Yikes! With the rush of the Holidays, I somehow forgot to post about all my December happenings. For starters, I put out my December Newsletter- this time focusing on Internet Resources for Career/College planning, ideas for those who hope to apply to Ivy League schools, and Q & A on Transcripts. Again, feel free to share you ideas for making Career/College Prep newsletters easier!
Also this month, we received our Sophomores' Act PLAN results. I was encouraged by a colleague to teach a brief class to the students on how to read those reports. After some hesitation due to time constraints, I decided to give it a try and I am SOOOO glad that I did. While it took most of an entire day, I was able to meet with ALL of my 10th grade students and answer their questions. I love having the opportunity to put a name with a face, talk about career interests, and help them plan for the future. It is a reward to see the "light bulb" go on over their heads. Here is the presentation I used to present my lesson on the ACT Plan score report (adapted fromhttp://www.act.org/plan/downloads.html):
As for December Advisory time, here are my favorite lessons that I either created, found, or adapted. Hope these help someone else there!
December 12: Lesson on Learning Styles and Studying for Mid-terms:
December 5: Who Gets Accepted (a great lesson on college admissions from college board):
December 6: Story Corps (a lesson with a video that: 1) teaches that everyone has a story, 2) teaches the importance of listening, 3) teaches how to conduct an interview and/or how to be interviewed, and builds relationships within the Advisory group.) The Story Corp website is filled with a variety of short interviews and animations on a variety of topics.
Here is this month's parent/student newsletter for Freshman and Sophomore parents. I have struggled with deciding "what" to put in each newsletter. For those of you who are also starting monthly newsletters, I thought I would elaborate on what I hope will be my "regular" sections.
One idea came from my student meetings. At my Freshman and Sophomore meetings I made students fill out an "exit ticket" where they wrote down questions they had regarding graduation, GPA, testing, college, etc. I now use those exit tickets to create a column in each newsletter titled: Student Questions and Answers. Each month I try to focus on a different category of questions. This month I focused on GPA questions.
In addition, I almost always include some sort of college prep time line. I often use www.collegemapper.com as a resource for this section. They always have unique ideas and suggestions as well as the usual, "keep your grade up; visit colleges." What resources do you use for keeping your students and parent informed? Leave your suggestions in the comments section.
Another section I have begun to include came to me after talking to a recent high school graduate. As a current college athlete, he stated that he wished someone had told him in high school to begin taping his games. I included that tip in last month's newsletter, but have started to include a section on what to do NOW if you have specific college goals. This month's section is on planning to go to Art School.
As always, I am looking for new and unique additions, so feel free to share your newsletters, ideas, and resources. Working together, we can help our students, and perhaps make that job a bit easier!
This week the Counseling Office is buzzing with the details of College Application Week. While some Seniors are frantically filling out applications, editing essays, and hunting down letters of recommendation, others completed the process weeks ago.
In an effort to prepare the current Freshmen and Sophomores for the future hustle of College Applications, I created this Advisory lesson to give them exposure to what all is involved in the College Application process:
9th-10th grade: Lesson: What Does it
Take to Apply to College
Goals:
·All students will become familiar with the college application
process before SENIOR year.
·Students will become aware of the importance of maintaining the
highest possible GPA and class rank, performing well on the ACT/SAT, and
getting involved in extracurricular activities.
Click here for the link to the Prezi on What is on the Common
Application:
In honor of World Kindness Day on November 13, I created the following bulletin board:
Our middle and high school students seem to love bulletin boards that are interactive. Plus, by having them leave something behind, you have an idea of how many people actually read the board! Now there's some data!
I am sure most of you would be surprised to find a High School Counselor creating a lesson on "How to Write a Letter/Address an Envelope". Yeah. Me too. However, it became obvious that out high school students needed a "refresher" on this life skill... and since it was going to be taught during advisory, the lesson fell to me. The middle school counselor and I decided to tie this life skill into our recent K-12 Activity Day to give "purpose" to the lesson. So after searching Prezi and after a lot of tweaking, here is the lesson I created (click on the photo):
I love the Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) movement. I firmly believe that by helping others we help ourselves lead a more meaningful life. RAK ties right into our school's mission of Character, Community, and Challenge. Therefore, I cannot wait for our school to celebrate World Kindness Day on Nov. 13. Here is the lesson I sent out to our high school advisories this week in preparation:
One of the requests from our administration this year has been to create monthly Guidance Newsletters for our specific grade levels. As someone who LOVES the chance to create, I jumped on this idea. I have found that this is an excellent way to connect with parents and keep my students informed. Here's a copy of this month's newsletter:
One of the reasons I was selected to move to the high school level was because of my experience organizing our middle school advisory program. Of course, this was put at the top of my list: High School Advisory. Because this is the first year that our school has incorporated a DAILY advisory class, our administration would very much like to see it succeed. One of the ways that I try to support our staff is by sending daily Advisory activities. Staff are not required to complete the given activity, although most staff do utilize the plans. I have learned that most staff resistance to advisory is due to "not having time to plan for advisory." I love that I am able to take this burden away!
I figured that I am not the only person out there attempting to come up with Advisory lesson geared for High School Students. With that in mind, I decided to share my activities.
A couple of notes:
The high school staff came up with a "daily theme" to help drive the activities of advisory. These themes were based off our school improvement plan and other areas of needed improvement. In general the days are:
oMonday- Academic Advising and Silent Reading or Study Hall- Advisors will meet with student individually for grades check, profile building, etc. while all other students read or complete homework silently.
oTuesday-Service Learning-Advisory groups will create a service learning project specific to their group.
oWednesday-Current Events/Topic Time- This will be student-led* discussion/activities, possibly choosing a current event to discuss.
oThursday-College/Career Prep- Activities will rotate from practice with SAT/ACT questions to having each teacher become an expert on a particular college who will share with each group.
oFriday- Character Clips- Students will watch a brief clip on TED or Youtube and discuss.
Our goal is for the majority of these activities to be STUDENT LED. This is a work-in-progress. To get the program off the ground, the first six weeks of advisory were staff led. My first step in making the transition was to create a Student Advisory Council. We meet weekly to discuss concerns, solutions, and future lessons. I have even had a few students step up to the plate and begin creating lessons for Wednesdays' Advisories. What a relief for me and an awesome opportunity for them!
So here are this week's Advisory Lesson. Be sure to leave a comment giving feedback and sharing ideas!
Advisory Week
October 28
Monday:
Silent Study Hall/ Academic Advising: I have received
a request for a lesson on goal setting in regards to grades.
9th & 10th
Advisories: Ten Years From Now Using the handouts:
go through this on-line presentation with your students: Click
Here
10 Years from Now:
Learning Goals:
·To explore students’ dreams about the future and what they
envision to be the details of their lives ·To develop an understanding about how much income will be required
to maintain an idealized lifestyle ·To prepare for a discussion on education and career opportunities
and choices
based off a lesson: Thinking of Yourself as a College-Bound Student by www.ecmfoundation.org:
Friday-
Film Clips: Watch: Lunch
ScholarClick on the link. This will open up a Google Doc Presentation. Click on the button at the top RIGHT of the screen that says “Present” or your movie will not play. Following the video have your group try to answer the “5th Grade Questions”.
In October, I decided to have a Sophomore Meeting with all of my 10th grade students. Since I had not personally counseled them the year before, I had no idea what they might have already known about Graduation Requirements and College Planning. Using my 9th grade presentation as a template, I edited out the GPA parts, added in info about Transcripts and came up with this presentation:
I ended up running out of time during the meeting, so I was unable to have my students log on to the computers and create accounts. Instead, I gave them each a challenge to create a CFNC account and to complete one of the sections under My Profile. Now I just have to wait to see who all rises to the challenge!
In September, I held a Freshmen meeting to discuss graduation requirements, GPA, and college planning. In preparation, I ran across a prezi created by Talani Nelson in Florida. I loved her lay out and her ideas of making the presentation interactive. After tracking her down, Talani was kind enough to also share her worksheet with me which she used with her students. Utilizing her ideas and my own meeting goals, I recreated her presentation and edited her worksheet to meet my student needs. (BTW if you have never used prezi.com I hihgly recommend it as a way to view and share presentations. There are LOTS of great ideas on there!) Here is a link to the presentation:
Following the presentation, I then began meeting with EVERY 9th grade student. Now this idea I found on pinterest posted by JYP Counselor- called minute meetings with a tech spin. I will admit that my meetings took more than a minute, but I did ask more questions than she did with elementary school students. I also used her idea of using a Google doc to log all the info. I LOVE data and this was a fun and easy way to keep it all together. I HIGHLY recommend using the Google form.
After twelve years of counseling elementary and middle school, I made the plunge this year into the unknown world of High School. For years, the thought of high school counseling made me twitch. The attitudes, drama, academic advising, scheduling, testing, college prep, etc. made me nervous. Although now that I think back on it, I imagine that I was just afraid of the unknown. After all, didn't I do most of these same things at the lower levels? With the support and conviction of my fellow counselor, I requested to move to the high school level.
A little bit about me: For the past ten years, I have worked as the middle school counselor at a K-12 school in North Carolina (I worked as an elementary counselor in Florida in years prior.) and I have loved almost every minute of it. It is a small-ish school and so I have been able to build personal relationships with many of my students and I can honestly report that I know 95% of them by name. Having the opportunity to follow my previous students played a big part in deciding to transition out of middle school. You know- it's always easier to counsel kids you like! :)
Another big part was my desire to change. While I loved middle school, I felt stagnant. I suppose ten years will do that to a person. I was ready for a new challenge; something to make me feel creative and professionally alive!
Well, I certainly got a challenge! Around the same time that I was offered the position as 9th & 10th Grade Counselor, it was also revealed that none of my other colleagues would be returning for the school year. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. However after lots of prayer and "counseling" I discovered that it was my calling to take on this new challenge.
Now, three months into the school year I know that I made the right decision. The past three months have been a whirl-wind of learning and pushing myself professionally. I know that I still have a lot to learn, but am thrilled at the challenge.
This blog is my collection of thoughts, ideas, and lessons on counseling 9th and 10th grade students. I hope that perhaps it will help others out there who are in the same boat, but it is also a place for me to keep track of what has worked and what has failed. Please do not hesitate to email me if I can help you in any way.
