The BranchOut! Blog

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

I've learned to think on my feet better and I've gotten more comfortable interacting with the students, especially the K-4 students. Asking the classes questions and calling on people to answer really helped the students get involved and it helped me to get to know them better. I have gotten better at designing lessons in a tight time frame and working with other mentors to organize the materials and students. I drew upon my physics team experience to do a pendulum activity w