The BranchOut! Blog

Congratulations to the six mentors who were chosen to receive the Calvin J. Li Award for exceptional leadership ability! Mentors were chosen based on student nominations, self-reflection, and site managers’ feedback. The awards were presented in three levels with a monetary award. ​ One 1st place Award: Austin Zhang $200 ​ Two 2nd place Awards: Anshu Sharma and Daniel Shen $100 each ​ Three 3rd place Awards: Angela Wu, Christine Sun, and Ethan Liu $50 each Once again,

On Saturday, September 30 , 2017, 21 student mentors were nominated by their peers to receive the “U.S. House of Representatives Certificate of Congressional Recognition" signed by Congresswoman Barbara Comstock. Nominations were evaluated and approved by the MCSE committee based on their ability to mentor their students effectively. The mentors who received this award were: ​ Amanda Chu, 11th grade, Poolsville High School Andrew Wang, 12th grade, TJHSST Angela Wu, 11th g

I learned that kids with different personalities respond to different languages. For example, for a particularly "rowdy" kid Abby in the program, it was more effective to convince her that she is a responsible and independent person when demanding her to clean up after herself. For example, when she got mad at the foreign kids for pushing her, and said that she wouldn't talk to the foreigners because "they should speak English", I was able to tell her assertively that she nee

As a mentor, I needed to be more of an extrovert. Unlike the younger students I mentored previously, the students at J.E.B. Stuart were less likely to raise their hands and more likely to say "no." Thus, I had to constantly ask them if they needed help, and I made sure to go through each step so that they will understand. While mentoring, I realized that many of the students were around the same age as I was and were just like me. I became much more understanding as a result

As a mentor, I became better at talking to each student individually and explaining to them the different concepts we learned. I found that many students were visual learners, so I changed my teaching style from speaking to them to actually showing them. As a person, I became more patient and steadfast. Some of the students, especially the younger ones, were a bit rambunctious and unwilling to participate in the activity. When dealing with these situations, I talked to them t