PhotoVoice--The Final Product

You may remember back a month or so when I wrote a post called PhotoVoice Project...Well, I presented some of my photos today via the following YouTube video:

The photo narrative is meant to help me understand how I see the world and leadership through the camera lens.  The difficult part of the presentation process is that each photo has its own story and meaning to me but the viewer may just be like, "Cool, a picture of a bus..."  So, take it with a grain of salt.  Short post but thought I would share...

Counseling Conference Confessions: Intern's First Time

Last Friday, the Maryland School Counselor Association held it's spring state conference in Greenbelt, Maryland.  I was lucky enough to get a graduate volunteer spot for the day.  I met other graduate students, school counselors from around the state, district officials and other individuals with vested interests in the school counseling field throughout the day.  I even met some of my blogging/Twitter inspirations, in the flesh.

I ran into some traffic on the hour-long drive from Baltimore... hey, it is Maryland, it seems like any amount of rain can seriously stop traffic.  Once I got to the conference center, I met the other graduate volunteers. I was excited to meet my fellow graduate students because we all came from different universities (University of Maryland and McDaniel College).  It was exciting to meet each other and learn about the similarities and differences amongst our programs.  We shared internship/practicum stories as well as job-seeking strategies.  Nothing fires me up more than being surrounded by driven, transformed counselors in training.

Graduate student volunteers- University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins and McDaniel College all represented.

We started our day by registering conference participants and handing out the necessary materials.  After, we attended a resource fair where I talked to venders/education professionals about the ASVAB and ASCA... and I got some swag--new Post-Its, anyone?!  During breakfast, we heard from Dr. Sylinda Gilchrist Banks, the Chair of the Board of Directors for the American School Counselor Association.  She presented about the importance of mattering for young people- a topic that I just presented on in my internship class last week.  It was great to hammer home the need for strong, congruent relationships.

After the breakfast session, we graduate volunteers each went to individual presentation rooms where we introduced speakers, signed-off on CEUs, and collected evaluations.  While working in the "Yellow Room," I learned about college/career counseling in middle schools, integrated counseling technology resources, and the importance of articulating the counselor's role in academic achievement.  In addition to the awesome info and swag- I met many school working school counselors who shared their wisdom and perspective.

New planner and some business cards.

I walked away with new insights, a new planner (pictured above), new mentors and a long list of emails to send!  I look forward to continuing my involvement in professional organizations as I grow in my counseling career.  If you want to learn more about the Maryland School Counselor Association (or see some photos from the conference) check out their Facebook page here.

Alex Trabek, I am not.

Every week, I get to enter an SAT prep class to teach a lesson about college searching, financial aid, career orientation, etc.  While it is awesome to get into the class and teach, sometimes I don't know how effective my interventions are.  Here comes the data and assessment!  I have used surveys to measure the students' perceived comfort on various topics.  We've had open conversations about what other topics they want to cover.  They presented college profiles to their classmates to show their own understanding while teaching and exposing each other to new college options.  Today, I wanted to make the assessment process a little more fun.

I created a simple "Jeopardy"-style game to bolster some friendly competition amongst the students.  Though I didn't capture specific data on the topics addressed within the game, the students' excitement, answers, and engagement told me that they have developed an understanding for the topics we've covered.  (whoa, that was a wordy sentence...)  Regardless, I thought this was a cool way to measure their understanding of key concepts regarding college and financial aid.  Though this group focuses specifically on college-going/access, I can imagine using a Jeopardy-style lesson to measure understanding regarding bullying, financial aid, high school requirements, etc in the future.

What to test your knowledge about the SAT, financial aid, and college seeking (and a hint of Mr. H trivia)?  Follow the link here.

Conference Anticipation: How one intern/graduate student/job-seeker prepares.

The Maryland School Counselor Association's annual conference is scheduled for this coming Friday.  In late February, I got an email calling for graduate student volunteers.  The conference organizers wanted four graduate volunteers to monitor the presentation rooms, hand out session evaluations, etc.  As a personal rule, I try to not miss any opportunities for professional engagement so I responded and was offered one of the volunteer spots.  I am particularly excited to attend the MSCA Conference because it will be great practice for the American School Counselor Association's National Conference in July where I will be speaking about my advocacy projects and internship experience as a member of a graduate student panel.

Description of my group's presentation at the ASCA National Conference- Scheduled for July 2nd (1:30pm-2:45pm)

With all these conferences coming up, there are a few ways for people like me, graduate students/interns/counseling-position-seekers to prepare.  Here is how I plan to network and present myself professionally:

1.  "Get a haircut, Hippie!"
Okay- I can grow a beautiful mane fit for horse or a Dothraki (I've been watching a lot of "Game of Thrones" lately...), but sometimes I just have to suck it up and keep that mop cropped, short, professional and neat.

Now, my hair wasn't this long... but I just felt the need to give some historical reference of how big my hair can get.  Sophomore year of high school.

The day after my haircut, I couldn't walk down a hallway at my internship without student/teacher/administrators telling me how much better my hair looked... Point:  Dylan, keep the hair professional.

2.  What to wear?
As a counseling conference newbie, I had no idea what to wear... do I go all the way and wear my suit or do a pair of khakis and a button up suffice?  I thought I needed a little back-up here and reached out to my professor who is the former director of counseling for a very large school district in the Southwest.  Here suggestion:

"Typically you would dress up a little more if you were presenting – dress slacks and a jacket.  Most conference attire is business casual – a nice pair of slacks and shirt.  The east coast conferences tend to have higher dress standards than the west coast.  You will be pretty safe if you wear dress slacks, but you may find that some conference attendees are in jeans.  You will see a wide array of clothing choices at ASCA J "

Thanks for the help, Professor!

3.  Be a card-carrying member.

I read other counseling blogs.  Whether it is a hobby or an obsession, I love learning more about the profession and picking up tips.  Danielle Schultz over at School Counselor Blog wrote a post about business cards.  In January, I followed her advice and ordered my own set of cards.  For a grand total of about $10, I got professional cards printed, which I now carry with me everywhere.  A simple card with my name, email, education, and a link to my LinkedIn helps me quickly and easily share who I am professionally.  

The cards are useless without a desire to network, talking to other professionals is a great opportunity to extend my connections.  If I can't talk to other professionals, handing out cards is next to impossible.  There are a lot of great counselors out there doing incredible things.  I hope to meet more of these individuals who can help me push myself in the future.  

Watch out conference attendees... I've got cards, a haircut, and a professional wardrobe and I am NOT afraid to use them.

College Counseling: Going Beyond the College Tour

This may be obvious-but-TECHNOLOGY IS AMAZING.  Here is the story:

The second week at my internship, when I was still developing my sea legs, I joined my supervisor as we explained PSAT  results and SAT study options to an SAT Prep class of about ten sophomores and juniors. They logged onto College Board's website to explore their personalized study profiles, again-technology is really cool.  The students were receptive during our classroom counseling lesson and asked many questions about topics other than standardized tests.  Given some classroom time with two trained counselors (well, one trained and one in training), the students asked about college admissions, how to research schools, financial aid, and housing.  We did our best to quickly answer their questions, while re-focusing them to the tasks at hand. 

At the end of the class period, I approached the teacher and asked if I could continue coming in once a week to do college-oriented lessons.  Since she has a pretty loosey-goosey SAT Prep curriculum, and welcomed my suggestion.  Now I teach one fully class period every Wednesday.  I have lead lessons on financial aid, Naviance college searches, career interest inventories, and goal setting.  A couple of weeks ago, I asked the students to complete a survey that would help me orient the next couple of lessons.  From that survey, I found that only one of our students had ever toured a college and only one ever talked to an academic or admissions counselor.

Lightbulb moment.

One of the great things about being a school counselor these days is that we are taught to embrace collaboration, reaching across disciplines to advocate for our kids.  Our school has a frozen budget so a bus to a college tour was out of the question...and the teachers are very busy preparing our students for the HSA, a state mandated test, which students are required to pass to graduate-so getting time for a tour is not likely. Then it dawned on me: I have a good friend who is finishing her graduate studies in Higher Education/Student Affairs at a university in Ohio.  Though she couldn't be in our classroom in the flesh, a host of web-based video chats exist to facilitate an open exchange.  The teacher was into it, the students were into it, and my friend, Ms. Amanda, was into it.  This got me excited, people!

Cruddy quality photo-but you get the picture...get it?

A few weeks prior to our virtual college advising session, the students and I sat down to generate a list of questions to guide the discussion.  Here is a list of what we came up with as a group:

Questions:

"Other"

• Is it hard for people to live off campus and succeed academically?
• What can I do now, as a high school student, to prepare for college?

Freshman Transition

• Do freshman struggle with classes as they transition?
• Which classes usually cause the most problems?
• If I am struggling with a class, what do I do?  Who can help me and how do I find them?

College Seeking

• How do you find a college that is right for you?  What should we be considering when looking at different options?
• What is the average cost for college and how can I pay for it?
• What options are there if my grades are average and I want to go to a 4-year school?

Admissions

• What do colleges look for most when looking at applications?
• What kind of students are colleges looking for?

Academic/Career Advising

• Is there someone to help me decide on a major?
• Is there someone to help me find a job after I graduate?
• Do we get to choose our classes, if yes, how?
• Do juniors and seniors choose classes first--> younger students take whatever is left?

I know that I could have answered most of the questions on my own, but I wanted to give the students the chance to talk directly with an "expert" like Amanda.  After the session, I asked the students to complete some simple surveys.  The students responded positively in all categories.  Using technology and measuring its effectiveness via simple surveys helps me not only advocate for my students, it helps me advocate for the role of the school counselor.

Stepping across academic and professional disciplines, as well as employing technology in the classroom helped me bring college to the kids.  I would love to hear from other counselors about how they step outside the box to advocate for their kids in innovative ways.