Thursday, May 31, 2012

Senior Project Reflection

1. What I am most proud of about my senior project is that I now have much information and better idea of what I will be getting myself into once I start my career as a psychologist.

2a. I personally think I deserve a CR, because after looking at my presentation after I was done I saw that I could have had more sources throughout my presentation and talked more about the research that I have done. I also should have talked more for each of my answers.

2b. On my overall senior project I would give myself at least a P, because I completed and turned in all the interviews, blogs, research counts, etc. on time so I have nothing missing even though a lot of times I had to force more time into my day because I was so busy to be able to complete everything that was required.

3. What worked for me in my senior project were my independent components, which were Peer Mediation. This worked for me because it was almost directly related to how a psychologist has to be with their patients, and I really like that I was able to do this because it was during school so I  didn't have to cram more work outside of school into my already busy schedule.

4. I don't think the Towers really helped much, if at all, because we already had our articles/research in our WB so we could always refer back to that if we needed to, and honestly, I think it was a waste of paper/ink.

5. Like I said, I now have much more information about what type of work a psychologist does, and thanks to my 3rd and 4th interview, Mrs. Tocco, she gave me an insight to the type of work I'll be doing once I become a psychologist based on her experiences and from what she has told me.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Service Learning

Log of Hours

       Throughout service learning, I worked along side with Jo with Mrs. Ortega as our supervisor, and in the beginning of service learning our focus was to create lesson plans and presentations so that we can go present them to Golden Springs Elementary School. The first lesson we created was on bullying (I couldn't pout the power point on here, so if you want to see it just tell me and I'll show you); we chose this as a topic to present to the students because not only were they having trouble with this issue at the time, but because it also ties in with psychology. Bullying is something that is common for a psychologist to be approached for among children, as well as teenagers, and for a psychologist to be successful then they need to be able to know how to approach these cases. In the Bullying presentation we let the students tell us what they though was considered as bullying, then we gave them examples of what is considered bullying, we showed them the differences in bullying between boys and girls, and we gave them suggestions on what to do if they were being bullied. We also handed out some bullying pamphlets I created that has links about bullying so if they ever want to learn more.
        As a follow-up lesson we chose to do the lesson on Conflict. For this lesson we didn't have a power point, we explained to them what types of approaches to conflict there were, and we handed them a worksheet with the explanations so they can have them as well and on the back we gave them a sheet where they can see for themselves what they tend to do when confronted with a conflict :




We also read to them a few scenarios of conflicts and the students say which type of conflict they thought was used. A few examples of some types up scenarios we read:


After we finished presenting to all the fifth grade classes, we put our focus to coming up with a video that showed an introduction to conflict. We came up with the whole script ourselves:   (click here for script) the video is still being edited, but will most likely be put online once it's done.

             The most important thing I gained from my service learning is that, while we were presenting to the students at Golden Springs Elementary, it gave me the opportunity to observe how children in particular react when meeting someone new that is put in place of their teacher. For example, we went in and stated teaching and presenting to them, something which normally their own teacher would do, I got to see how each child reacted to us being their and how their reaction matched their personality. For a psychologist, it's important to see what kind of personality a person has immediately because then they can change their approach to them, and the initial approach to a patient is excruciatingly important because this helps establish a sense of trust and comfort-ability between psychologist and patient. Having a successful initial approach helps bring a more successful recovery for the patient, which in turn implies that the psychologist was successful as well. 
            During a few of the conflict presentations, a couple of the students asked for advice on what is best for them to do to resolve a conflict, and by using the information that I've learned while creating the lesson both me and Jo were able to answer them. 

 

Monday, May 7, 2012

Room Creativity

Activity for Answer 2:
Ink Blot:
For this activity I plan to show pictures of ink blots like those used in psychology sessions, I'll show them on the projector and I'll have the groups come up with what they think the picture is, and based on that they'll come up with which part of the brain came up with that emotion. For example, if someone saw a picture of a monster, monsters are associated with fear, and fear is associated with the Amygdala part of the brain. We'll all talk as a group about what and why they think they saw what they did.

Room:
Because I'm going to talk about the brain, I'll have pictures of brains and the specific parts that I'll talk about around the room. Other than that I'm going to 'Try' to make the room as calm looking as possible because it's very important to have a calm environment while in therapy.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Independent Component 2

Independent Comp. 2 Calendar

I Griselda Solis affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work. Throughout 2nd semester, I have been going to my elective which is Peer Mediation, and we have been working on mediation; mediations are what we do whenever two people are having some type of conflict but can't resolve it themselves. What we as mediators do is have both people tell their part of the story and throughout the mediation attempt to come up with an agreement that both parties will be happy with. This relates to my senior project because these mediations are very similar to what a psychologist does, they try to help their patients with their problems and just with a psychologist, whoever we mediate and whatever is said during the mediation is completely confidential. And in psychology confidentiality is a very important factor because if confidentiality is broken then that psychologist will lose their license.
During Peer Mediation we have simulations of mediations, so we get into groups and we 'mediate' each other with made up scenarios, this gives us practice for whenever we would have an actual mediation.
Aside from my elective, I also have been taking notes on books or movies that have to deal with psychology, for example one book I have read is called Why Gender Matters by Leonard Sax. This book was really helpful for me because it explained how females and males are different in every aspect, like in the brain, how we hear things, see things, etc. and this is something that is very important to know for anyone that wishes to be a psychologist because this better helps them treat their patients; which also helps them become more successful.


BOOK: Girls Against Girls (Notes)





BOOK: Why Gender Matters (A few notes)


Our personal overview of Peer Mediation:


Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Helping 2013

I interviewed Edwin Rubio on April 25, at 12:40 pm.

First "tip" or suggestion I gave was when doing his interviews next year try to get them all recorded, first ask the  interviewee if it's ok with them, then record it.

1. What ideas do you have for your senior project and why?
- Edwin: I have ideas to get my computer, like computer projects.
   ME: What types of computer projects?
   Edwin: Like Binary and inside software

Feedback:
  Ok, when working with computers, try to find something specific; so don't just say 'computers.' If you know a specific type of software then you can work from that. This also helps when you're writing out your EQ

2. What do you plan to do to complete the 10 hours of service learning which is due prior to senior year starting?
-  Edwin: I have a friend that works with computers and he fixes computers and he said he was going to help me do it, so I'm going to work with him.
   ME: When do you plan on starting?
    Edwin: I already asked him and he said that whenever I can I''l just give him a call.
   
Feedback:
 Oh ok that's great, just try to start as soon as possible, so as soon as you can. And if it's possible with whoever works there and with your friend, try to make sure, or to establish if it's ok for you to do your service learning there for the additional 50 hours. And it's great that you already have a place where you can start, because that is something that some people have trouble finding, or they'll think they have a place where they can do their 50 hours but after a while it's not what they needed or it doesn't help them, so they need to keep looking and sometimes it's really hard to find someone that will agree. And if you let a lot of time pass without working on your hours, then it will be really hard to catch up on your hours.

3. What do you hope to see or to expect to see when watching the class of 2012 present their two hour presentations?
- Edwin: Umm, I just want to see something about computers or robotics.
   ME: What about presenting wise? Like ideas you might see during the presentation that you think you can use.
   Edwin: Umm, activities and things like that to interact with them and show what I'm doing and not just give like a two hour talk

Feedback:
It's a good idea to look for things like that and for an activity especially for the two hour. Throughout the year we have a 5 minute presentation, we have a 20 minute, and then the 2 hour, plus other presentations in between' and for me it's been kind of hard to find an activity because I'm doing psychology and it's hard finding a good activity with that. So try write down anything that you think can work with or help you with your presentation.

4. What questions do you have about senior project?
-  Edwin: One thing I was thinking about, and you kind of already answered it, was do I have to keep talking to the people for the whole two hours or can I do activities and other things?
   ME: Oh no, you don't have to be talking for the whole two hours, for the two hour presentation you have to make 30 minutes of talk time, if you don't make the 30 minutes talk time then you'll have to re-do your presentation and you run the risk of not walking at graduation. The rest of the time can be taken up with your activities. There's also a talk time expectation for you 20 minute presentation.
    Me: Do you have any other questions about the projects we have, or anything else?
    Edwin: Well I just had a question about the projects that are already in there like to see if there was someone else doing something like what I wanted to get an idea.
     ME: In our class?
     Edwin: Yeah                                Feedback Also
     ME: Hmm, I can't think of someone right now, but actually if you give me your email, and if I do find someone that has something similar to yours then I'll email it to you and if I find any information that I think can help you then I'll send it to you. And also another thing, any research that you do, or if your doing research on it right now, keep it and save the link because that research can help you with your research checks that we have. So you're going to be doing weekly research on you topic, and any information that you're getting now, can help you with the number of required articles that you have to have.