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Venture Academy is changing the way students learn. Students are able to use the Personalized Learning Plan that allows them to track how they are doing and what they have to do during specific days. This allows for the students and teachers to know what exactly is done and what needs to get done. It keeps track of how far students are and lets them plan out what they need to work on during the week. This is much different than a traditional classroom setting where a teacher lectures, students take notes, then practice what they learn on worksheets. It's very interesting because most people would expect this to negatively affect the students. I think it varied between the students because it helped others keep on track, but some students didn't use it as fully as they could have. The PLP changed the way the students at Venture Academy learned compared to traditional school environments, much like how Bill Ayers attempts to change his classroom into a place where students can learn their own way that helps them to succeed.

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As a student who went through the public school system, I felt that my experience and my volunteering experience were very different. Right now, we are in a time where technology rules all. Back when I was in 6th-8th grade, we hardly ever used computers unless we went to the computer lab. Here, they had their own laptops which they used to access PLP and course readings. It was a very individualized, go at your own pace, type of work. It was interesting to me because then I would assume students would slack off, but my experience showed otherwise. Students would be focused on what needed to be done that day and complete it before getting distracted with other things. Although occasionally students would get off task, I think that it's a decent way to incorporate what goes on outside of school into the classroom because technology is such a huge part of our society.

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To Teach: The journey, in comics by Bill Ayers shows us that teaching is not one-dimensional. As a teacher we need to be able to change things up. I think that my experience at Venture Academy taught me just that. Assigned seats aren't absolutely necessary. Students need to be able to move around and be around other people. Also, not every student learns the same. I think that Venture Academy understand this very well as there are multiple adults in the classroom that all teach in their own ways. They explain what needs to be done the way they believe is efficient, making it so that students can experience different methods people teach. I think that this way the students can learn more because it's not just a simple lecture, takes notes and study way of teaching.

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With this tutor experience, I was able to witness other teachers and how they teach and I was able to find out some things that work for me as I work one-on-one with students. I am able to now build on what I've learned to become an even better teacher than I probably would have been without tutoring at Venture Academy. Being around all the different teachers and paras helped to inspire me more to follow my dream of becoming a mathematics teacher.

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This experience solidified my reason to become a teacher. I feel like as a teacher/tutor, you can make a huge difference in somebody's drive for their own education. Seeing that expression when a student understands what they have to do and can do it on their own is a very rewarding feeling. Working towards that, no matter how long, I feel is very much worth the investment of time. Doing an activity like this just drives me more to become a future educator and possibly make a difference in a student's life.

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As a tutor, we had to agree to a little contract making sure that we know that we're volunteers and that we can't truly be to harsh on our students. At times I found myself in difficult situations where one of my students wouldn't want to do his work, but I had no power to really force him to do anything. I would try to coax him into doing it, but it seemed to be a barrier I had to work around. As the trimester went on, I did get better at getting the student to focus more in a friendly way, but he seemed to always want to get off task. With this experience, I can take it into my own classroom and rather than discipline or be mean, I can try to talk my way around that to get my students to focus. It was a good experience for me to be able to deal with it now rather than be a licensed teacher and try to deal with it then.

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Laptops also played a large role within the school . The students used the PLP to do assignments and practice their skills. I didn't agree with the idea fully due to the ability for students to get off task and play games or watch Youtube videos instead of doing their work. Some teachers found a way around all of that by making the students' screens face inwards so that the teacher can see everything that everybody was doing.

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This is a group of immigrants that worked together in light of deportation of illegal immigrants. (Also a topic read about in class)

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Going into being a tutor at Venture Academy, I didn't know what to truly expect as I never really heard of a charter school prior to this experience. My first thought was that the classroom would be very loud and children would be very rowdy much like how my middle school experience was. It wasn't like that all the time. At times the children could be out of control, but at other times students would sit down and get their work done. The school was not something I could have ever expected. A lot of the work done was on computers and reading articles online. The material they read caught me off guard but was very relevant to big topics in today's media. With everybody so immersed into the social media world, it is bound that the students read and see what is happening around the world. It surprised me at how much social injustice was taught in the classroom.

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Couple subjects that were read about during the trimester above.

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Couple subjects that were read about during the trimester above.

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My role was to be a tutor for a couple different students. I was there to be an additional aid for that specific student along with the paras and teachers around them. If there was no teacher nearby, I was a quick resource for them to ask any questions they needed help with. I assisted student A with math and then student B with humanities/reading.

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I enjoyed working with both of my students. I especially enjoyed student A because I was able to help a student in the subject area in which I have the most interest. Although reading is not my favorite subject, I was also able to help student B efficiently so that he was able to complete his work on time.

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My volunteer experience began early September at Venture Academy in Minneapolis. Venture Academy, mainly a middle school, began to expand into the high school grades. I was placed mainly with the 7th graders with a one day experience with the 8th graders. For more information on their mission statement and things they do at the school, click here.