Education Majors Gaining Valuable Hands-On Experience

Education majors have been getting plenty of hands-on experience working with students in the past few weeks. Groups of Hiram students have been helping out area schools with competitions and test preparations.

Hiram education majors Dean Ackerman, Sara Benedetto, Allegra Catalano, Derek Green, Philip Major and Tiffani Martin, helped with James A. Garfield Middle School’s Power of the Pen competition on January 16. Power of the Pen is a writing competition for area middle school students. The Hiram students worked in the tab room to facilitate the competition.

On February 19, five Hiram education majors helped with the Quiz Bowl competition at the Kent United Methodist Church. Ashley Drum, Natalie Green, Nick Hallett, Tricia Kline and Tiffani Martin served as score keepers and time keepers for rounds of competition. Quiz Bowl is a quiz competition for area high school students. Students play matches in teams of 4 in three rounds: general, alphabet and lightening round. This program was organized by the Portage County Educational Service Center.

Because of their work at the quiz bowl, the educational service center asked Hiram students if they wanted to volunteer to help with Math 24. Ashley Drum, Tiffani Martin and Tricia Kline helped to facilitate the competition on February 24 at Maplewood Career Center. Math 24 is a math competition for area intermediate and middle school students.

Finally, for the second year in a row, Hiram students are helping James A. Garfield fifth graders in Mr. Larry Kuhlman’s classes with the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT). Mr. Kuhlman has his students answer sample questions for the OAT in math and social studies, then Hiram students read the answers and score them based on the state rubric. This helps the fifth graders to see how an outside reader would evaluate their answers because that is how the test is scored. A variety of Hiram students have participated including Dean Ackerman, Tiffani Martin, Molly Monks and Evelyn Washabaugh. Molly Monks, education club president, is coordinating the volunteers each week to read the responses. The group will read four or five sets of responses from mid-February until the end of March.