Weekly Report 23

This week, my focus was centered on preparing my final product and updating my portfolio.  Since we have a portfolio check next week, I need to make sure that mine is up to date and includes all information on my progress, research, interviews, mentor visits, original work, and product.

In Independent Study and Mentorship, we are creating our own work and research to help the fields that we are studying this year, called a final product.  For my final product, I am conducting research on the implications of emotional abuse, and why reports of emotional abuse are so rarely acted upon. Hopefully, this data will provide way for me to propose another, more effective way of confronting, combating, and treating emotional abuse in our society.

Weekly Report 22

This week, I completed a reflection on my speech, as well as providing critiques and positive feedback for my peers as they looked over their speeches as well. While I believe that I have grown in my presentation skills, I still have plenty of room for improvement before final presentation night. Our next speech will be a sort of draft of our speech for final presentation night, allowing us more time to rehearse and work out any problems with the presentation.

I have been spending time ensuring that my portfolio is up to date and organized, since it will be on display during the speech. It includes nearly everything I’ve worked on this school year, including my research assessments, interview assessments, topic proposal, mission statement, and quote. I think it’s exciting to see how my research is coming together already, even in this early stage of the school year, to form a single cohesive product.

As always, I have continued to work towards my final product, and I was fortunate enough to receive contact information for several child psychologists and defense attorneys from my mentor. I plan to contact these professionals soon to set up interviews about the impact of emotional abuse on an individual.

Weekly Report 21

In class this week, I delivered my speech.  In the speech I focused mainly on my original work, in which I researched and analyzed the traits and qualities that adolescents look for when selecting a psychologist or other mental health care professional.  I also spoke about my experiences so far this year and what I hope to accomplish through my final product.  I outlined my SMART goals, which we developed earlier in the semester.  These were short term, mid term, and long term goals that I have for my life.

While I feel that the speech was well organized and delivered slightly better than my previous speech, I still have quite a bit of work to do on my public speaking skills.  Although I used fewer filler words than last time, there were still too many in my presentation.  Also, as the speech got longer I found it more and more difficult to remember all the points I wanted to hit, and I forgot a small section of my speech, meaning that I came in under the time requirements.

For my next speech, I need to find a way to remember all the specific points I want to hit, instead of just the general ideas I need to cover, in order to ensure that my speech is as thorough as necessary.

Evidence of Learning Assessment 4

view EOL 4

Original Work Speech

Weekly Report 20

This week, we continued giving speeches over our original work in class. I watched my peers’ presentations, noting the positive aspects of their speeches as well as the areas that could use improvement, in order to find out how to better present my own speech. 

I created a powerpoint to act as a visual aide throughout my speech, and included various charts and graphs in order to present my data to my audience in an engaging manner.  The speech will mainly be over the original work that I recently completed, and it will also cover my short term, mid term, and long term SMART goals for my future, as well as briefly touching on my experiences thus far with my mentor. The speech will be 20 to 25 minutes long, which is the longest speech we have had to present yet, so I have made sure to devote an appropriate amount of time to rehearsing my presentation.

I also created a formal proposal for my final product.  Dr. Schmitt, on one of my earlier mentor visits, suggested that I conduct interviews with child psychologists, child protective services case workers, family law defense lawyers, and potentially even victims of emotional abuse in order to determine the impact of emotional abuse, and to investigate whether it is actually being dealt with appropriately.

Weekly Report 19

This week, I completed another assessment of my time spent with my mentor, as well as beginning to prepare for my speech, which I will give next week.  As we near final presentation night, the speeches and presentations that we give in class become longer and more detailed, in order to prepare us to speak for a longer period of time.  The speech that I will be giving is roughly 25 minutes long, and focused mainly on my original work, which I completed last week. 

I also completed another mentor visit this week.  During the visit, our main focus was going over the important highlights of Dr. Schmitt’s career, so that I will be able to compile a thorough and accurate professional biography.  We also continued to discuss ideas for my original work, and by my next mentor visit, I will have lists of interview questions to ask lawyers, caseworkers for CPS, and child psychologists.  My original work will likely be focused on emotional neglect as a form of abuse, since it is defined as abuse by child protective services and regarded as extremely harmful by mental health care professionals,  but is often overlooked or not taken seriously in practice.