Practicum Reflection
For my practicum, I became a tutor for a program called Lakeland STARS. This program is coordinated through a partnership between the City of College Park Youth, Family & Senior Services; Pain Branch Elementary School; and College Park Scholars. Students from the local elementary school come to the University of Maryland one day a week for 2.5 hours. About an hour and 15 minutes is homework time and the next 45 minutes is free time to engage with other tutors and fellow tutees in fun activities. We mainly focus on reading and math since these are the kids’ main struggles.
I found out about Lakeland STARS through a UMD Staff member who came and talked to our Media scholars’ class. I then had to apply online and after consideration, I was one of the students chosen to become a tutor. I joined my first semester of my freshman year and have been with the organization ever since. The set up has changed a bit because of COVID, but the coordinators did a really good job working around it and we are now tutoring over zoom for an hour and a half every day. I would highly recommend joining this program as soon as you can. If you want to use it as your practicum, you must do two semesters and it is quite competitive to get into. However, even if you don’t want to use it as your practicum, the people who volunteer there are all very friendly and it is a great, welcoming environment which can give you a place to belong, which can be hard on a big campus.
From this practicum, I have gained valuable experience working with children. While I have worked with children in the past, this was a very different setting and was great practice for working with a large group of kids indoors. I can take this into consideration when choosing whether I want to work with kids in my future profession.
I feel like I have grown a lot, not only as a student, but as a person, in the past two years I have been in scholars and with Lakeland STARS. Being a tutor in Lakeland STARS means you are a role model and you have to not only encourage your student but set a good example. Having to step into that role has really helped me grow as a person. Also, the past two years in the scholar’s program has helped me grow as a student by teaching me a lot about media. We have learned all the tricks in how to decipher the messages in media and watch out false information. As my practicum project, me and my fellow scholar and tutor, Maddie Burns, decided to bring our Media scholars knowledge to our practicum by putting together a presentation about media and presenting it to the tutees. The presentation is shown below.
I found out about Lakeland STARS through a UMD Staff member who came and talked to our Media scholars’ class. I then had to apply online and after consideration, I was one of the students chosen to become a tutor. I joined my first semester of my freshman year and have been with the organization ever since. The set up has changed a bit because of COVID, but the coordinators did a really good job working around it and we are now tutoring over zoom for an hour and a half every day. I would highly recommend joining this program as soon as you can. If you want to use it as your practicum, you must do two semesters and it is quite competitive to get into. However, even if you don’t want to use it as your practicum, the people who volunteer there are all very friendly and it is a great, welcoming environment which can give you a place to belong, which can be hard on a big campus.
From this practicum, I have gained valuable experience working with children. While I have worked with children in the past, this was a very different setting and was great practice for working with a large group of kids indoors. I can take this into consideration when choosing whether I want to work with kids in my future profession.
I feel like I have grown a lot, not only as a student, but as a person, in the past two years I have been in scholars and with Lakeland STARS. Being a tutor in Lakeland STARS means you are a role model and you have to not only encourage your student but set a good example. Having to step into that role has really helped me grow as a person. Also, the past two years in the scholar’s program has helped me grow as a student by teaching me a lot about media. We have learned all the tricks in how to decipher the messages in media and watch out false information. As my practicum project, me and my fellow scholar and tutor, Maddie Burns, decided to bring our Media scholars knowledge to our practicum by putting together a presentation about media and presenting it to the tutees. The presentation is shown below.
I uploaded this project because this is how we brought our cumulative knowledge about media that we have learned through the past two years into our practicum. We were able to pass on some of our knowledge to our tutees by giving them the basics of what media is and how to use it responsibly. This presentation puts a lot of key information we have learned in Media scholars and condenses it into a short presentation that is easy to understand.
I can apply this experience to my future career as an occupational therapist. If I decide to do pediatrics, I can take the experience I have gained doing this as my practicum and carry it with me into that setting.
After scholars, I plan to continue to be a tutor at Lakeland STARS and maybe try to become a student coordinator. I plan to complete my bachelor’s degree in psychology on the pre-Occupational Therapy tract and then continue onto Occupational Therapy school. I am not yet sure if I want to work in pediatrics, but whether I do or not, this experience was unforgettable.
I can apply this experience to my future career as an occupational therapist. If I decide to do pediatrics, I can take the experience I have gained doing this as my practicum and carry it with me into that setting.
After scholars, I plan to continue to be a tutor at Lakeland STARS and maybe try to become a student coordinator. I plan to complete my bachelor’s degree in psychology on the pre-Occupational Therapy tract and then continue onto Occupational Therapy school. I am not yet sure if I want to work in pediatrics, but whether I do or not, this experience was unforgettable.