Dillon

Biography
Hey my name is Dillon and this is my final year at Gleneagle. I'm so excited that I will finally be graduating this year, and will be done with school... well for a while that is. I plan on going to BCIT studying to become an electrician. I tend to spend alot of my time working which is a real pain, but I find the money is worth it. The times that I'm not working I am usually hanging out with my friends doing the most random things. Cooking is also one of my favourite things as well, my friends really seem to like it cause there never hungry when there over.

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Ok so in all fairness I had no clue what to expect from this course. I was assigned to a math 9 essentials class taught by Ms.Vassen. She is probably the most patient teacher I have ever meet. That class problematic to say the least, they show little to no respect to ms.Vassen which is annoying, and shocking. At first I also thought that the math they were leaning was annoying by how basic it was but grew into it. The most interesting thing I think about this class is the way its taught.... through games which is pretty awesome.=====

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I've gotten pretty use to being in this class and it had been going pretty well for the most part. But when food was brought into the class to help teach the lesson simply it was anarchy. Because they weren't able to behave themselves they now have to be taught with a simple lesson and worksheets instead of games which is a lot easier to control. So were now going to work on worksheets for a while and possible go back to games.=====

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been working on worksheets for the past couple of weeks and nothing new has happened. I do feel comfortable in the classroom, though one of the greatest challenges I have faces is remembering the names of all the students. I have helped one or two students one on one away from the class and have noticed significant improvement when away from their peers.=====

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we started to go back into games this week and it was a bit loud. It started to get really bad when it got closer to the end of the week and it seemed nearly impossible to get any work done. Peer tutoring is meaningful to me because it creates an opportunity for me to help and better other students in their understanding of math. Having to be a peer tutor has changed the way you have to act in class. You become a role model and have to behave constantly. You also have to insert yourself into the work that other students are doing and make sure that they understand what they are working on. =====

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In class some students had gotten 50 points in games so the were aloud a game day. After completing a worksheet we played games and timbits were handed out as well as doughnuts for the winners. It seems that the class isn't able to function with a more open experience and care free learning environment. The class will be going back to a lesson then worksheet class before long. I felt confident in my peer tutoring class when people ask me answer a question and I am able to explain it. I am able to explain an answer in different ways and able to find different solutions. I feel this way because I understand the content of the course and very little is a surprise to me.=====

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 In class the students have been working on fractions, decimals, and percents. They started off with the typical circle diagram and colored them. The students cut them out and that helped with adding and subtracting fraction. It seemed as though the hardest part of the 3 topics were fractions. It was hard for them to grasp the unusual concept on when to change the numerators and denominators. The class seems to be rowdy as usual and very little has changed it’s always the same people messing around. No matter how we place the trouble makers they always burst out and throw things at people but its mainly food. i believe they should be disciplined more. =====

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A joyful event is when we started to work on taxes and personal living. There were a lot of questions of how work hours operated minimum wage, how old you had to be to legally work, ect. I was much joyed when I was able to answer all of their curious little questions about work and where I worked. A student in the class had just got her first job and was ecstatic about it. She seemed to be the one that was most absorbed in the unit and wanted to know every little detail. It seemed as though he questions wouldn’t stop. I feel proud to be a peer tutor because I can see when I help a student understand a complex question like how to calculate federal and provincial taxes, especially when I see how troubled they were at first.=====

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My ideals on how a student should work does somewhat reflect in how I peer tutor. I believe a student should first attempt a question before they ask for help and review their notes, and pay attention when they ask for help. I do rely on my personal goals, experiences, and beliefs. I still hold the students to be polite when asking for help and make sure to pay attention when they get it. One student often asks for help and I am often reluctant to help him because he neither pays attention when the lesson is taught or when he is getting extra help. I find it really hard to help students that are that disrespectful.=====

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Over the last 2 weeks we have been learning about surface are and perimeter, and one thing I believe to have done a good job at is to relate it to real life for some students so they are more interested in what they are learning. Another thing I believe I have started to do well is get Connor to stay on task. I have started sitting beside him so that he is more focused and he gets his work done sooner, though he still fools around sometimes. One thing I wish to improve on is having more leniencies towards some students who just don’t understand the criteria. I have come close to reaching my limits with a student who says I have to help him when he first ignores the teachers group lesson several individual and my own. Since we are working with area perimeter, and surface area the students were lucky, and got to make a scale drawing that got made into ginger bread and was then assembled. It was interesting to see how they had turned out.=====