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arete alumni feature - kailyn espinosa

Arete Alumni Feature - Kailyn Espinosa

Meet Kailyn Espinosa - a third-year college student (technically a lower senior) at Hunter College double majoring in Adolescent Education grades 7-12 and English Language Arts. Combined, these two majors work towards equipping her with the skills to do work in the field of Adolescent English.  

Kailyn’s journey started off in her senior year of high school, during the pandemic where she worked as a middle school tutor. She tutored middle school students in different subjects such as English, Math, Science, History, and did other work like social emotional learning. On top of that, she often had to communicate with parents to discuss the progress of the students. 

As she entered her first year of college, she took on the role of Learning Advocate. As a Learning Advocate, she conducted family outreach which meant she helped families connect with different resources. She often helped families acquire access to chromebooks and wifi during this tough period of time of online learning. Additionally, in order to build community through the pandemic, she hosted movie and game nights to unite students even through a screen. At some point during this point in time as a first-year student and as a worker within the organization, she took on both roles simultaneously. 

Even through her roles within Arete as a newcomer, Kailyn underscores her growth as a student but also as a worker. While in high school, she never envisioned herself becoming a teacher; however, after becoming a tutor, she found out it was not as bad as she thought it would be. “Maybe I could become a teacher!” asserted Kailyn as she recounted that upon entering college, she declared an undecided major but her initial roles within Arete allowed her to develop a strong interest in teaching and education. Her professional development also consisted of figuring out her strengths and weaknesses. She found out that she was pretty good at teaching and advocating for families and had the necessary skills to go into the profession of teaching. On top of that, Kailyn was able to narrow down the age group of students she felt most suited to teach through her work as a tutor and Learning Advocate. 

During her second semester of freshman year, Kailyn got promoted to a supervisor of the tutoring program. She essentially overlooked high school tutors and helped foster a stable environment for the tutor-tutee relationships. This meant she created breakout rooms, welcomed both tutors and tutees, and conducted observation sessions during ongoing tutoring sessions. During these sessions, she observed the relationship between tutors and students and gave tutors feedback to help them improve on their tutoring skills. Kailyn’s previous experience as a tutor gave her the expertise to know what was working and what was not working during tutoring sessions. Her promotion from tutor to supervisor gave her insight into the management of tutors and gave her the opportunity to professionally develop and gain competence as someone in a higher position. 

Later on, during summer bridge, Kailyn became a literacy educator. As a literacy educator, her focus was on students who were behind in literacy. Her responsibility was to help bridge the gap between on-level students and students who were struggling in literature. In order to do so, Kailyn helped students by reading and testing their comprehension skills in small groups. One thing that Kailyn learned as a tutoring program supervisor and literacy educator was that she could work with older students and professionals. Her previous experience revolved around a younger demographic, but these two new roles allowed for her to experience what it would be like to work with older students and also take on roles that were higher up within the organization. 

Currently, Kailyn works as a Specialized Reading Intervention Facilitator. She administers and facilitates specialized lessons to help students’ comprehension skills through different activities like SEL, writing prompts, and discussions about the books they read. In conjunction with this first role, Kailyn is also a Program Coordinator and Data Specialist. She reports data for middle school and high school students through two different platforms - EZ Reports and CitySpan. The data she handles and reports is fundamental to the funding Arete receives. It is worthy noting that Kailyn started off with just reporting data for one community school (The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology) but has now transitioned to managing data for all of Arete’s community schools. 

“Before Arete, I did not know what social emotional learning was!” One thing that Kailyn pointed out as something she appreciates and makes Arete distinct is that they exposed her to SEL. She was shown different activities to conduct SEL. She then became equipped with the skills to host her own SEL sessions and activities. Through this, Kailyn learned that social emotional learning is an integral part of learning and development which ties back to her career aspirations of working with children and education. 

Kailyn acknowledges that her work with Arete as of now delves into a more administrative field, but still maintains the essence of working with kids. She benefited from the flexibility that Arete granted to her as a college student. Arete was able to accommodate to her schedule and helped her gain social skills through her various roles. Her exceptional journey within Arete highlights how she was given the opportunity to professionally, socially, and emotionally grow as an individual. 

 - 03/22/2023 - Anthony Ramirez Diaz

S.T.E.M. to S.T.A.R.S. 2022 Launch

Support Our Summer 2022 Launch of S.T.E.M. to S.T.A.R.S.

Make a Contribution on Square to Sponsor Our First Cohort at our Juneteenth Program Launch

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S.T.E.M. to S.T.A.R.S. Supporter

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 - 06/18/2022 - sbsd@areteeducation.org

Work, Learn & Grow (WLG)

We are excited to highlight our Work, Learn, and Grow initiative. Students have already begun their Work, Learn & Grow (WLG) experiences this Fall. This program is being offered in collaboration with United Activities Unlimited (UAU).

WLG is broken down into two parts:

  1. Educational component: The educational component consists of (A) 1-credit CUNY student development course, or (B) non-credited course on Digital Media and Literacy. Alongside this education component UAU will run its own class to offer students additional support, focusing on college/career readiness and exploration. While completing this educational component, students will earn a stipend.
  2. Internship component: Once students complete these courses, they will then become eligible for internship placement. In response to the continued pandemic protocols, UAU will be prioritizing remote internship opportunities. Students will have the opportunity to take a survey to let UAU know where they are interested in working. Overall , this will allow students to work from mid-December through the beginning of March.

 

Students are eager to work and learn through these unique time. As a team, we are eager to have the students involved in different ways and continue to innovate ways to give our community opportunities to grow and succeed.

 - 11/19/2021 - Mariyam Sumareh

Advancing our Bronx-based Teacher Pipeline

IDE Professional Learning for Arete Alumni Pursuing Careers in Teaching and Youth Development

At Arete, we pride ourselves on opening up pathways for youth to be successful in their chosen career pathways, specially youth who are alumni of our afterschool, summer, and internship programs in Mott Haven.

This week we offered paid training through our partnership with IDE (Innovative Designs for Learning) to Arete alumni who work as employees in our Summer Programs at MS/HS 223 in Community School District 7 in the South Bronx. Our intergenerational approach to offering afterschool and summer programs in Mott Haven has distinguished our organization. By creating new teaching career pathways for middle and high school students in our teaching internship program, our high school graduates are able to enter the work force during their first semester of college. The specialized training, mentoring, alumni network, and opportunity to give back to their community through direct service in our afterschool and summer programs all provide unique advantages to the youth choosing to work with Arete as employees after graduation. They are caring, talented, problem-solvers and educators who take on leadership and direct teaching roles in our youth development programs.

This week's alumni educator training focused on how to engage students in the classroom by making learning more student-centered. Our alumni are a critical part of our strategy to support our partner schools with building trust with families as they choose to send students back to school this fall. They serve as bilingual family advocates who call families weekly and make connections to humanitarian, education, housing, and health services. They work afterschool as activity specialists, intern supervisors, technology specialists, and program coordinators. Providing opportunities for our alumni to build their skills enables us to have higher quality programs and for our alumni to progress further on the pathway to education and youth development careers.

 

Engaging Students in the Learning

IDE & Areté Education

What do we mean by “engagement” in the content of teaching and learning? What causes students to engage in the learning? How can we tap into their curiosity and drive in order to ignite learning? This professional learning experience will not only expose you to key ideas with respect to student engagement, but will also provide you with a set of concrete tools and strategies for engaging students in academic and social-emotional learning. You will leave the experience with a self-identified goal for increasing engagement in your own work with students.

Focus and Essential Questions for Each Day:

  • Day 1: The Basics of Engagement
      • What do we mean by “engagement?”
      • What fuels meaningful student engagement with the learning?
      • What strategies can we use to increase engagement in our work with students?
  • Day 2: Building Engagement through Various Avenues
    • How can we build engagement through positive teacher-student relationships?
    • How can we build engagement by affording students choice & voice in the classroom?
    • How can we build engagement by posing meaningful and accessible problems or challenges?

 

 

 - 08/05/2021 - sbsd@areteeducation.org

Teaching Internship 2020

Teaching Internship Program Description 

The Arete Internship Program recruits outstanding middle and high school students, as well as, alumni from the Lab School who are interested in pursuing careers in the field of education. As interns, they develop job readiness skills and experiences that enhance their college applications and job resumes. Interns are specifically trained to provide up to 5 hours per week of tutoring and mentoring services to middle schoolers who are struggling with remote learning assignments. The free virtual Tutor Program takes place during after school time (Monday - Friday, between 4 and 7 PM) in secure grade-level zoom supervised by Arete staff members. 

Each student who participates in the virtual Tutor Program is recommended by their teachers and approved by their guardians. Intern-tutors are provided with access to Google Classrooms and communicate with the teachers on a weekly basis in order to better prepare for their tutoring sessions. In order to keep teachers and families informed, tutors email weekly reports of their students’ progress. 

Interns learn about various education issues, are trained on specific teaching skills and engage in ongoing reflection to improve. Interns receive professional development in the areas of community outreach, social-emotional learning, lesson planning and overall job readiness. They participate in weekly meetings to track progress toward goals and collaboratively discuss ways to improve. In addition, each intern undergoes 3 observations per term as part of their job readiness evaluation. Their evaluation consists of data from observations, student progress reports, family and teacher surveys, as well as, their own self-assessments. 

Interns who successfully complete the program, walk away with an understanding and appreciation for what it takes to support students and families in their community. They exit their internship with specific job readiness skills that can be applied in many different types of work and professional settings. 


Below is a sample of an intern-tutor’s weekly schedule (interns can work up to 8 hours per week)

Watch Senior Intern Kailyn Espinosa share what she has learned about planning mini-lessons in this video where she presents a lesson she will use to train new peer-tutors.

 - 12/07/2020 - sbsd@areteeducation.org

Arete High School Internship Fall 2020 Job Posting

Please consider joining our team of talented high school students in Mott Haven.

To review the Job Posting and Apply: Applicant Stack Job Posting Link

Job Description

This fall, we are offering three pathways for the Areté internship - Teaching, Arts, and STEM. All internship pathways allow high school students to explore career options, develop job readiness skills, and give back to the larger school community through service. Regardless of which internship pathway you maybe offered, we expect excellent performance in all of the following areas listed below:

Responsibilities & Expectations

  • Availability to work afterschool and/or weekend hours (8-12 hours per week)
  • Active participation in (remote/in-person) weekly staff forums, team meetings and professional learning sessions.
  • Ability to adhere to Areté and NYC DOE guidelines for online conduct.
  • Access to computer and reliable internet during weekday hours.
  • Timely arrival to virtual learning synchronous sessions.
  • A commitment to excellence in your work with others as demonstrated by your positive and caring presence with colleagues and members of school community
  • Collaboration with colleagues and supervisors
  • Willingness to reflect on strengths and areas for growth to improve individual and team performance
  • Friendly and open communication
  • Regular communication with supervisors and Areté headquarters staff (email, phone)
  • Ability to learn and use Zoom and other online learning platforms as needed.

Qualifications

  • Current high school student in Community School District 7, NYC DOE.
  • Prior internship experience with Arete Education preferred
  • Arete supervisor recommendation to fall internship preferred
  • Effective written and verbal communication
  • Ability to:
    • manage time effectively
    • go the extra mile and/or try something new
    • be empathic and listen to others well
    • proactively identify and resolve problems
    • be polite, positive, and professional in all communications
 - 09/04/2020 - sbsd@areteeducation.org
intern tutors zoom

Intern-Tutors Engage their Peers in Remote Learning

“The most rewarding part about my tutor experience has been being able to showcase my abilities in helping people in hopes that they will gain from me, the same way I gained from my teachers.”

-Joselyn, 9th Grade Intern

20 High School Students have joined an Intern-Tutor Program led by Mr. Edward Martinez

This 16-week internship program initially began this spring with 8 high school interns preparing to gain job-embedded skills to enter the education field through an innovative internship program at the Laboratory School of Finance and Technology led by teacher leader and Areté Education Director of Professional Learning, Edward Martinez. Since the ramifications of a global pandemic have radically altered the context for the internship, these high school students (now swelling to a group of 20!) are now serving as the lifeline for middle school students during the final weeks of remote learning for the 2020 school year.

“The best part of it all is learning and teaching at the same time.”

-Jose, 10th Grade Intern

Below is the program description for the first cohort of 8 intern-tutors, as designed and written by Mr. Martinez.

The goal of the 16-week Internship Program at Arete Education is to prepare students at HS 223 for job opportunities in the education field. Interns are provided with professional development centered on leadership skills, curriculum development, and social-emotional learning. The weekly work schedule allows for each intern to provide 6 hours of small group tutoring services to middle schoolers who need extra help in ELA or Math. The interns also receive up to 4 hours of professional development per week to support their growth. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, all professional development is now being delivered through remote learning via Google Classroom and Meet.

“What I find most useful about the Intern-Tutor experience is learning how to manage classrooms, create lessons, and work with students.”

-Natalie, 10th Grade Intern

The Internship uses a community service-learning approach where the interns study education issues and receive specialized training in order to address the academic and social-emotional needs of MS 223 students. Interns who successfully complete the internship program, walk away with updated resumes, portfolios of the work they completed and recommendation letters they can use for future employment. The interns will also have an opportunity to be employed in the summer and fall programs that are operated by Arete Education and its partners.

“My intern experience has allowed me to gain many useful skills such as the ability to manage classroom behavior. This skill is very important when dealing with children and this internship has given me the necessary tools I need...”

-Chanel, 12th Grade Intern

The Interns are currently in the process of preparing enrichment club lesson plans that align with the workshop model. They partnered up to design fun and interactive lessons for the after-school setting. Last week (April 16th), the interns had the opportunity to receive guidance from MS/HS 223’s Principal, Dr. Gonzalez, who participated in a Google Meet session. The students engaged in a discussion to critique each other with feedback. Much of the suggestions that were provided were rooted in consistency with having clear and measurable objectives, simplicity, and alignment. The lessons ranged in genres from analyzing song lyrics, drawing 3-dimensional objects to creating a space for team-building. Dr. Gonzalez was impressed with the high level work that the interns were doing. Before the session was over he let the interns know that “It takes years for teachers to learn these concepts, but you are all showing your learned them after a couple of sessions... Pretty impressive!

“One thing that I have found useful about my Internship experience is understanding that there are different ways to help students... that being an intern is not only about helping a student, but also about building a relationship in which they feel comfortable asking for help.”

-Evelyn, 12th Grade Intern

“I definitely feel more confident to lead a group of middle schoolers because of how I have been taught to deal with different scenarios that I may face. I just overall feel more prepared. I am capable of creating a lesson for kids that is engaging...”

Franklin, 9th Grade Intern

An afternoon PD session on April 21 via Google Meet with Mr. Martinez, Director of Professional Development at Arete Education and a Social Studies Teacher at MS 223.

 - 05/25/2020 - sbsd@areteeducation.org
Painting Blog Banner

Discover Your Unique Character Strengths

We know strengths are important for leading successful lives. Strengths and talents can help us grow and thrive when we intentionally use, develop, and cultivate them.

Have you ever thought about what your character strengths are?

 

Scientists began studying the psychology of strengths in earnest decades ago. They started to explore what it looks like when we focus on developing what is right instead of fixing what is wrong. In 2004, leaders in positive psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman and Dr. Peterson developed the VIA Classification of Character Strengths and Virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Following that, the personal strengths assessment, VIA Survey, was developed, measuring 24 character strengths under 6 Virtues in human beings (Find a copy of VIA Classification of Character Strengths and Virtues here).

 

Character Strengths are defined as the positive parts of your personality that impact how you think, feel, and behave in daily life. You can discover your unique profile of strengths by taking the FREE VIA Survey online. Users need to register and create an account in order to take the survey.

 

According to leading positive psychologists, we each have strengths we are naturally good at. These are called our signature strengths. Find out your unique profile and your TOP 5 signature strengths!

 

When you have your signature strengths (TOP 5) identified, consider these questions to help you reflect on how to develop greater awareness of your strengths:

  • Do they seem to fit you well?
  • Are you surprised by any of them?
  • Read over your list of signature strengths. Think about ways in which you already use them in your life. 
  • Do you underuse any of your strengths?
  • Do you overuse any of your strengths?
  • Brainstorm ways in which you can use them in new ways, and write down a list of specific actions you can take to use your strengths more in healthy and balanced new ways. And then, commit to using your strengths in new ways each day this week. 

 

You can also invite others to take the survey and have some fun activities with them!

  • Families: Invite your family members to take the survey and make a Family Strengths Tree!
  • Friends / Colleagues: Invite your friend to do this survey and have a discussion with them! Share with each other a story about one of your strengths and ask them to guess which strength it is!
  • Romantic Partner: Have you ever had a strength date? Invite your partner to take the survey and have a Strength Date with them! 

 

 

 - 05/25/2020 - Fiona Zheng

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