Period 6 - Helmina Bong

[CALIS]

Thank you for participating in TIRP service-learning outreach!

Your reports are the basis for academic credit. Whether or not you are seeking a credit option, reports are required as a record of your teaching complex issues in local schools.

1. For each report, select Post Reply. (Do not select New Topic)
2. Copy/paste from your Word file and save a copy until after the semester is over.
3. Before pasting, confirm that you have met the minimum of at least 500 words.
4. Each report must be submitted within 3 days after each session.

Remember:
a. The webboard is public. Do not refer to students by name; instead call them Student A, B or C. If you include names, commentary or observations, you will need to revise your post.
b. Guiding questions for reports are provided in section F of the Requirements & Guidelines.
c. If you include too much focus on the step-by-step process of the lesson rather than content, you may be asked to revise your report.

A CALIS staff member will review your report each week and post a message below of the scoring for your performance evaluation.
We welcome any questions or concerns you have about scoring.
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Session 1
On time: 3/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student specifics: 6/6
Total: 15/15

Nice work this week, Helmina! Your team did a great job of using the tools and concepts, and breaking them down for the students. In the future, try to include more significant comments from the students. We want to hear not just what questions they have, but also what ideas they are contributing to the discussion! -CT on 2/28

Session 2
On time: 3/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student specifics: 6/6
Total: 15/15

Great report, Helmina! It sounds like your team is doing a great job connecting with the students--glad you sparked one's interest in IR! -CT on 3/7

Session 3
On time: 0/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student specifics: 6/6
Total: 12/15

Nice job, Helmina! I'm glad your team guided the students to think about how foreign policy opinions and decisions are formed. Keep it up for your last session! -CT on 4/5

Session 4
On time: 2/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student specifics: 6/6
Total: 14/15

Great last session, Helmina! I like how you wrapped things up by thinking about how individuals ultimately drive foreign policy. However, your report only included one student comment from this session. If you'd like full points, you can add two more student specifics! -CT on 4/11

[Helmina Bong]

Despite our team’s first time in teaching foreign policy concepts to the class, it was pretty decent. Our goal for the first class was to teach students and prepare them the basic concepts of the formation of foreign policy, such as who forms foreign policies and how are they formed, we also wanted to teach them the concepts of different kinds of policy former. We first started the class by brainstorming and asking them whom do they think form foreign policies in the united states. Right not it is Trump - the president of the United States who forms it, by stating someone that they know and is relevant to them. After that we taught them the DEPP chart and the different vocabularies of policy formers – maintainer, transformer and retainer. We used the analytical tools TIRP provided, after teaching them the differences of these three types of policy formers, we divided them up in groups and asked them to fill out the chart that talks about the characteristics of each type. Each of our teammate went up and facilitated the conversation and the chart activity to see if they needed help. Which several students were confused about policy transformer’s characteristics of “inequality”, we further the explanation by asking them “what do you think a policy transformer does?” “Do you think they would want to transform policies when they see inequality in the society/world?” They then understood the concept and filled out the correct answer. One other students was confused by the concept of “zero sum” that is under policy maintainer, we then asked the whole class to help by asking “what do you guys think is a “zero – sum”, they did not seem to understand the concept so we gave them a basic definition of it, and asked them to think on which type of policy reformer that is and how does it make sense. By interacting with these students, I understood the best way of teaching student is to provide basic concepts for the students so that they have an understanding, but leaving some space for them to actually apply it to use and for them to actually think for themselves. Despite students raising up questions that they were confused about, some of the students had some extraordinary knowledge about political sciences, since many of them expressed their interest in majoring in the politics field when they go to college. One student was very knowledgeable about the field and after we clarified to him what zero sum actually meant, he applied it to a greater extent on war situations. To be honest, through preparing for the teaching of this class on the topic of foreign policy, I learned much more than I had originally thought. By preparing for this class, I gained a deeper understanding on the differences on policy reformers actually. I am learning all these things because of course, we have to make sure we know the content that we are teaching the students before we even teach them, and we should even know it to a greater extent so that we are always ready to provide explanation and insights. However, one thing I think we need to improve on is to make sure the three of us go through the material ourselves before meeting so that we can have a more efficient collaborate teaching in class.

[Helmina Bong]

For our second lesson on March 3rd, we have started to gain control over the things we had to do. We have discussed that we needed to do more preparation. Therefore the night prior to meeting up for the session, we looked over the handout material and the teacher’s guide over and made sure we know what we needed to do and teach that day, and so that we can shorten the time of discussion that is right before the class. Last time we did not have enough time to go through everything and was late to the session. This time because we did everything prior, we were early and on time to the session. So for this session, we used the guide/handouts of “setting priorities”. We used several activities, divided them up into teams of different worldviews, and ask them to fill out charts on whether they would choose to emphasize these foreign policies based on their assigned worldview. So at the beginning of the class, we started off a fun activity. We asked them whether they still remember our name and where we come from, since our team has such a diverse background, we come from Hong Kong, United kingdom, and the east coast of United States. It was fun to kind of get the student’s attention instead of simply starting off from a normal or boring class routine. After that, we asked the class what they remembered about what we taught them the last class – about what foreign policy was. One student remembered that “foreign policy is about the trading policy”, one said “foreign policy is about how countries form policy in regards to the interaction with other countries”, which are all correct. We then started using the handouts, divided them up into 3 groups, one represent the system maintainer, reformer and transformer. And we asked them to first fill out the chart by themselves, on which foreign policy they think their assigned worldview would want to focus on. When they were working individually, we would go over to them and see if they need any help. Usually those that have no answers filled out on the sheet does not really know what’s going on, or simply need another explanation, so we would go ahead and do that. After individual work, we asked them to pair up and share it with another person, and after that, we asked the entire group to share. There are some times where no students would want to answer, but we appointed students and made them answer, which was a good way to keep students engaged or at least know that they cannot complete not know what is going on in the class. At the end of the class, a girl came up to us and asked us about why we chose our major, and what can we do with that. She seemed to have raised a very high interest on international relations, and she told us she might want to major in international relations in college because the things we told her about are what she likes to do. It is nice to know that teaching students can actually bring impacts beyond your imagination.

[Helmina Bong]

For this third session of teaching our class, it went a lot smoother. So for this session, we did a role-play teaching on foreign policy and national attributes, which we divided the class into 6 teams, each representing a country. We would first ask the students to read through the country description by themselves and highlight the key attributes with their group mates. After doing that, we wanted to make sure that they had highlighted the correct key attributes instead of random ones, since there were a lot of attributes that was being described in the text. So each of us went over to the teams to make sure that they actually highlighted the ones that were important. One of the student misunderstood narco trafficking and did not know that it was a type of drugs trafficking, so we would make sure they understand those specific national attributes. Afterwards, we proposed two different scenarios to them and ask them to discuss in groups, on how their country should react in regards to such situation. To make sure that they are on the right track, making foreign policy decisions based on their own national attributes, the type of country they are, the national resources they are abundant in, the economic resources they have, and such. The first scenario was that a group like united nations wants to combat drugs trafficking, the students were then asked if they would support that and contribute to the combatting. One of the group I was leading was India which has drug trafficking. However one of the student first made a decision based on his own opinion instead of the national attributes they were situated in, I therefore had to guide him back on track. We asked all the groups to share, they have very diverse opinions, some of the countries/ groups with drugs trafficking would want to combat drugs trafficking because they want to address the problem, but some didn’t want to because the students decided that such method will not be able to address the problem ultimately. Some of the wealthy countries that the students had represented on decided they want to support the act and make contributions to that, by donating maybe 10 million dollars, or natural resources they were abundant at. They were all good suggestions and there was no exact right answers, which I think was the great part of this activity plan of the class because it leaves them freedom to think, but at the same time any answers could be correct if they have reasoning behind that can support their argument.
One of the best answers we have gotten was the country of united states, a student said they decided not to support this act of combatting drugs trafficking worldwide because the country is now lead by Trump, which only cares about self interest instead of the global interest as a whole. It was a great class after all because students could get a grasp of what it is like to actually form opinions regarding foreign policy, to apply it on actual situations.

[Helmina Bong]

For our last session with the students at Marquez, we had a great time. We used the material for foreign policy: let’s get personal, which was a time of reading and discussion on the policy of preemption follow from a quote that “individuals are the only true actors in IR.” So based on this concept, we tried to help them make sense of how individuals are the ultimate true actors of IR, by providing examples of when political leaders had to make decisions regarding to wars, or regarding to a reaction on a foreign affairs issue, they are all ultimately dependent on a single leader’s personal decision. We also asked them whether if they think Americans should cast their vote regarding a preemptive strike against Iran. When we asked this question on their opinions, they went silent. Then we asked them whether they understood the deeper word “preemptive”, they did not seem to be able to explain it too, so we further explained what the word means and gave an example. After that they were able to answer the bigger question. Sometimes when students are not able to answer a question, a great way is to break down the question for explanation, after that they will be able to form the bigger answer.

After the activities, for the remaining several minutes of the class, we provided a time of Q&A for the students to ask us any questions regarding college, or anything about major choice, political science, international relations, or simply anything about college that they are curious about. I hope this time that we spent with them generated enough or at least interest on international relations for them. And we thought it would be a great to provide a time for them to carry out questions that they have for international relations or college, to extend this experience we had with them. Not simply teaching them international relations concept and say goodbye. And also because prior to this class, we had a student came up to us and asked us things about majoring in international relations in college because she was really interested. I feel like things like this is the kind of impact we would like to bring to this next generation. So during this time of Q&A, a student asked us “is college hard?”, each of us had something to add in, but in general we told them the difference between high school and college, is that in college there is no one that will hold your hands and tell you what to do, everything is on you whether if you want to go to class (and when they heard this they all went “whooo”) you need to be self disciplined…etc.

At the end of the class, when the teacher gave us back the feedback form, we said goodbye to her, she told us how this is an honors AP class so students are relatively driven. She told us how the students really enjoyed their time with us and liked us, and they were anticipating for the session’s time. This really creates an enjoyable time for us to know that they actually really liked it too; we are not only able to teach them the international relations knowledge we have but also able to spark their interest. When we left, some students even asked us to go to their graduation ceremony, it was a great time with the students.

[Helmina Bong]

For our last session with the students at Marquez, we had a great time. We used the material for foreign policy: let’s get personal, which was a time of reading and discussion on the policy of preemption follow from a quote that “individuals are the only true actors in IR.” So based on this concept, we tried to help them make sense of how individuals are the ultimate true actors of IR, by providing examples of when political leaders had to make decisions regarding to wars, or regarding to a reaction on a foreign affairs issue, they are all ultimately dependent on a single leader’s personal decision. We also asked them whether if they think Americans should cast their vote regarding a preemptive strike against Iran. When we asked this question on their opinions, they went silent. Then we asked them whether they understood the deeper word “preemptive”, they did not seem to be able to explain it too, so we further explained what the word means and gave an example. After that they were able to answer the bigger question. One of the students said they think americans should because we "think" we are the best and we have to protect ourselves. Another student said they think Americans of course shouldn't cast their vote regarding a preemptive war against Iran because that creates so much suffering for citizens on both side. Sometimes when students are not able to answer a question, a great way is to break down the question for explanation, after that they will be able to form the bigger answer.

After the activities, for the remaining several minutes of the class, we provided a time of Q&A for the students to ask us any questions regarding college, or anything about major choice, political science, international relations, or simply anything about college that they are curious about. I hope this time that we spent with them generated enough or at least interest on international relations for them. And we thought it would be a great to provide a time for them to carry out questions that they have for international relations or college, to extend this experience we had with them. Not simply teaching them international relations concept and say goodbye. And also because prior to this class, we had a student came up to us and asked us things about majoring in international relations in college because she was really interested. I feel like things like this is the kind of impact we would like to bring to this next generation. So during this time of Q&A, a student asked us “is college hard?”, each of us had something to add in, but in general we told them the difference between high school and college, is that in college there is no one that will hold your hands and tell you what to do, everything is on you whether if you want to go to class (and when they heard this they all went “whooo”) you need to be self disciplined…etc.

At the end of the class, when the teacher gave us back the feedback form, we said goodbye to her, she told us how this is an honors AP class so students are relatively driven. She told us how the students really enjoyed their time with us and liked us, and they were anticipating for the session’s time. This really creates an enjoyable time for us to know that they actually really liked it too; we are not only able to teach them the international relations knowledge we have but also able to spark their interest. When we left, some students even asked us to go to their graduation ceremony, it was a great time with the students.