Reflections on Month One

I cashed my first paycheck today, suggesting to me that I am now an official staff member of the New York Center for Child Development, and that is now officially time for me to blog again. My fellowship at NYCCD got off to a somewhat slow start. I immediately felt the relatively small amount of supervision, as compared to my position at the Character Education Partnership last year, where the two fellows make up a significant part of the full time staff who are there on a daily basis. NYCCD is a much larger organization--it oversees an early intervention program for children birth to age 3 in need of therapeutic services, as well as a special needs preschool with all of the related service providers--and as such the fellow makes less of a splash when he or she arrives and is less central to the functioning of the organization. At first, this was a little bit of an adjustment for me--who would help me set up my computer, or answer all of my most basic questions, or assign me with random tasks when my workload was light?! Would I feel as valuable of a contributor to my new organization without consistent supervision and feedback--without someone always being there to affirm my work and to tell me, "job well done"?

These are still questions that I am continuing to grapple with at times, but they have certainly subsided since those first couple of days. I am now excited by the amount of freedom I have in my new position. I have already had multiple opportunities to think about my job description as Parent/Community Outreach Coordinator and brainstorm and implement my own ideas on how to better connect the families we serve to their children's education and development. Tomorrow I am going to a meeting with my supervisor and some of our psychologists on staff to discuss our developing partnership with Weill Cornell, through which I will be serving as the primary care assistant for a psychologist screening young children for emerging mental health problems. So, the nature of my work is changing every day, and I have a certain measure of control over that--pretty exciting!

Notes from the Field…Office

Greetings from Washington, D.C.  I began as a fellow at Character Education Partnership (CEP) on Monday, 16 July.  I had a week before my fellow fellow, Sweta, arrived at CEP to figure out the office environment.  In the last two weeks, either out loud or to myself, I’ve been that kid who says “at my old school we did this…” since to what else can I compare new work experience but old work experience?  Of course, I don’t make those comparisons to criticise.  Arriving at CEP and not knowing who my supervisor was and what precisely I would be doing was at once freeing and disorienting.  Not having a defined set of tasks meant I could suggest what I would like to do.  Not having someone to report to meant I could direct my own pace of work. 

As the organisation continues to change—hiring new staff, revising the vision and mission statements—what I do as a fellow will change as well.  For now, to give you an idea of what CEP is about, Character Education Partnership creates curriculum and trains teachers and administrators how to implement character education.  Character education is education that takes into account a person’s social and emotional development, promoting values of kindness, trustworthiness, and good citizenship.  The “character education” part of this is the constant, but what CEP does to promulgate it is going to change.   As “they” say, the only constant thing in the universe is change!

Why EdTech Innovation Matters!

In my previous entry, I introduced Digital Promise - my Princeton Project 55 organization. Our mission is to “to support a comprehensive research and development program to harness the increasing capacity of advanced information and digital technologies to improve all levels of learning and education, formal and informal, in order to provide Americans with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy.” Here’s another way to think about our mission: ultimately, we would like to help facilitate and develop new breakthroughs in education technology. Digital Promise’s mission – innovation in education technology and education-at-large – is an important one. The world is becoming more and more innovative everyday day and American public schools must keep pace.

How is the world becoming increasingly innovative? Here are some questions to ask yourself: When was the last time you brought an actual CD as supposed to downloading an album on Amazon or iTunes? How many Apple (iPhones, iPads, or iPods) products do you own? And finally, do you read your news in a print format or digital format such as on your computer, mobile device, or Kindle? It may be difficult to imagine, but technology is now more integrated into our lives than it was five years ago, but unfortunately education is not keeping pace. There are many reasons why schools are lagging in regards to adopting the latest technology, but one of the big reasons is that often times it takes school districts years to evaluate what really works. By the time many districts are able to assess a particular innovation that application or device is outdated.

Digital Promise, and in particular Digital Promise’s League of Innovative Schools, is working to help our public schools rapidly “demonstrate, evaluate, and scale” innovative technologies so that students are able to utilize them now instead of five years down the line. To this end, many of our League member school districts and local education agencies are active participants in our two working groups: The Procurement Working Group and Research Working Group. Furthermore, we are fortunate to have dynamic research partners at BYU, Harvard, the University of Chicago, and the University of Washington – we collaborate with researchers at each of these institutions to collect data and analyze results from “demonstration sites” ( an initial implementation of a particular application or device) among our League member districts. At the moment, we have three active demonstrations sites including an entire school district in Michigan that will introduce iPads into all of their kindergarten classes beginning in the fall.

Next fall, all of the incoming kindergarten students attending Utica Community Schools – the second largest school district in Michigan – will be using iPads in their class. Sounds amazing doesn’t it? But then again, why not? If we’re using the most sophisticated technology to entertain, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be using it to educate as well.

Next Time: Making the Transition to Educating in the Digital Age!

First Month at Greater Baden

I started my fellowship earlier than most and have already been working at Greater Baden Medical Services for over a month.  Greater Baden is a non-profit that provides primary care at 6 clinic locations in southern Maryland, both in the urban Capitol Heights area which borders Washington, D.C., and in more southern, rural areas of Prince George’s, Charles, and St. Mary’s counties.  Greater Baden is a Federally Qualified Health Center which means that it receives federal funding with a mandate to serve individuals who are poor and/or uninsured. This population almost exclusively makes up all of the patients seen at Greater Baden.

Before I started my fellowship I was certainly not aware of how much need there was for health care in this area, and many other areas like it across the United States.  Despite being so close to a large city, there is a primary care physician shortage and there are many Medically Underserved Areas within the region that Greater Baden serves.  Most new patients that come to Greater Baden were previously receiving no health care or just going to hospital emergency rooms.  Growing up in Canada where there is publicly funded, universal health care, I never imagined that access to basic primary care was this difficult for so many people.  I also did not realize this while I was at Princeton, so I am very glad to have gained a better understanding of it within the first few weeks of my fellowship.  It has certainly given me more perspective on health care in the United States as well as the importance of the recent Supreme Court ruling.

On to Fellowship #2

And it feels pretty good! It has only been a little over a week since I finished up my year at CEP, but that week has seemed to stretch on much longer than a mere seven days. What with saying goodbye to DC, living through my first move with a moving company (totally worth it, for anyone who may be considering it), settling into my my new apartment in Peter Cooper Village, cramming in some last-minute doctor's appointments, and then driving to Michigan for a few weeks of family vacation time before I start work at the New York Center for Child Development (NYCCD) on July 9, it has certainly been a busy time! However, having already gone through a year in the working world, I feel much calmer and more confident going into my second fellowship than I did at this point last year. From the time I spent with Katharine, last year's fellow, I believe that this position is extremely well-suited to my strengths and interests, and will provide me with the experience necessary to determine whether a career in psychology is right for me. In other words, I think this is going to a BIG year, and I can't wait to see what's in store!

Before I can begin figuring that out, however, I need to brush up on my Spanish! My supervisor made it clear during my interview that I would be expected to communicate both in person and in writing with the many Spanish-speaking parents whom NYCCD serves, and while I studied Spanish for six years and did a summer abroad in Spain, I'm feeling like a little help from my friend Rosetta Stone could do me some good in that respect. I'll keep you all posted on how that goes, and any suggestions on Spanish classes in New York would be much appreciated!

Prepaing for my fellowship

As I prepare for my fellowship at the Character Education Partnership, I've found that looking for my first apartment is certainly stressful. However, preparing for the first real phase of my adult life, as well as my first job brings a unique and rather joyful set of stressors as well. I'm visiting DC this weekend to start the housing search in earnest and also to gain some sense of what DC is--clearly it is difficult to truly know a city over the course of two days but I've found that it is enough to give you a distinct sense of atmosphere. Unlike some fellows, who have lived or worked in their cities before, I've visited DC only once, as a tourist. I'm familiar with the Smithsonian and the Washington Monument but am extremely excited to figure out those parts of the city that a tourist visit doesn't allow you to access.

To prepare for this important year, I've made a list of priorities, both professional and personal. Above all, I hope to make a meaningful contribution to CEP's work and to use my fellowship to clarify what my aptitudes are in a professional environment (Princeton can teach you how to write and think but I suspect that the valuable lessons I've learned there will be less applicable to my future than those I learn this coming year) and how I can use them to help both myself and others. CEP's work is generally somewhat hands-off, rather than engaged in direct service. I currently believe that this is more in line with my abilities than more direct work but I am eager to find out whether this is true, both by throwing myself into my position and by volunteering independently in direct service organizations.

I am very eager to document my experience of my fellowship here and hopefully, to provide some useful insights for future fellows.

Introducing Digital Promise

“Created by Republicans and Democrats and championed by a coalition of educators and business leaders, Digital Promise is an independent nonprofit that will help spur breakthrough learning technologies.... By harnessing the extraordinary work being done by educators, innovators, and citizens across this country, Digital Promise can help prepare Americans – and America – to succeed in the 21st Century,” - Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
 

They say that you have only one chance to make a good first impression; as the first Princeton Project 55 Fellow with Digital Promise that fact is important to me. 

Digital Promise, or the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, is a bipartisan, independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation authorized by Congress under President George W. Bush (in 2008) and launched by President Barack Obama (in 2011) “to support a comprehensive research and development program to harness the increasing capacity of advanced information and digital technologies to improve all levels of learning and education, formal and informal, in order to provide Americans with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy.” 

As a Project 55 Fellow and the assistant to Digital Promise’s Executive Director, Adam Frankel, I feel privileged to have an opportunity to contribute to the effort of closing America’s “Digital Divide.” Although technology and innovation is never a “silver bullet” to any issue, it has the potential to serve a powerful role in our nation’s classrooms. Just like any other tool, if used correctly, education technology has the capacity to help our students learn more efficiently and our teachers teach more efficiently. More specifically, imagine a classroom in which students are able to have personalized lessons tailored to his or her own interests, strengths and weaknesses, and learning style by employing the most advanced, sophisticated technology available: it’s already here and we just need to work hard to make sure every student, in every state has access to it. And that’s where Digital Promise comes in. 

In this first entry, I just wanted to provide a basic idea of what I contribute to at Digital Promise. If you would like more information, please click here.

Next Time: “Why Innovation in America’s classrooms is important and what you can do to help!”