working memory. I learned about working memory in my assessment class last year. Working memory is when information is stored and one moves onto another activity and then later recalls the original information given. The amount of given to perform a different task is gradually extended (beginning with 0 seconds, then 3 seconds, then 9 seconds, etc.). Dr. Duffy also performed the WISC IV, which tests one’s ability to use symbol search and coding. Symbol search and coding is something that again, I have learned about in my assessment class. If a student has issues with their working memory, their symbol search score should be higher than their coding score. Coding would be lowered if a student has to constantly keep looking up at the key, rather than doing things such as looking back earlier in the sentence, or even remembering certain symbols. The student Dr. Duffy tested is 2 standard deviations below the mean in regards to mathematics. In everything else (writing, English, etc.) she scored close to the mean or even 1 standard deviation above the mean. This student had a score of 53 when it came to applying problems. It does not get much lower than that.
Dr. Duffy asked me to come up with an intervention procedure to help this 7th grade girl. It was so cool to have to think like a school psychologist and create a treatment (something that I had done in my school psychology class but it was different knowing this was a real situation). After much discussion with Dr. Duffy, I had come up with a list of things that need to happen in order to help this student. First, she needs a lot of repetition of her basic calculations to make her fluent. Right now, she has the same skills as a 1st or 2nd grader. By teaching her basic calculations, her cognitive capacity is not spend doing basic calculations, but instead she can focus more of her time doing problem solving. A good way to help her with this is by using flashcards. Dr. Duffy explained to me that this student should be getting about 80% of the pile correct in order to positively reinforce her. Another thing that this student should have is a calculator on exams. This will allow her to get her calculations done more quickly. However, this would mean that the student needs extra time to complete her exams because she will be using her calculator to do simple calculations, which other students will know without using the calculator. This will slow her down throughout the exam. Because this student is so far behind, she will need to be linked to an outside agency in order to get her tutoring. Her teachers should focus more on giving her visuals when presenting math problems, rather than verbal directions for her to follow.
Implementing an intervention was so exciting. There were so many angles that I had never thought of prior to the treatment. I am looking forward to doing more.
Revision [2195]
Edited on 2011-10-14 07:20:37 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
The last five hours at practicum I spent traveling up and down Delaware Avenue visiting agencies and collecting pamphlets and information for our resource center. These agencies were more than willing to help and were very excited to hear about such a wonderful opportunity for these high risk students. Unfortunately, I did not make it to as many agencies as I had hoped that I would so I will be continuing to visit agencies within my next few days at practicum.
Day 7- October 13, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today at practicum, there was a lot of small tasks that needed to be accomplished. I began my day by printing a 15 page list of food pantries in the Western New York area. It took a significant amount of time to find a working printer and I needed to make multiple copies. The lists were distributed to Dr. Duffy (school psychologist), Mrs. Ali (school social worker), and Mr. Merrick (school counselor). Next, I went to the classrooms and picked up the students who were going to be involved in the grief support group. Dr. Duffy said that food is a good motivator so I brought a box of Tim Horton’s doughnuts with me. This could be positively reinforcing for the students to continue coming to the meetings if they like doughnuts. If they do not like doughnuts, it could be negatively reinforcing.
Because I am an undergraduate student, I was not allowed to sit in on the grief counseling meeting. During this time, I made a few phone calls to agencies that we have received some brochures from. One of the agencies had noted that they do various workshops within the schools. I called this agency to collect some more information about what types of workshops they had as well as when they would be available to come into our school. They do workshops in things such as hygiene, prevention of STI’s and HIV, and relationship problems. Their goal is to make students more aware of these things, and to help them to avoid negative situations involving them. Another thing that was mentioned was a summer youth employment program. This program runs from the end of June until August. It provides students with a place to go and something constructive to do during the summer months. It also allows them to make money which is a huge motivator for these high risk students. I asked for times that they would be available to come into our school and relayed the information on to Dr. Duffy to set up with the principal and administration.
My afternoon was spent in a Community Activities Organization (CAO) meeting. This agency is federally funded in order to help take care of the Buffalo community. This includes providing families with their basic needs: food, water, shelter, and clothing. They also have numerous connections with other agencies to provide other academic and extracurricular services. They do things such as reading programs and college preparation programs to help high school students with their college application and scholarship process. If the CAO does not have a program for a specific need, they have many connections with other agencies that can help the individual. This is exactly what I am trying to set up in our student resource center. Becoming involved with this agency could be extremely beneficial in helping me to establish connections with other agencies for the resource center.
Day 7- October 13, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today at practicum, there was a lot of small tasks that needed to be accomplished. I began my day by printing a 15 page list of food pantries in the Western New York area. It took a significant amount of time to find a working printer and I needed to make multiple copies. The lists were distributed to Dr. Duffy (school psychologist), Mrs. Ali (school social worker), and Mr. Merrick (school counselor). Next, I went to the classrooms and picked up the students who were going to be involved in the grief support group. Dr. Duffy said that food is a good motivator so I brought a box of Tim Horton’s doughnuts with me. This could be positively reinforcing for the students to continue coming to the meetings if they like doughnuts. If they do not like doughnuts, it could be negatively reinforcing.
Because I am an undergraduate student, I was not allowed to sit in on the grief counseling meeting. During this time, I made a few phone calls to agencies that we have received some brochures from. One of the agencies had noted that they do various workshops within the schools. I called this agency to collect some more information about what types of workshops they had as well as when they would be available to come into our school. They do workshops in things such as hygiene, prevention of STI’s and HIV, and relationship problems. Their goal is to make students more aware of these things, and to help them to avoid negative situations involving them. Another thing that was mentioned was a summer youth employment program. This program runs from the end of June until August. It provides students with a place to go and something constructive to do during the summer months. It also allows them to make money which is a huge motivator for these high risk students. I asked for times that they would be available to come into our school and relayed the information on to Dr. Duffy to set up with the principal and administration.
My afternoon was spent in a Community Activities Organization (CAO) meeting. This agency is federally funded in order to help take care of the Buffalo community. This includes providing families with their basic needs: food, water, shelter, and clothing. They also have numerous connections with other agencies to provide other academic and extracurricular services. They do things such as reading programs and college preparation programs to help high school students with their college application and scholarship process. If the CAO does not have a program for a specific need, they have many connections with other agencies that can help the individual. This is exactly what I am trying to set up in our student resource center. Becoming involved with this agency could be extremely beneficial in helping me to establish connections with other agencies for the resource center.
Deletions:
Revision [2184]
Edited on 2011-10-07 07:41:03 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 6- October 6, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today at practicum, a vast majority of my day was spent visiting various agencies on Delaware Avenue collecting information about their agency for our student resource center. When I first arrived at practicum, I tracked down the students who I had given permission slips to for our grief counseling group starting next week to try and collect any that were signed. Only one person had gotten their parents signature and returned it to the office. For everyone else, I handed them new permission forms in case they lost or misplaced their original and reminded them that they must be turned in before Thursday. Next, I went back to my office and sorted four bags of clothing donations that had been made by teachers. It was a great feeling as I was sorting them to know that I had helped make it possible for students in need to receive the clothing.
The last five hours at practicum I spent traveling up and down Delaware Avenue visiting agencies and collecting pamphlets and information for our resource center. These agencies were more than willing to help and were very excited to hear about such a wonderful opportunity for these high risk students. Unfortunately, I did not make it to as many agencies as I had hoped that I would so I will be continuing to visit agencies on Tuesday.
Today at practicum, a vast majority of my day was spent visiting various agencies on Delaware Avenue collecting information about their agency for our student resource center. When I first arrived at practicum, I tracked down the students who I had given permission slips to for our grief counseling group starting next week to try and collect any that were signed. Only one person had gotten their parents signature and returned it to the office. For everyone else, I handed them new permission forms in case they lost or misplaced their original and reminded them that they must be turned in before Thursday. Next, I went back to my office and sorted four bags of clothing donations that had been made by teachers. It was a great feeling as I was sorting them to know that I had helped make it possible for students in need to receive the clothing.
The last five hours at practicum I spent traveling up and down Delaware Avenue visiting agencies and collecting pamphlets and information for our resource center. These agencies were more than willing to help and were very excited to hear about such a wonderful opportunity for these high risk students. Unfortunately, I did not make it to as many agencies as I had hoped that I would so I will be continuing to visit agencies on Tuesday.
Revision [2182]
Edited on 2011-10-04 20:23:37 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 1- September 13, 2011 9:30 to 11:30 AM (2 Hours)
Day 2- September 22, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 Hours)
Day 3- September 27, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 Hours)
Day 4- September 29, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Day 5- October 4 , 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today was the first day that I had any real “hands on” experience in school psychology. Before today, every day that I had been here Dr. Duffy had been called away on an emergency situation. Today, Dr. Duffy and I went through some student files to determine which students need a more recent psych evaluation. Their files had all of their results from prior testing dating back to their preschool years (many of the students are juniors and seniors now). Tests that were commonly used in their psych evaluations were the Stanford Binet and the Bayley Infant Development Scale. These are two tests that I learned about in my Behavioral Assessment class with Professor Servoss. Dr. Duffy and I discussed which percentile these students ranked according to their test scores. This related back to what I learned in Professor Servoss’s class when we discussed standard deviation from the mean and percentiles when conducting psychological testing. One of the students was labeled “LD” for learning disabled. Dr. Duffy went on to explain to me that in over half of the cases that he sees of students labeled LD that he sees, those students also suffer from lead poisoning. High levels of lead poisoning can lead to different learning disabilities. This is a problem that students in the suburbs are not faced with. Those houses have either had the lead based paint removed or the houses are newer and that type of paint was never used in the houses. Students in the city are exposed to this at a very young age and it causes many different behavioral difficulties as well as learning disabilities.
Dr. Duffy opened my eyes to how all of the risk factors that the students at schools such as International Prep hinder them from having the same educational opportunities that suburban students have. Even though many years ago in Brown v. Board of Education it was ruled that separate was not equal, in today’s society we are still very much separated. The urban kids and the suburban kids do not go to the same school. As a result things are still not equal. The conditions that the urban kids go to school in is much different that the conditions that the suburban kids go to school in. This does not give them the same opportunity to succeed as the suburban kids have. He explained to me the continuum of education opportunities. It brought to life many issues that I had never considered or realized until they were brought up today. Children who have above average IQ are segregated from students with lower IQ by sending them to schools such as City Honors. Children who have slightly above average IQ but are not quite as intelligent as the students who attend City Honors and are extremely well behaved are sent to other schools such as Da Vinci. Students with slightly lower IQ are sent to charter schools. The students that are left who have below average IQ, high risk factors, parents that are not very strong advocates are all placed in schools such as International Prep. How is this a fair system?
I finished my day by looking through the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Buffalo and Erie County book and making contact with more local agencies in order to gather information to add to our resource center.
Day 2- September 22, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 Hours)
Day 3- September 27, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 Hours)
Day 4- September 29, 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Day 5- October 4 , 2011 8:00- 3:00 PM (7 hours)
Today was the first day that I had any real “hands on” experience in school psychology. Before today, every day that I had been here Dr. Duffy had been called away on an emergency situation. Today, Dr. Duffy and I went through some student files to determine which students need a more recent psych evaluation. Their files had all of their results from prior testing dating back to their preschool years (many of the students are juniors and seniors now). Tests that were commonly used in their psych evaluations were the Stanford Binet and the Bayley Infant Development Scale. These are two tests that I learned about in my Behavioral Assessment class with Professor Servoss. Dr. Duffy and I discussed which percentile these students ranked according to their test scores. This related back to what I learned in Professor Servoss’s class when we discussed standard deviation from the mean and percentiles when conducting psychological testing. One of the students was labeled “LD” for learning disabled. Dr. Duffy went on to explain to me that in over half of the cases that he sees of students labeled LD that he sees, those students also suffer from lead poisoning. High levels of lead poisoning can lead to different learning disabilities. This is a problem that students in the suburbs are not faced with. Those houses have either had the lead based paint removed or the houses are newer and that type of paint was never used in the houses. Students in the city are exposed to this at a very young age and it causes many different behavioral difficulties as well as learning disabilities.
Dr. Duffy opened my eyes to how all of the risk factors that the students at schools such as International Prep hinder them from having the same educational opportunities that suburban students have. Even though many years ago in Brown v. Board of Education it was ruled that separate was not equal, in today’s society we are still very much separated. The urban kids and the suburban kids do not go to the same school. As a result things are still not equal. The conditions that the urban kids go to school in is much different that the conditions that the suburban kids go to school in. This does not give them the same opportunity to succeed as the suburban kids have. He explained to me the continuum of education opportunities. It brought to life many issues that I had never considered or realized until they were brought up today. Children who have above average IQ are segregated from students with lower IQ by sending them to schools such as City Honors. Children who have slightly above average IQ but are not quite as intelligent as the students who attend City Honors and are extremely well behaved are sent to other schools such as Da Vinci. Students with slightly lower IQ are sent to charter schools. The students that are left who have below average IQ, high risk factors, parents that are not very strong advocates are all placed in schools such as International Prep. How is this a fair system?
I finished my day by looking through the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Buffalo and Erie County book and making contact with more local agencies in order to gather information to add to our resource center.
Deletions:
Day 2- September 22, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Day 3- September 27, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Day 4- September 29, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM (6 hours)
Revision [2177]
Edited on 2011-09-29 12:01:16 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 1- September 13, 2011 9:30 to 11:30 AM
Day 2- September 22, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Day 3- September 27, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Day 4- September 29, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM (6 hours)
Today at practicum, I continued to gather contact information for the resource center project. This took up a big part of the day because there are so many local agencies and I want to be sure to contact as many as possible. After lunch, I sat in on a life skills class that Ms. Patterson’s 5th grade class was having. Before the class began, I was not sure what to expect. The first thing that Ms. Patterson did was pick a “Superstar” for the week. This is someone who did something nice such as helping an old lady with her groceries or helping mom hand wash the dishes. The superstar received extra attention and was invited to an ice cream social at the end of this semester. These were both considered positive reinforcement (where something is added to a situation in order to increase certain behaviors) which I learned about in my Behavior Modification class. Ms. Patterson used two acronyms throughout class: BTB, which stood for “Be The Best” and SWAG, which stood for “Sweating, Working, and Achieving Goals. At first when she asked her students (whom she referred to as Team Patterson) if they had swag, I thought that she was talking about slang. Later on in the lesson, she said what SWAG stood for. It was remarkable to see her teaching the students such positive and uplifting things but still relating to them and making connections with them. Throughout the lesson she used words that they frequently say such as fly or hatin’ or calling some boy students “mah man”.
The life skill that Ms. Patterson emphasized the most was self-esteem. She told the kids to create an imaginary bucket that they will carry with them everywhere they go everyday. This bucket gets filled with self- esteem whenever they receive a compliment. When one gives a compliment, they fill their bucket and their friends bucket (again, this is positive reinforcement). Unfortunately, there are some individuals who are dippers. Dippers are people who have low self esteem and try and empty your bucket by saying mean things. This would be negative punishment because the mean words are being added in order to decrease someone’s self- esteem. To try and fill each others’ buckets, the class did an exercise where they had to write 5 great things about their neighbors. Again this is positive reinforcement because you are adding compliments in order to increase self- esteem. The class finished with a rap about self- esteem that all of the students enjoyed singing. It was such a great experience to sit in on. These kinds of things would be considered primary intervention because Ms. Patterson is trying to stop negative behaviors before they occur.
After Ms. Patterson’s life skills class, I distributed permission forms to 10 students throughout the building. These forms were to allow students who have suffered the loss of a loved one recently to join a Hospice group that comes to the school and helps them try to deal with their grief. I will be sitting in on the meetings when this group meets for 1 hour every Thursday starting in a few weeks. Hopefully these meetings will help me to understand different strategies to help children and adolescents who are grieving or going through difficult times.
Day 2- September 22, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Day 3- September 27, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Day 4- September 29, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM (6 hours)
Today at practicum, I continued to gather contact information for the resource center project. This took up a big part of the day because there are so many local agencies and I want to be sure to contact as many as possible. After lunch, I sat in on a life skills class that Ms. Patterson’s 5th grade class was having. Before the class began, I was not sure what to expect. The first thing that Ms. Patterson did was pick a “Superstar” for the week. This is someone who did something nice such as helping an old lady with her groceries or helping mom hand wash the dishes. The superstar received extra attention and was invited to an ice cream social at the end of this semester. These were both considered positive reinforcement (where something is added to a situation in order to increase certain behaviors) which I learned about in my Behavior Modification class. Ms. Patterson used two acronyms throughout class: BTB, which stood for “Be The Best” and SWAG, which stood for “Sweating, Working, and Achieving Goals. At first when she asked her students (whom she referred to as Team Patterson) if they had swag, I thought that she was talking about slang. Later on in the lesson, she said what SWAG stood for. It was remarkable to see her teaching the students such positive and uplifting things but still relating to them and making connections with them. Throughout the lesson she used words that they frequently say such as fly or hatin’ or calling some boy students “mah man”.
The life skill that Ms. Patterson emphasized the most was self-esteem. She told the kids to create an imaginary bucket that they will carry with them everywhere they go everyday. This bucket gets filled with self- esteem whenever they receive a compliment. When one gives a compliment, they fill their bucket and their friends bucket (again, this is positive reinforcement). Unfortunately, there are some individuals who are dippers. Dippers are people who have low self esteem and try and empty your bucket by saying mean things. This would be negative punishment because the mean words are being added in order to decrease someone’s self- esteem. To try and fill each others’ buckets, the class did an exercise where they had to write 5 great things about their neighbors. Again this is positive reinforcement because you are adding compliments in order to increase self- esteem. The class finished with a rap about self- esteem that all of the students enjoyed singing. It was such a great experience to sit in on. These kinds of things would be considered primary intervention because Ms. Patterson is trying to stop negative behaviors before they occur.
After Ms. Patterson’s life skills class, I distributed permission forms to 10 students throughout the building. These forms were to allow students who have suffered the loss of a loved one recently to join a Hospice group that comes to the school and helps them try to deal with their grief. I will be sitting in on the meetings when this group meets for 1 hour every Thursday starting in a few weeks. Hopefully these meetings will help me to understand different strategies to help children and adolescents who are grieving or going through difficult times.
Deletions:
Day 2- September 22, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Day 3- September 27, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Revision [2176]
Edited on 2011-09-29 11:30:37 by MelanieLaFornaraAdditions:
Day 1- September 13, 2011 9:30 to 11:30 AM
The two biggest projects I will be working on this semester are configuring attendance statistics (using SPSS which I used in my Basic Statistics class and in my Behavioral Assessment class) and to create a resource center for the students of International Prep. Attendance has been a major issue in the Buffalo Public Schools for quite some time now. When the children show up to school, generally they do very well. The issue is that they do not see school as a priority so they do not show up. The second project, which I will be focusing more heavily on, is setting up a student resource center. I will be contacting local agencies requesting information about various concerns students may have. For example, if a student comes in wanting more information on substance abuse, we will have put in place a number of different local agencies where the student can go and get help. I am looking forward to working on this project this semester. Dr. Duffy emphasized how excited he is for this project and explained to me how many other people have begun this in many different districts, but thus far no one has finished because of the amount of work involved. I am ready for the challenge!!
Day 2- September 22, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Day 3- September 27, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Today, my entire day was spent organizing the student resource center project. After much discussion as to what the best format would be, the other two interns and I finally agreed on one. We wanted something that would be easy to use and understand, and something that changes can be added after the center is in place. Dr. Duffy suggested we use schemas (which I learned about in Cognitive Psychology) when creating our table of contents and separating our topics. I began making our categories too specific rather than making them broader and then having subcategories within them.
We brainstormed topics that students at International Prep are at high risk for (i.e. sexual abuse and trauma, domestic violence, housing and living assistance, employment readiness, etc.). Each topic will have its own binder and will be accompanied by a list of different agencies as well as their contact information. To make this organized, the topics will be organized alphabetically. I composed an e-mail that I will send to numerous local agencies requesting information and brochures. The more in depth I got into this project, the more questions I had and the better I understood why no one has ever completed this project. It takes an enormous amount of time and dedication, something that school psychologists do not have a lot of. I am so honored to be able to create such a valuable resource for not only the Buffalo School District, but many other local districts as well. Dr. Duffy told me that many administrations are aware of this project and have already requested copies of what we create.
The two biggest projects I will be working on this semester are configuring attendance statistics (using SPSS which I used in my Basic Statistics class and in my Behavioral Assessment class) and to create a resource center for the students of International Prep. Attendance has been a major issue in the Buffalo Public Schools for quite some time now. When the children show up to school, generally they do very well. The issue is that they do not see school as a priority so they do not show up. The second project, which I will be focusing more heavily on, is setting up a student resource center. I will be contacting local agencies requesting information about various concerns students may have. For example, if a student comes in wanting more information on substance abuse, we will have put in place a number of different local agencies where the student can go and get help. I am looking forward to working on this project this semester. Dr. Duffy emphasized how excited he is for this project and explained to me how many other people have begun this in many different districts, but thus far no one has finished because of the amount of work involved. I am ready for the challenge!!
Day 2- September 22, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Day 3- September 27, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM
Today, my entire day was spent organizing the student resource center project. After much discussion as to what the best format would be, the other two interns and I finally agreed on one. We wanted something that would be easy to use and understand, and something that changes can be added after the center is in place. Dr. Duffy suggested we use schemas (which I learned about in Cognitive Psychology) when creating our table of contents and separating our topics. I began making our categories too specific rather than making them broader and then having subcategories within them.
We brainstormed topics that students at International Prep are at high risk for (i.e. sexual abuse and trauma, domestic violence, housing and living assistance, employment readiness, etc.). Each topic will have its own binder and will be accompanied by a list of different agencies as well as their contact information. To make this organized, the topics will be organized alphabetically. I composed an e-mail that I will send to numerous local agencies requesting information and brochures. The more in depth I got into this project, the more questions I had and the better I understood why no one has ever completed this project. It takes an enormous amount of time and dedication, something that school psychologists do not have a lot of. I am so honored to be able to create such a valuable resource for not only the Buffalo School District, but many other local districts as well. Dr. Duffy told me that many administrations are aware of this project and have already requested copies of what we create.
Deletions:
The two biggest projects I will be working on this semester are configuring attendance statistics and to create a resource center for the students of International Prep. Attendance has been a major issue in the Buffalo Public Schools for quite some time now. When the children show up to school, generally they do very well. The issue is that they do not see school as a priority so they do not show up. The second project, which I will be focusing more heavily on, is setting up a student resource center. I will be contacting local agencies requesting information about various concerns students may have. For example, if a student comes in wanting more information on substance abuse, we will have put in place a number of different local agencies where the student can go and get help. I am looking forward to working on this project this semester. Dr. Duffy emphasized how excited he is for this project and explained to me how many other people have begun this in many different districts, but thus far no one has finished because of the amount of work involved. I am ready for the challenge!!
Day 2- September 22, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM (6 Hours)
Day 3- September 27, 2011 8:00- 2:00 PM (6 Hours)
Today, my entire day was spent organizing the student resource center project. After much discussion as to what the best format would be, me and the other two interns finally agreed on one. We wanted something that would be easy to use and understand, and something that changes can be added after the center is in place. We brainstormed topics that students at International Prep are at high risk for (i.e. sexual abuse and trauma, domestic violence, housing and living assistance, employment readiness, etc.). Each topic will have its own binder and will be accompanied by a list of different agencies as well as their contact information. To make this organized, the topics will be organized alphabetically. I composed an e-mail that I will send to numerous local agencies requesting information and brochures. The more in depth I got into this project, the more questions I had and the better I understood why no one has ever completed this project. It takes an enormous amount of time and dedication, something that school psychologists do not have a lot of. I am so honored to be able to create such a valuable resource for not only the Buffalo School District, but many other local districts as well. Dr. Duffy told me that many administrations are aware of this project and have already requested copies of what we create.
