Independent Component 1

• LITERAL
  (a) Write: “I, Daisy Torres, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 33.5 hours of work.”

• (b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component.

"A Positive Approach to Teaching Negative Numbers | Scholastic.com." Scholastic Teachers. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2015.

Apart from that article that really narrowed things down and put the topic into perspective, both of my mentors, Mr. Ball and Mrs. Johnson also helped me find new ways to teach. 

• (c) Update your hours in your Senior Project Hours link. Make sure it is clearly labeled with hours for individual sessions as well as total hours.

I have my hours updated and you can see those through my blog. 

• (d) Explain what you completed. 

Through my independent component I completed hours or service and helping kids as well as the teachers with the stuff I could handle in class I also learned new methods and taught myself, with help, how to teach a new subject to a group of elementary school children. 

• INTERPRETIVE 
  Defend your work and explain its significance to your project and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  
  

I feel like my independent component is significant because it actually was teaching me how to apply myself when teaching. My whole senior project and answers are based around how to teach and why certain methods are better than others. By me getting prepared with research and by helping the teachers I was able to teach a lesson with a lot of confidence. Not only did I do work while at mentorship but also on my spare time by just observing small things such as how children learn to read. I feel like I truly gained a lot from this experience and I already have plans for my second component. 

• APPLIED
  How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate this. 

This component helped me understand my topic foundation better because I actually had to go out and dig for answers on my own, not just by interviews. It was a real life experience that I didn't just read about in an article. During my teaching I realized that sometimes it's very hard for a teacher to get to all the questions because you have to focus on the needs of the whole as well as the individual. While I executes the lesson I had been planning for I would have 4 kids with their hands up at a time, and by knowing the children I would know who to go to first and answer their question. I also came to find that relationships with students are very one on one and you build a personal relationship that allows you to understand each of them better. I feel like my first answer really came out of my time with my mentor because I would see the struggle when a student couldn't remember how to do a certain step. I hope that the rest of my time there will be just as insightful.