My Practicum

For my Practicum I worked as a Lakeland STARs tutor. Lakeland STARs is a program where students in College Park Scholars tutor students from Paint Branch Elementary School. Once a week tutors and students, which are referred to as "tutees", meet at Centreville Hall after school. Once all of the tutors arrived there were tutor announcements. We then met the tutees as they got off the bus and once everyone was inside there were tutee announcements. Each pair of tutor and tutee then worked on the tutee's homework. The homework was usually math, reading and writing, or mandarin, because Paint Branch is a Chinese immersion school. We would work on homework for about an hour. Every week there were two journal prompts for the tutee. After journal time we all took part in an activity. Activities included thera-play, capstone projects, free time, and art projects. My first semester in STARs was on Wednesdays and I was paired with a quiet fourth grader who was new to the program. My second semester was on Thursdays and my tutee was a rambunctious second grader who came on both days. There was an orientaion at the beginning of each semester, tutor in-service in the middle, and a pizza party and raffle at the end. Working with these kids has taught me a lot and I plan to continue with Lakeland STARs for as long as I can.