For the first 15-20 minutes, Brandon was attempting to resolve a MyMathLab system error related to his computer. After switching to one of the school's computers, we were able to get through a quarter of the Week 3 homework assignment.
Before reviewing the Week 3 pre-writing assignment, I had a serious conversation with Brandon about accepting constructive criticism from both Kevin and myself. Brandon was very receptive and seemed to take a more vested interest in my feedback on the first draft of his narrative assignment. After addressing my feedback, we started on a more detailed outline for his Week 3 pre-writing assignment.
Session Minutes
90
Minutes Student Attended
90
Lesson Comments
Brandon was very tired today. He had a hard time focusing on his narrative draft, but we got it done. He doesn't seem to see the use of moving forward in his classes, but I encouraged him to think about the weeks ahead and plan for the worst. He confessed an aversion to taking criticism, but was much more open to seeing his work in a different light. Often, he falls back on a "my instructor did not address that concern," or "but you didn't say anything about that the first time" mantra, so I had to have a discussion with him about how two sets of eyes are better than one, and I also explained that the professor is not going to address every concern: a 9 of 10 is great, but it's still not a 10 of 10. This seemed to resonate well with him.
Brandon began his pre-writing assignment for his Definition essay due next week. For this assignment, Brandon must choose a term/concept from his Management Major and make an argument for this term, defining it for a specific purpose to his readers. We got as far as choosing a term and understanding its definition. We provided a brief outline for that term, but Brandon will have to get more specific to provide a better roadmap for this paper. We will work on this tomorrow.
Brandon and I went through the Lecture, Reading, and Audio Materials for Week 3 of his College Composition course. Most of the material focused on Definition as a writing mode. We got through most of the material, and he was assigned the rest of the articles for his class with Kevin.
Today, Brandon and I peer reviewed one of his classmate's Narrative Draft, as per his Week 2 assignment requirements. Brandon focused on the strengths as well as weaknesses of the student's draft, detailing specific ways that the student could "show" and not "tell" his readers of the particular experience.
Assignment
Revise Final Narrative Draft
Session Minutes
90
Minutes Student Attended
90
Lesson Comments
Brandon is making really good progress in this class.
We worked on preparing for the definition paper Brandon has to write next week on "strategic management". I started by throwing out ideas of the different approaches he could take for this paper, and then talked about how to find information to develop his ideas. Despite my suggestion to take notes and print out relative articles, Brandon chose not to do either. He claimed he's an "environmentalist" now. I pointed out that he's just going to have to reinvent the wheel next week, but to know avail. We did some good research on the topic and talked about several ideas for how to approach the paper.
Composition
go over narrative draft, edit for final
read articles for next week
Session Minutes
135
Minutes Student Attended
135
Lesson Comments
Brandon did a very good job on his narrative draft, but I had a few comments on how he could improve. I was shocked by how resistant he was to my suggestions. His standard response was "my professor didn't say anything" or "Johanna said that was fine." It's the same issue as when I made suggestions on his discussion posts. It seems like he wants to do the bare minimum and still get a good grade. We spent the rest of the time going over the articles for the assignment next week.
Today we went over the other narratives written by the class, and crafted two responses for the discussion post. Brandon had some good insights but I thought he could have written more.
Factoring Polynomials, Special Products, Synthetic Division, Reducing Rational Expressions
Lesson Outline
Went over Week 2 course content (R4-R6), completed Week 2 Homework, and
began Week 3 content
Session Minutes
165
Minutes Student Attended
165
Lesson Comments
Week 2 content was mostly review material for Brandon. Once we had gone over the material, he was able to complete the homework assignment quickly with a 100%.
Brandon was pretty focused today and worked hard throughout the day. He completed all of his work for the week and wrote a pretty solid personal narrative.
