Archive for the ‘Service Learning in Teacher Education’ Category
On January 17, days ahead of the National Day of Service, ASPIRE members traveled to A.I. duPont Middle School to interact with a group of about 50 middle and high school families. Sharing wisdom about what their parents did when they were in middle and high school that helped them secure a seat at UD, Kevin Nai, Kerrianne Rojas, Lorene McCoy, SaiSri Gajjala, Arpita Mandel, Quindara Lazenbury, Anh Nguyen, and Stanley Anderson held the audience rapt. According to Redclay’s Director of Title 1 programs, this kind of interaction brings reality to the day-to-day decisions that parents often make in supervising homework and planning for how their students will remain engaged in academic preparatory activities during the summers. Engagement was a key theme of the presentation, as noted by Melva Ware, ASPIRE Director, college planning begins with conversations between students and their parents.
On November 30, Newark and Cab Calloway high school students celebrated with their ASPIRE mentors to close a successful fall semester. The party was held in one of the Trabant Center meeting rooms. The high school students were very proud to share poster sized copy of the handouts that they used in introducing their learning skills workshops to their peers at Newark High School. Kayla Griffin, pictured third from left, joined the Newark students during the summer to help them develop messaging and images to launch the ASA club. Kayla is a sophomore at Cab Calloway, a local high school for the arts. 
The ASPIRE mentors were especially pleased to have the opportunity to introduce the high school students to the next group of ASPIRE leaders. UD teacher education majors, Tatiana Burgess and Gemelle John, joined the ASA support team at the beginning of the fall semester, and both are assuming leadership roles in ASPIRE and will serve as officers-elect in spring 2013.
Lorene McCoy and Camille Fontenelle have also accepted spring 2013 leadership roles in ASPIRE. Stay tuned in January for a full introduction of the 2013-14 leadership team.
Good luck with exams, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!!!!!
On Saturday December 1 2012, the ASPIRE community joined forces with McNair, SSSP, and NSBE to host a college and career planning event for high school families. Undergraduates stepped up, by taking responsibility to coach individual students in writing their college essays and developing personal resumes. The students will interact again by email in mid-January when the high school students will mail drafts of their essays to their undergraduate coaches. There will be opportunities for additional face-t0-face interactions in June 2013 when the campus student community will support this group of students in a week-long college application and scholarship application completion “boot camp.” Undergraduates who enroll for the first summer session in Public Policy and Leadership in Education UAPP 467 will have opportunities to engage with the On Track for Success students in a course that focuses on policies and practices guiding national concerns for increasing college access and completion rates in the U.S.
The On Track for Success students are 11th graders at Newark High School. Several of them participated in summer 2012 in an academic leadership camp led by ASPIRE officers. The high school students developed workshops that they are now sharing with their peers at Newark HS. On Saturday, ASPIRE leaders beamed as their mentees gave an impromptu presentation on their summer 2012 work. The group ended their presentation by sharing their mantra : Good Better Best, Never Let It Rest, Until Your Good is Your Better and Your Better is Your Best!!!!!!! 
Never Give It A Rest*Until Your Good is Your Better*And Your Better is Your Best
Congratulations ASPIRE Summer Research Fellows: Katie Kull, Sai Gajjala and Kevin Nai. Their presentation on August 9th concluded the first phase of the launch of the new ASA program for high school student academic leaders at Newark High School.
All Students Aspire: Peer Learning Strategies to Improve Efficacy
The Newark HS students will share their work with their peers through three workshops: 1)Time Management, 2) Note-taking, 3)Study Strategies. These sessions were developed with support from the ASPIRE research team and will be conducted at the high school as gatherings of students who are approved as peer tutors to meet students who want to improve their academic profiles in various courses.
The undergraduates’ summer research focused on strategies for improving self-regulated learning, and their work with the high school students students challenged them to shape practices consistent with the ideas of theorists who advocate the importance of the development of personal confidence and efficacy.
ASPIRE officers Katie Kull, Sai Gajjala, and Kevin Nai were joined on Monday June 25th by 10 eager high school students who will launch the ASA (Junior ASPIRE) program at Newark High School in the fall. The Newark students include Genovieve Arango, Kevin Cramer, Rebecca McLaughlin, Lacey Morris, Lucila Sandoval, Zanieca Scott, Shanika Stanley, Alexus Walker, and DayQuan Wallace. Kayla Giffin, a theater major at Cab Calloway high school, also joined the group to assist with planning for marketing the program in the fall. The Newark students are working to develop workshops on Time Management, Study Strategies, Reading and Note-taking Strategies that they will present to peers in the fall, as the major component in the launch of a peer tutoring program. The ASA students are emerging Academic Leaders, and they are interacting during their campus experience with established student leaders at UD from SSSP, McNair, and the ASPIRE programs.
The group stopped enroute to the library on their first day on campus to pose for this picture. The program will conclude on July 10th, and the students will preview their workshops for invited guests.
All Students Aspiring (ASA) will launch this spring at Newark High School in the Christina School District. ASA is a high school student led initiative that is connected to ASPIRE, and ASA will replicate the ASPIRE leadership structure. ASA leaders, like ASPIRE leaders, will host learning mastery workshops for their peers. They will also mount a campaign to have students sign up to work as peer tutors.
Three Undergraduate Research Fellows Sought for Leadership of Summer Program
Program Dates: June 6 – August 9 (Selected Weeks)
These positions are supported by the Office of Undergraduate Research and Experiential Learning. Summer Fellows will have a guided research experience. They will also work with students who are identified as the first leaders for the emerging ASA program at Newark High School. The Undergraduates and the High School Leaders will design activities that will be implemented during the 2012-13 school year. The Summer Fellowship Stipend is $1,300.
Email mware@udel.edu for additional information and to receive the application materials. All applications are due by April 26, 2012.
Lawrence “Mr. Bain” Manley (Junior English Education major), Elvio Diaz (Senior Accounting major), Elise Jackson (Senior English Education major) and Teresita Mariano (Senior English Education major) reconnected with students from Bayard Middle School, during the 54th Annual College Night at UD’s Bob Carpenter Center on Tuesday October 25, 2011. Bain, Elvio, Elise, and Teresita have spent summer semesters involved in research and experiential learning projects at the Wilmington school. 
Congratulations to Sharline Derosier and Rachelle Bull, 2011-12 recipients of Hearst Scholarships. These awards are reserved for the two senior education majors who have been active in ASPIRE and who have cumulative grade records of 3.5 or higher.
ASPIRE members will welcome freshmen and other campus members who are interested in getting involved during opening activities scheduled for the week of September 5th. Check the Get Involved Calendar for details. ASPIRE President Quindara Lazenbury and the Officers have planned an interesting semester of meetings and workshops that include sessions on Integrating the Arts into Learning Activities, Making the Right Impression: Mock Job Interviews, Achieving Success with ALL Students and much, much more.
A record number (19) of ASPIRE members and supporters has already signed up to support the organization’s outreach and service work. The College Awareness Reaching Everyone (CARE) 2011-12 workshops for vulnerable middle and high school students will begin in late September. Check the Get Involved page for details. For information on joining the ASPIRE program, contact mware@udel.edu.
Business Major and ASPIRE Member, Elvio Diaz, Works with Bayard Middle School Students in the 2011 Summer College Awareness Session
On January 17, days ahead of the National Day of Service, ASPIRE members traveled to A.I. duPont Middle School to interact with a group of about 50 middle and high school families. Sharing wisdom about what their parents did when they were in middle and high school that helped them secure a seat at UD, Kevin Nai, Kerrianne Rojas, Lorene McCoy, SaiSri Gajjala, Arpita Mandel, Quindara Lazenbury, Anh Nguyen, and Stanley Anderson held the audience rapt. According to Redclay’s Director of Title 1 programs, this kind of interaction brings reality to the day-to-day decisions that parents often make in supervising homework and planning for how their students will remain engaged in academic preparatory activities during the summers. Engagement was a key theme of the presentation, as noted by Melva Ware, ASPIRE Director, college planning begins with conversations between students and their parents.
