Student Examples
Student written reflections & videos:
Teaching ELO Student Reflection
"The Extended Learning Opportunity (ELO) program at Gorham High School is an extremely valuable and life changing program. It truly has given me the opportunity to get a glimpse into my potential career and future. Focusing juniors and seniors towards a career path and helping them choose their career should be an extreme focus. I had the opportunity to do this program out of needing another credit and not wanting to take another class. I started off not caring that much about it but as it went on I began to really develop strong relationships with the students and teacher. I began to realize and truly value spending time with the children, and helping them work through problems and challenges.
I was able to work with the students on many different things: math centers, reading and writing journals, working through tests, playing games and many other things. I was given the opportunity to help lead a class along with teaching a small lesson. It was extremely valuable and gave me an immense amount of knowledge on my career. I think that this opportunity needs to be more widespread and I would love to help make this process easier for the students. Because, I genuinely think that this has been one of the most important and life changing things I have done in my life.
This process gave me a huge opportunity to look at a career and experiment and see what works for me. I now know what to do with my career and it has given me an incredible look on teaching and my distant future. I would tell other students to just give it a try even if they are nervous or don’t want to do it. They truly don’t know what they are missing as this is a huge opportunity."
Culinary Arts ELO Student Reflection
"My ELO experience at MK Kitchen has been brilliant and very insightful. I have been taught numerous recipes such as flourless chocolate cake, tiramisu, tons of different flavors of gelato and many more. I have also been taught the correct way to do certain tasks and given loads of advice on how to progress my skills in the kitchen. It is a much more fast paced work environment that I am still getting used to and learning how to best thrive in that type of environment. I believe that the biggest “challenge” I have been faced with is being able to stand around for an eight to nine hour shift. With not being used to being upright for an extended period of time and not being able to sit, it has definitely been taking a toll on my knee and hip. Other than that, I have been faced with learning how to take corrective criticism given to me as feedback on how to improve my skills in a positive manner rather than my mistakes being criticized.
My expectations were very broad. I had a small expectation that I would fit perfectly into the environment at MK Kitchen. Although my expectations were not entirely incorrect, they also were not correct. My mentor, Adam, has said that I am doing great and progressing amazingly for the time I have been at MK Kitchen. Along with that, I have been shown that the reality is that I am new and still learning, while all of the cooks in the kitchen have been in this line of expertise for much longer and know much more. Throughout the experience, my day to day responsibilities have morphed a little bit. At the start I did a lot of observing others, while now, I am able to do a lot more on my own. I still continue to learn new things everyday and ask for help and advice even with being able to do more by myself. A lot of the day-to-day looks like preparing foods before opening such as desserts, smaller things such as cleaning foods or peeling vegetables for backups. Along with this, I also prepare the station to get ready for the orders. Overall, my experience has been amazing and I have learned a lot in this field."
Mentor Feedback!
"All I can say is WOW!! [she] has been AMAZING! She is a natural when it comes to working with the kids. Kind, patient and FUN!! She has definitely taken on some challenges, like taking on the morning meetings, reading books and managing a craft center. She is a ROCK STAR and the kids love having her in our classroom.
I am so grateful to have had [her] in my room! I do hope that the experience has been just as enjoyable for her. I will say she has experienced some uncomfortable situations where one child has become very upset-throwing things-but she managed it well at the time. However, I do know that situations like this can be upsetting and I hope that this isn't something that she has internalized. She is so easy going and quiet, so I hope that if there was a situation that was concerning to her she would reach out and talk about it. I have connected with her following any 'uncomfortable' events : )"
"[She] is doing fabulous in the lab. I have talked to her about continuing in the lab this spring and taking her research project to the state Science fair. My hope is that she could win scholarship money to attend USM (if she wants to of course!)."
"Just wanted to send you a quick note to let you know [she] is doing great! She was a tad bit nervous when she first got here – although, I wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t told me – but seems to have settled in fine. :)"
Student Design Plan Example:
