Teen Girl Faked Pregnancy for School Project...

"17 year old Teen girl named Gabi Rodriguez from Toppenish High School, Wash. fakes pregnancy for six months."

In order to graduate seniors have to complete a social experiment, and Gabi wanted to do something different!.  She mentioned that she thought about this project during her sophomore year during her Biology class. Her project consisted on stereotyping and people reactions toward pregnant teens.

The only people who knew about this were the school principal, her parents and her boyfriend.  Her boyfriend admitted he was afraid Gabi's project might have caused some problems with her brothers.  Gabi's due date was going to be July 27th, two months after graduation.  

The project came to an end this past Wednesday, April 20th.  When Gabi Rodriguez took her fake belly out in front of the entire school at an assembly.  She was a little anxious on how the crowd was going to react.  After all, she did lie to most of her classmates for such a long time.  

Before she revealed the truth though, Gabi started giving a presentation on stereotyping, rumors and statistics.  Gabi also mentioned that many things were said about her and most of them came back to her.  Therefore, she asked a couple of teachers and students to read some of the things people said during her experiment.

Her best friend, Saida Cortes who knew about Gabi’s project read one of the cards that said.  "Her attitude is changing, and it might be because of the baby, or she was always this annoying, and I never realized it."

Gabi’s project not only got the attention of her High School.  She even got "Good Morning America" calling.

Below are some tweets that were passed through social networks to spread the news...

 

@nydailynews Psych! After surviving 6 months of high school with baby bump, teen delivered big news: She was never really pregnant.

@daylelynne  Gaby Rodriguez fooled her whole school ~ "Breaking Stereotypes: Teen Girl Fakes Pregnancy".

@ME_Leclerc1776 Teen girl fakes pregnancy to test reactions...interesting.

@jezebel, teen fakes pregnancy for school project to expose stereotypes.

"I'm fighting against those stereotypes and rumors because the reality is I'm not pregnant." Gabi added.          

Hispanics teens have a greater percentage to become pregnant among other ethnic minority groups in the country.  According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.  Approximately 51percent of Latina teens will become pregnant before age 20, compared with about 30 percent of teens overall.

Gabi Rodriguez wants to attend Columbia Basin College in the fall and plans to study social work or sociology. Evidently, she's an extremely devoted student, as most teens wouldn't dream of exposing themselves to months of criticism for a social experiment.

School Children- Lack of Motivation or Boredom?

Teachers constantly argue that is extremely difficult to keep students motivated and interested in learning. They often have to use rewarding methods such as giving out prizes or in some cases cheering relentlessly.

Community organizers believe that there is not such a thing as “motivating others”. On the other hand, there are ways to help people discover what they can use to motivate themselves.

Edward Deci, a premier researcher and authorities on intrinsic motivation, wrote: “The proper question is not, “how can people motivate others?” but rather, “how can people create the conditions within which others will motivate themselves?."

When parents and teachers unsuccessfully try to motivate students by using their energy. It is often more effective according to Edward Deci to help students discover their motivation by getting challenged to use their own energy.


Why incentives and rewards can be dangerous?

Researchers believe this loss of intrinsic motivation occurs because contingent rewards.— If you do this, then you’ll get something in return-- force people to give some of their autonomy.

Rewards (and punishments) have been found to be successful to a certain degree. However, in getting people to do automated and routing work that can be accomplished simply. For instance, they can result in employees working faster in a specific project line or, in the classroom, students making basic changes in their behavior.

However, rewards can also be damaging in increasing anything that requires higher-order thinking. In addition, everyone expects and needs “baseline rewards”. These are the basics of suitable “compensation.” At school, students might expect fair grades, a caring teacher who provides fairly appealing lessons, or a clean classroom.

For the most part, increasing student's motivation in learning might not be as hard as it sounds. Adjusting a couple of things in the classroom and teaching style can help students to have a fun and productive learning experience.

Explaining. Recent Research shows that many students might do poorly at school or in participation because they do not understand what to do or why they should do it. Teachers should spend more time explaining students why that topic or approach or activity is interesting and worthwhile learning.

Enthusiasm and Care. Enthusiasm makes a world of difference when it comes to teaching. By transmitting enthusiasm, students will be more likely to have a better experience becoming more interested in learning. Care is just as important, students respond with interest and motivation to teachers who appear to be human and caring. Sharing part of themselves with students –anecdotes, small stories and mistakes they made—could help students see teachers as human beings and not as a remote authority figure.

Student Participation. Getting students to participate in activities such as group problem solving exercises, helping the teacher, working with each other, or in some other way getting physically involved in the lesson. For instance, if the lesson is about nature, taking the kids outdoors could be way more effective than looking at pictures.


Inductive Teaching. Presenting examples first allows students to discover, making more sense, generalizing and drawing a conclusion on their own. Moreover, these skills would allow students to maintain interest and increase motivation as well as teaching the skills of analysis and synthesis.

Student’s Needs. Happy. Survival, love, power, fun and freedom are some of the basic needs students have. Designing educational activities to fulfill these needs would motivate students to stay more committed to a learning activity that has value to them.

Visual Learning. Using drawings, diagrams, pictures, charts, graphs, bulleted lists, even 3-D objects can help students anchor the idea to an image. Enabling them to develop a mental framework that will help them to learn better and remember more.

Utilizing the same teaching styles over and over again can surely be a recipe for boredom and discipline problems. Ultimately, is up to educators to think beyond their abilities by exploring different options available to them to engage students into the classroom.

Sources

Ferlazzo, Larry. "Helping Students Motivate Themselves" http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/02/19/helping-students-motivate-themselves-practical-answers-to-classroom-problems/

Sasson, Dorit. "3 Teaching Tips to Motivate High School Students"

http://newteacherresourcecenter.com/2010/09/03/3-teaching-tips-to-motivate-high-school-students/

Shewey, Sarah. "How can we empower kids to reshape the education system?" http://www.ted.com/conversations/1481/how_can_we_empower_kids_to_res.html

Raul Garcia- Becoming a Better Journalist...

I had the pleasure to interview one of my classmates from Full Sail University.  His name is Raul Garcia; he is 33 years old, lives in a small town called Mercedes located in Texas, he loves Journalism and reporting the news to the Latino population.

We had the interview scheduled for Thursday morning at 10:00 am EST through Skype.  We both had some doubts on how to use Garage band to record the interview, but everything worked just fine and we were ready to roll.

It was my first time doing an interview, but wasn’t the first time for Raul!. Therefore, he seemed pretty confident and very professional, which totally inspired me to learn more about him.

So, here it is…

Let me first start telling you about his background and how he became the person he is today.

Raul was born in a small town called Mercedes, located in Houston Texas.  He then moved to East Lasing, Michigan where his mother wanted to further her career as a teacher.   Being a single parent, she managed to raise Raul and his two sisters.

After he graduated from High School, Raul was undecided on what career path he wanted to follow.  He mentioned that one time he was watching the history channel and a documentary of John F. Kennedy came up.  He learned that John F. Kennedy went to Journalism school and also attended law school to become a lawyer.  John F. Kennedy became a true inspiration to Raul, and he began to follow his footsteps.

 

In 1998, Raul moved to Brownsville, Texas to stay with his father and enrolled in the University of Brownsville.  This was the first time; Raul got involved in the scholar newspaper.  He started as a volunteer and one of his initial tasks was to perform an interview for an Obituary, which was later published as a news story.

In 1999, he transferred to Austin Community College where he became an assistant to the Journalist’s director.  A couple years later, Raul was accepted at Michigan State University.  As a result, he moved back to Michigan to continue with his Journalism studies.

Meanwhile, Raul’s intentions were to attend law school to become a lawyer.  Unfortunately, things didn’t work out very well for him at the time.  Instead, he committed most of his time to become a ‘better journalist’.  Therefore, in 2004 he moved back to Texas to study graphic design at Lansing Community College to strengthen his technical skills.

While studying, Raul was able to start his career as a journalist.  He volunteered for “The Collegian” at UTB, then “The State News” at Michigan State.  He also worked as a freelancer for “The Lansing State Journal."   Lastly, he became and assistant editor for “Mi gente Magazine” and an editor for “The Lookout” at Lansing Community College.

Along his career, he was able to meet and proudly work with well-known journalists in the Latino community.  Azenett Cornejo, Rosa Morales (Emmy Award winning Journalist) and most recently, Juan Montoya his friend and mentor.

His background in Journalism and Graphic Design gave Raul the necessary experience to open his own new media newspaper called Valleywood Magazine in Mercedes where he resides.   In his newspaper he enjoys highlighting the local and national news, businesses, culture and sports.

Raul mentioned that one of his dreams was to obtain a Master’s Degree in Journalism.  He says, “I consider myself lucky to have found Full Sail University.  The New Media Journalism Program at Full Sail fits right into my busy schedule."

Raul was extremely nice during the interview and I was able to ask him a couple of questions that I would like to share here with you…

So, Raul …

Katherine- What would like to accomplish with a Master’s Degree from Full Sail?

Raul- “I want to strengthen my skills to become a reporter, while at the same time I would like to help other businesses report their information about their products and services."

Katherine-  What is one of your greatest professional strengths?

Raul- “ Being patient. You got to be there earlier to report the news”.  “Perseverance.  I got to stick to my goals and make a great career as a journalist."

Katherine- Where would you like to work once you complete your Degree at Full Sail?

Raul- "Reporting for a local news channel, Fortune 500, or may be a Political Party using Multimedia, Social Media etc.  I would like to be able to develop a more dynamical Multimedia Report".

Katherine- Would you recommend Full Sail University and the New Media Journalism Program to future students?

Raul- “Absolutely”

Katherine- Do you think that this program prepares students for a career as a New Media Journalist? And why?

Raul- “Definitely”

“I think the program is a great educational opportunity.  They have some great overall material.  It’s up to the student to take it to the next level."

Katherine-  As for your experience working for a couple of newspapers in the past.   How do you think that technology has revolution the old way of printing?

Raul- “ Technology has revolution the whole industry. I used to work in the dark room, developing and getting everything ready for print."

Raul- "In fact, I proposed one of the owners to start using special newspaper software for digital printing and different adobe products.  He ended up saving a lot of money and thanked me for introducing him to the digital era."

Katherine-  Is there any specific books or Resources  that you would recommend?

Raul- "I enjoy reading about Journalism from the past.  I also like to read reference books on design and books to improve my writing."

Katherine- Can you give us some tips on how to boost up a New Media Journalism Career?

Raul- "Creating a Network is extremely important, although I don’t have a big network, I’m more into the shy side, but with social media everything is possible."

Raul- "Social Media can really increase your network, you just have to find the right contacts.  Following top blogs is also very helpful to connect with like-minded people in the industry."

Katherine- Raul, Can you share with us what are your short and long term goals for your career?

Raul- "My short-term goals are to continue writing for the community and integrating most of the material  I been learning at Full Sail.  I would also like to become a better journalist."

Raul- "My long-term goals would be able to graduate and attend Graduation Ceremony in Orlando, Fl.  I possibly see myself working for a Communication Department at a major Newspaper in the country."

 

I enjoyed learning a little more about Raul, his background, aspirations and goals.  He is truly an inspiration, for the younger generations in his community.

My Career Goals as a Multimedia Content Specialist...

Once I complete my Master degree in New Media Journalism at Full Sail University, I would like to grow my career as a Multimedia Content Specialist.

My aim is to work for a fast growing company that offers cutting-edge educational material in a helpful, constructive work environment.

As for the hiring process, it is extremely important to set professional goals first having a plan of action all the time will help me move forward starting this new career.

-Technology- Using technology to my advantage.  The computer would be the most important tool to generate ideas, keeping up with new trends, doing the research and creating content.

-Building up a portfolio - Providing content for my own sites first, sites of my friends or family members or any volunteer work for nonprofit organizations could really help me start building that portfolio.

-Personal Branding- Creating a visual style of my personal brand would be crucial to build a presence online.   Therefore, having a domain with my first and last name.com for my personal blog would benefit my online presence.
 
-Networking- Networking is a great way to meet and connect with like-minded people in the industry.  Life events and Meet up groups are just a few of the many options to start making some great connections.

How to help Kick-Start a career as a Multimedia Content Specialist in today's job market?

-Blogging is the first thing I would to start doing, it will allow me to increase my web presence and personal brand.  For instance if a recruiter does a search on my name and finds my personal blog with some of the work that I've done.  How do you think that would make me stand out from the rest of the candidates applying for the same position?

-Social Media- This would be a great tool to start networking with like-minded individuals in the industry.  Therefore, having complete Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn professional profiles is extremely important. Always, making sure that my Resume, Cover Letter, Contact Information, Projects and Achievements are up to date. 

 

 -Video- Making a 2-3 minute video introduction for my blog showing some of my personality could be an excellent way toengage with future employers.  Always dressing professionally and smiling for the camera :)

Ultimately, when it comes to finding a job as a Multimedia Content Specialist , the most important part is being authentic, showing my ability to think beyond, demonstrating a love for learning new things and being ready for innovation.