Week One Journal Entry

3/7/13 Cassandra Gadouas

 

• What was the most valuable information that you learned in this module?

I was reminded of the value of asking questions in various ways.  The icebreaker was an eye opener for me as one could ask, so tell me about yourself, or one could ask what was your favorite movie and what was it about the movie that you liked so much? And in that there is more to be learned about the person.  Some people write a lot and some not so much.  Some write about what the movie was about and others only there response to the film.  The way we ask questions provides more insight about the person.

I often do a similar sort of thing with children and have them create a picture out of many sorts of stickers.  The stickers they choose and where they place them can be very telling about their character.  I then have them tell me a story about the stickers that they have chosen and I find out a lot about them that way.  For many boys it is often about conquest and for girls it is often more about helping others, but what is going on in their lives at the time may or may not have an impact on the stickers and the story.

• How will you implement this in your line of work?

I will consider many avenues for assessment and work on using a variety of venues to bring out more information about my clients.

• In what area(s) do you feel you need more information or practice?

I want to make sure that I am very clear on what I am assessing for.  It is easy to get lost in the process and not be clear on what the objective is, so I want to make sure my objectives are very clear.

 I also find that there is always new information out there to learn more about and technology is moving so fast that there is no way I can keep up with it. I like to learn about new techniques and how to best help students and clients get the best and most out of the learning experience within the shortest period of time.  There are instances where more time is needed and things cannot be rushed, but in our current day and age time is a factor that has to be considered.  It may be in the future that people are scanned for assessment and there will be no need to think things through or figure them out, but until then the written word, time and processing are what is needed to complete an assessment.