This week of March 18-24th
This was the week of WRITTEN COMPS!!! I was stressful trying to prepare for written comps but I was able to get through it and I am glad its over! I know I have 2 weeks to find out about my results but I'm still feel a sense of relief.

At work we only had a 3 day week because of parent teacher conference, so work was great and flew by really fast!

This week at work was all about preparing for this program we have on Tuesday called the Beyond the Bell showcase. This program gives students a change to show off everything they have learned in their beyond class. The showcase is great program that gets parents involved and lets students broadcast their talents.

We also had a staff meeting Friday. One thing in the staff meeting that I found was interesting was that my supervisor asked for feedback from us as employees. I thought that was a great thing to do because feedback allows you to grow. My boss taught me a valuable lesson about not being afraid to take constructive criticism even when your the boss. There is allows room for improvement. I learned that this week at work.

Week of March 11th-17th

This week was a lot of fun! It was the week of the inauguration so JMU had lots of events on campus. I had a great week at work. I only worked 3 days out of the week because we had an early release day on Tuesday.

In my Explore class I got a chance to teach students communication skills. As RAOS ambassadors they had the opportunity to learn the do's and dont's's of proper public speaking. They created speeches about how the RAOS ambassador course has made them a better leader and what they like most about the class. I really enjoyed students present their speeches on Wednesday. I witnessed the shyest students step out of their shell and present their speeches really well. The speeches were really touching. Based on the speeches students seemed to really enjoy the RAOS ambassadors course. It feels really good know that students actually took something away from the class.


In my basketball beyond course students went over basic basketball fundamentals. Students also got a chance to scrimmage each other, that was a lot of fun to watch. I wish I had more time to work with students individually. To help build their confidence. Having a Beyond once a week is really difficult. Students lose motivation and forget the aspects of last week class.

Team leaders also had a school dance to chaperone Friday, that was a lot of fun. It was funny to see how students are still in that awkward middle school phase where they don't want to dance but they kind of want to.

Overall great week. I would not change anything. I am busy working on my critical review, preparing for a presentation Monday, working on a consulting project and studying for written comps on Friday. I'm really glad that I am halfway through my last semester at JMU!!! its kind of bitter sweet.

The week of February 25th and March 4th 

My mom birthday was February 25th she turned 63!!! I wasn't able to go home during the week but I did send her a gift in the mail about a week prior to her birthday she really enjoyed it!

At work during the week of February 25th we had our usual day of RAOS. I assist students with their homework and then we have our fun time or an explore or beyond class. This week we were trying to enforce the growth mindset in students. The grown mindset program is a program that we have in place that gives team leaders a chance to teach students how to develop their brain by studying. This growth mindset program also tries to make students believe that can really grow their brain. Students in middle school have a hard time realizing some of the things they can do in life. A lot of students knew that the brain is a muslce but they don't understand the concept of making your brain smarter by studying and learning in different ways. 

During this week we taught students about different learning styles and showed them a video about how the brain grows and what things your need to make it grow (water, food and rest).  I also taught students in my RAOS ambassadors class what to do during public speaking. Students became really engaged as I showed them videos with good and bad public speaking examples. Students now have the task to create their own speech about the some of the things they learned from the RAOS ambassadors class and present it to the class. I really wish we had more time to work with the students a little more during the RAOS ambassadors course. This week was a lot of fun. I also got to teach basketball fundamentals with my beyond students.  Right now we are trying to determine what would be the best possible incentive or trip that will align with the basketball beyond course. We usually take all of the students on a field trip once they complete the 8 week Beyond course. Since basketball season is over we won't have an opportunity to go to a basketball game on the JMU campus. Right now we are determining what would be the best fit for the students in the basketball beyond class.

This week during March 4th
We got a lot of SNOW!!!!!This week was a lot of fun. I was a little nervous about being stuck in Harrisonburg but I took a chance Wednesday afternoon and drove home to Richmond. I only went to work twice out of the week. We didn't have wednesday to work because of the snow and we were already off thursday and no staff meeting friday.

I thought I wasn't going to see my family during spring break because the students at the middle school still had school. But because of the snow I was able to go home.