To: Baird Daniel

From: Guillermo Tello

Date: December 2, 2018
Re: Reflection on Direct Service

Before starting my service project at Kearns Jr High I talked to stephanie about what are some of the
objectives that we will finish and what are some of the math subjects we might be tackling, she wasn't
to sure about the math subjects that we might be working on but she said that we are there to assist
Mrs. Healton during Flex Time. So once we were about to start are tutoring I was pretty nervous about
tutoring because this was a new experience for me and didn't know how I was going to be helping the
student exactly. Mrs. Healton asked us that during the students “Flex Time” they had the choice to play
games, sports, or work on something that they were struggling like math, reading, science , english and
history. This gave the opportunity for the students who needed the help to catch up with the rest of the
class; their was also some student that had to go and ask for help since they were slacking the most. It
was these student that we had to tutor the most and to show them it can be easy if you become
interested in the subject.

The behavior of the students:

Once we were settled in and had an understanding on how the flex time works. I noticed that Kearns Jr
High wasnt that much different from my jr high school which was Granite Park Jr High. Some of the
similars were too many students who didn't care about learning and only went to school to talk to
friends and to goof off and not showing respect for the teachers and for other students who want to
learn. Too many student like this can be very overwhelming for the teacher, so at times the students felt
like they were in charge and so sometime the teacher struggled to teach them. There were definitely
some smart students who fully understood the questions and subjects but they didn't talk too much, it
was probably because the other students made it seem that being smart and raising your hands to
answer the question and being helpful to the teacher was uncool, they also want to fit in and didn’t
want to cause any trouble. When tutoring one on one with the student who didn’t want learn I realized
that they knew how to do the most of the work but they didn't want to ask for help. Some struggled
because their english wasn't to good so I usually helped the spanish speaking students. Connecting with
some of the student helped how they acted and I noticed that some students behaviors change
overtime, like some of the students who would never raise their hands did and knew who to explain the
problem.

How my service-learning connected to my learning at class:

Mrs. Healton never understood why a college english class would find and relate to the english class, she
said maybe the reading classes but not the math classes, she was still happy that we were there to help
her with the classroom and students. William who also attend the tutoring at Kearns Jr High had a lot of
experiences on how to teach students and at the being he was like my mentor, since he was pursuing to
become a teacher for his career and had tutored before the service-learning, he showed me how to
properly teach some students. I knew the math but teaching them was difficult for me since I didn't
understand why the student didn’t understand it. After I figured out how to properly teach the students
it felt really good to see them understand something that I taught them. One of my major goal was to
teach them to solve the questions without relying too much on the calculators. Seen william and I
noticed that teacher made the students rely too much on calculators and this made some student only
understand the question with a calculator but without it they had no clue in where to start; step by step
we helped them understand the subject with a clear understanding.

At the end I understood why Mrs. healton thought that tutoring kids math didn't relate too much to
technical writing but there was some relations like critical thinking and social networking. The service
learning helped me understand the importance of helping others and to feel like you have contribute
and the feeling of personal sense of accomplishment; building a better person in yourself and creating
positive mindset. This was a great experience for me and really encourages me to participate in other
types of volunteering services like maybe sports, physical training,Coding or teaching chess they are
some the things i like to do and wouldn’t mind help others.