Blog 10: Senior Project Update

(1) What are you currently doing in your independent component? 

I have found the CPR/First AID class I want to take, it costs a bit of money, but I think it'll be fun. The class is on Saturdays, so I'll probably go and do it in a few weeks. I've contacted the people for the  BASIC program, but they haven't really gotten back to me, so I plan on calling them soon.

(2) What is a recent piece of research that have you reviewed you would say was significant in helping you understand where to go next in your senior project? 

I think the teachers at the Day care I volunteer at are a great help in giving insight on these to research. Basically, my experience during my volunteer hours are research to me, and if I ever need to go into depth with something, I go online and search it. For example, a while ago we were having a lot of trouble with the kids not listening to us and going off doing their own thing - we still sometimes have this problem - so I went online and looked for ways to help them calm down and listen to the teachers - and it did help a bit.

(3) Provide evidence from your independent component or the piece of research as something you recently did.  

I have some photos from my volunteer service, but not from my actual independent component. A good piece of research concerning how to deal with problematic children from article 32 on my WB. It said that the best way to deal with misbehaving children is to either ignore their bad behavior, because if you don't pay attention to it, then they will eventually stop. Another way is to use a time-out method. This method shows them that what they are doing is unacceptable and will not be allowed. But you must always warn them before, and if they don't stop, then you proceed to put them in time-out in a uninteresting place that will not distract the child.

Blog 5b: Science Fair Proposal

1. What is your topic?

Child Care

2. What is the driving problem behind your experiment and the quote by an expert to support that problem? (Expert citation must be MLA format.)

Problem: Lack of quality providers in daycares.
"Her travails began with a well-regarded day care center near her suburban New Jersey home. On the surface, it was great. One staff member for every three babies, a sensitive administrator, clean facilities. "But when I went in," Frank recalls, "I saw this line of cribs and all these babies with their arms out crying, wanting to be picked up. I felt like crying myself." She walked out without signing Isaac up and went through a succession of other unsatisfactory situations -- a babysitter who couldn't speak English, a woman who cared for 10 children in her home at once -- before settling on a neighborhood woman who took Isaac into her home. "She was fabulous," Frank recalls wistfully. Three weeks after that babysitter started, she got sick and had to quit."
Quote from: 
Zinsmeister, Karl. "The Problem with Daycare." Thelizlibrary.org. The American Expertise, May-June 1998. Web. 8 Nov. 2012.

3. What is your hypothesis? (Must be in If-Then form.)

If the amount of experience a child care provider has is higher, then the likelihood of the child being more stable at home is higher.

4. Write a paragraph summary of how you will perform the experiment.  Include the tools you plan on using.

In order to do this experiment, I will need to have a survey asking child care providers to answer a few questions regarding the amount of years they have worked under the child care field and the kind of experience they have. I would have another survey that would measure the stability of the child at home, I will use a survey already created by other scientists in order to help me on this part. Another survey would be used to find out the satisfaction of the parents upon sending their child to that daycare.

5. Select one of the following Project Categories for your experiment:

Behavioral/Social Science

Blog 9: Working EQ and Possible Answers

(1) What was the working EQ you used during your presentation?

"How can a child care provider ensure an emotionally and physically healthy child?"

(2) Did you decide to revise your working EQ after your presentation? If so, write your revised EQ here.  If not simple write "I am not going to revise my EQ at this time".

I am not going to revise my EQ at this time.

(3) What are possible answers to your current working EQ? 

• Providing the safest and most secure environment in which the child can explore their surroundings without any trouble.
• Constant communication with the child.
• Meeting their needs in a constant manner.

Blog 8: Rough Draft of Presentation 1

Google Doc of 10 Minute Presentation Lesson Plan

Revised

Final

Blog 7: Independent Component 1 Plan Approval

(1) Write a description of what you plan on doing for your independent study component.

I plan on taking a CPR and First AID class for infants and children, which will only take about 6 of the 30 hours. So for the other 24 hours, I plan to contact my local community center who currently has a "Parent and Me Fun Time" program and ask them if it would be possible for me to sit in and watch, or if I could volunteer there by doing any odd jobs. I also want to contact an after school program called BASIC, that watches over children before and after school.

(2) Describe in detail how you think your plan will meet the 30 hours work requirement.

Well, the CPR and First AID class will take about 6 hours. For the Parent and Me class, they have a session   from December to January, and they meet every Friday for about an hour everyday. So that would be about 4 hours. The BASIC program has a session in December and another in January, each a week long. Both sessions are also during Winter Break, so if I volunteer all days from 6 am to 6 pm, I will get 12 hours in one day, but that could easily be split up into days of 4-6 hours, and I will get the other 20 hours in about 5 days.

(3) How does your independent study component relate to your working EQ?  

It relates to my working EQ because it will help me see different environments in which children grow up in, and how those environments affect them. It'll show me how different people react to a child's behavior and how to reprimand them or encourage them correctly. 

Blog 6: Second Interview Questions

Questions for Mentor:

1. What do you believe makes you an expert in this field, other than years of experience?
2. Why did you choose to work with children as a career?
3. What do you do that you believe makes you stand out from other child care providers?
4. What is one of your greatest accomplishments in this career choice and what did you do to reach it?
5. How long did it take for you to be licensed as a child care provider? What were the steps you had to take?

S.F. Blog 5A: Problem Statement

(1) Topic: Child Care

(2) Problems in your topic and what you will do once they are solved.

• A problem which is often seen and that was even mentioned to me by my first interviewee was the fact that it is hard to find a person who will take good care of a child. Lots of times the children can be abused or ignored when taken to a daycare or a babysitter, and that is not good for the child.  It would be really hard to find a solution for this, since it is in such a wide spectrum and depends on each person. It seems the most efficient way to overcome this problem would be to have certain criteria, which I'm sure there already are, on who can take care of a child responsibly.
• Bad facilities also seems to be a big problem. There was an article that I read on MSN saying that day cares contribute to behavioral problems in children. Sometimes there are also inadequate restrooms and playgrounds for the children to use. 

Both of these problems seem hard to solve for the science fair, but perhaps there is an easier way to go about it that I am not aware of. So I need to find a mentor soon and speak to them more closely about it and that will also help me find out what I will do once the problems are solved.

Blog 4: Working EQ

The Pentagon

(1) What positive thing happen as a result of what you have completed so far?

A positive that happened as a result of my mentorship was that I was able to meet a lot of really wonderful children. I was able to learn a lot about them, have fun with them, and help them enjoy themselves. I was really able to open myself up to them and it helped me become more confident with children.

(2) Pick a piece of research or your interview.  How has it helped you improve your understanding of your topic?

A lot of my research pieces have helped my understand that a lot of what goes on in the early life a person, the childhood, is what sets them up for the rest of their life. It all has to do with brain development. During childhood, that is when your brain is making all the synapses in your brain; connecting memories or experiences to other memories. These are crucial because they will be what takes you on through the rest of your life, so as a child care provider, one must make sure to do their best for the child to have good connections and synapses in the brain.

(3) What has worked for you so far in the senior project?

My first interview was really great at giving me a good base to start off with on my senior topic. The research I've done has also helped me understand children and their brain a bit more, which will definitely help me in the future when faced in situations where children have "bad" behavior.

(4) What hasn't worked so far? 

I haven't really been able to find a mentor so far, since I'm not sure what sorts of people I should trust the most in this field. The person I interviews for my first interview was a great source of information, but I don't feel like she would be the most beneficial person to me as my mentor.

(5a) What possible question or questions come to mind regarding what you would like to study this year?

• What is the best way to deal with a child who is being troublesome?
• How can a parent know where the best place to leave their child is?

(5b) What is your end goal this year with your senior project?

I hope to have gained a lot of experience in regards to caring for children properly and efficiently using fun activities that the children will enjoy. I also hope to gain more confidence by interacting with the children and also with other people who are experts in this field who will be able to help me with my project.

(5c) Who would you like to talk to you next? Why?   

Perhaps someone in the childhood development field. They would have a lot of information on the ways kids learn and why the behave the way they do, which would really help out when taking care of children. It helps you be prepared for different situations when you are more informed.

Blog 3: Interview Preparation

1. Who do you plan to interview? Why?

I plan on interviewing the owner of the day care center I volunteered at over the summer. She is actually my aunt and her name is Maria Castaneda. She has owned that day care for quite a few years now, so I feel she has a lot of experience that will help me in answering a few questions about my topic, and she might even be able to give me different resources. It will also make it easier for me to get a better ground in how to interview someone, because since she is a family member, it'll be easier to speak more casually and comfortably with her.

2. You have to ask five questions. What additional questions do you plan to ask?

Along with the given five questions, I would like to ask her exactly how she decided to become a child care provider and the steps she had to take in order to become what she is today. Also, what special classes did she have to take to prepare herself? What are the best ways to have the children learn while still having fun? What are the basic need-to-knows of child care? 

Blog 2: Topic Choice

A. What is your topic and why?

My senior topic is Early Childhood Education and Care. When I first went to do my mentorship hours at the day care center, I didn't think I would stick to this topic once school started. However, the more hours I did, the more I really got to like the children I looked after and the way a center worked. The children were really fun to play with and there was so much you could do with them. You could read them a book, have them read to you, help them with their homework, and then play with them afterwards! I just really enjoyed those hours spent with them, and I really liked seeing their happy faces.

B. What do you hope to accomplish this year with this topic?

• iPoly Citizen: Children tend to sense when you don't take them seriously, so being respectful to a child when looking after them helps in being respectful to everyone around you. As a volunteer in a day care center, you are taking care of a person. Taking care of a person means that you're looking after their well-being the best of your abilities, which also helps with being an iPoly Citizen; taking care of yourself and those around you.
• Effective Communicator: I plan to use my engagement with the children in the day care centers to improve my social skills. Such as when you must be empathetic towards the children so that I may help them better if they are having difficulties in something. Being empathetic can help when a team or group of people are having difficulties understanding one another. 
• Effective Learner: Working with a child is really hands on, so I plan on learning a lot about taking care of children by doing what the owner of the day care does to keep them all on track. Learning about something, or watching someone do it, and then repeating it yourself is a great way to become an effective learner.
• Effective User of Technology: I plan to search and use research under my topic that will help me understand the way a child develops. This will help me be a better user of technology by knowing which sources are credible and how to more quickly search for the information I need.

Blog 1: Summer Mentorship Component

Literal (Know)

Contact information: 

Day Care Center: Castaneda Family Child Care

Owner: Ms. Maria Castañeda 

Phone #: (626) 962-2006

Log of Hours (spreadsheet)

Literal (Need to Know)

Questions that were raised:

• What sorts of extra classes should a person take if they want to care for children with special needs?
• How much paperwork is required before starting a day care center?
• What forms are routinely required to fill out about the day care for the government?
• What are some ways to keep the children entertained, other than just playing with them?
• How much of the money the parents pay to keep their children in the day care is kept by the owner?
• Does it differ by how employees the owner has?
• Are there fees needed to pay to the government for running a day care?

Interpretive

I think the most important thing I gained from this experience is that there is a lot more to taking care of a child than is let on. It really takes a lot of energy and patience to manage a child. You have to be extremely patient with a child, but you also have to be stern when need be, and it really is a lot of work.

Applied

What I did this summer for my ten hours, has made me lean to child care/development to be my senior topic. Playing with the children and talking with them was really a lot of fun, even though tiring, and I just want to know what the best ways of caring for a child are when they are not at home. Having two nieces that I often babysit has also contributed to my interest in this topic. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that has to be done before caring for children full-time, and my mentorship experience has piqued that interest.