Some Practical tips for interviewing

Practical tips for interviewing.

All of this advice comes from students who have done interviews and 

reported back their experiences.

1. Be professional--be on time. Make interviewee feel important--because they are. 
2. Make them comfortable. The more this feels like a conversation, the better. 
3. You may want to send them the questions before the interview. Interviewees WANT to do well, and having the questions ahead of time can relax them.
4. If they get off track in their answers, steer them gently back. BUT, pay attention to what they are saying… sometimes what seems “off topic” actually has value.
5. Don’t talk too much. You KNOW what you think. Let them tell you what THEY think.
6. Be sure to ask follow-up questions when they say something good. Don’t be a slave to the questions. The questions are just a start.
7. Be sure to record the interview. ALSO, take good written notes. You will want to have BOTH sources. Consider using OTTER app. which allows you to get a written transcript of the interview. You can have OTTER going on your phone while you are Zooming or talking in person (safely.)
8. When interview is over, ask them if it is OK to contact them with follow up questions.
9. Don't do email interviews. Instead, talk with the interviewee. 

New guidelines for Interview paper... important that you read and do this

New guidelines for Interview paper... important that you read and do this

As we get going on this  essay assignment, we have some additional things that we will be doing. 

1. We need to track demographic data about each of your interviewees. Please track gender, age, race and neighborhood in which they live. (For neighborhood, all we need is the cross streets where they live. We dont need their specific address.)

2. For each of your interviewees, you are going to create a Google Form that has this demographic information ALONG WITH their answers to the questions you ask them. You will be sharing the Google Form with me. smcfarland2011@gmail.com 

3. Here are the questions you will be asking.  (There are new questions here in addition to the 5 questions that you answered for Ass. #3. If you already interviewed someone with the 5 questions, please contact them and ask these additional questions.)

• What are three words you would use to describe the feeling of being safe?
• How safe do you feel walking alone in your neighborhood? Why? What about driving or taking public transit? What about shopping?
• Compared to Hayward as a whole, does your neighborhood feel more or less safe? Why? 
• When you have felt unsafe, have you ever reached out to someone from a local government for help, like police, code enforcement, or a school principal? If so, what was the topic(s)? If not, why not?
• Most of the time, we think of safety as relating to violence. What other factors in your life make you feel unsafe or fearful? Examples could include housing, food, healthcare, climate, racism, or isolation.
• We want every community member in Hayward to feel safe in their community. What are the systems at play that we must address for everyone to feel safe?
• What tools and strategies need to be developed for safer policing?
• When you envision a Hayward where everyone feels safe, what does it look like? In your vision, what role does policing play?
• When you think about safety broadly, what solutions should we prioritize first?

More advice about how to do this interview paper-- and a sample essay

Here is some advice about how to do this interview paper.

1. Each body paragraph should have at least 1 direct quote ",,," and preferably 2 or even 3.  This allows you to integrate more than one interviewee into a paragraph...it also allows you to bring in outside sources along side your interviewees. It is super important that a paragraph be organized by CONCEPT... not people you are interviewing! One way for this to happen is to have NO NAMES in your 3-4-5 topic sentences. Dont start off paras by saying "When I spoke with Gloria, she said..." 

2. No Headless quotes (You need to tell us WHO is talking. No quotes back to back (put your commentary in between the 2 quotes.)

3. You dont need to have sentences that say, When I Interviewed Tom, he said... or When I asked Juanita...---in other words there should be no references to the fact that you DID interviews...instead, just simply write Tom said, "...."    or Juanita said, "....."

4.  Below are a few paras that you can use as a model for how to do the paras...notice, NO NAMES are in the 3-4-5 topic sentences. Names come in when you pull in the quote. Notice also that there is substantial commentary after each quote, and that each para has at least 2 quotes.

There are plenty of roles that students will play in the school. These students will be able to create a community. Activities that students will be involved in will help bring the community more closer. The students involvement in these activities in school will give the community a more sense of togetherness. A student named Emily spoke about this sort of community and said, “People want a family; community is family you know where we come together, we meet, we hangout. It helped me see a bigger picture see the bigger that it’s not all about me. Even though I am a key key figure a key chess piece it’s not just about me, it’s about the whole set.”  Students being involved in creating a community will bring everyone together. They will be able to connect with each other on a deeper level. The time spent together with others in a positive way is only beneficial to people in this community. These students will not even notice how important their role in their community is because community activities can be viewed as such a simple thing. But sometimes, the simplest things always matter the most. The psychologist Rollo May says “Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.” Understanding one another is extremely important. Students accepting one another in a community will ultimately lead to accepting and understanding one another. This is the key to a very successful and even happy community. Everyone in complete understanding and appreciation towards one another is what will keep peace and serenity. Although creating community activities may seem as if it is a small act that a student can do, it makes a pretty big impact overall. Community activities will lead everyone to enjoy one another’s company and have a better appreciation of each other. People will even be able to learn more about each other with more time spent in this community. Time well spent in positive energy will only influence others to feel this energy as well.

Students will also have even bigger roles to play in the school as well. There will be opportunities that revolve around leadership. Students can volunteer or take lead of projects that will help better the community in the school. In Broda’s book, he goes over student and teacher involvement in volunteering to create an outdoor classroom. He says, “Teaching and leading today’s youth often means getting your hands dirty and always requires your arms to be open and your heart willing to serve.” The youth of today are influenced by the way the older generation is. Students who are surrounded by teachers who do a lot of volunteer work will be motivated to contribute their free time as well. Students are influenced by leadership. The more volunteer opportunities that are available to our youth will have them feel more empowered by the work they would do for our community. Broda stresses the very importance of volunteering in his book and he says, “To be very blunt, it is simply impossible to implement and sustain a multifaceted and multi classroom outdoor learning program without the help of parents and other community volunteers.” With that said, it simply means that nothing can make true progression without the help of volunteers. Students in this school will be able to contribute their help to make this dream school a reality. Youth volunteers will also be able to learn from the program in which they are volunteering for. Students are extremely important and they play a huge part in this school with their help of volunteering. They will be able to acquire knowledge and put in leadership work with the volunteer opportunities they are given.

    Students can also have a part to help improve the school system overall as well. Students will be able to have a voice in their education. They will be able to actually communicate with teachers with what is working in their education and what is not working. This school will improve if students are given a strong communication line with their teachers. In the Passion Project video, Ray argues, “A great teacher is always like a student because they’re always learning so they’re always learning new and better ways to do something.” I feel as if this speaks many truths. Any person in this world, including teachers should always be open to learning new things. I believe that there is always something new to learn every single day. If this school allows students to help give teachers insightful advice or help with what they can improve, the whole school system will improve as well. This role a student plays to teach the teacher will better improve education as a whole. Students would be given a fair chance to learn the way they feel more comfortable if they are able to communicate that with their teachers. Communication is very important. In the same video, Emily says, “The teacher’s job in instilling passion and I’ve had several teacher’s who’ve done that, is constant communication with the students, constant reassurance.” Trust revolves around communication and understanding. The students must feel like they trust their teachers in order to properly communicate their thoughts with them. The role these students play in this school will echo the ideals of communication. A strong trust between a student and a teacher will lead to a strong understanding between each other. That is what every school system needs. A mutual understanding between teachers and students. This dream school will only improve as the relationships between student and teacher improves as well. This whole ideal will only come true if there is trust and communication.

This dream school can very well exist in this world. But it will only make a true difference in the world if the students of today are different as well. A lot of students are not open to new things. If students are not afraid to experience what this dream school has to offer, then progression will be made. In the narration of the passion video, it talks about a black armor of fear that prevents students to try new things. The narrator claims, “Students soon notice that this black armor, this ego, doesn’t protect or prepare them at all, but instead creates a weak and fearful unprepared baby. They learn to avoid any situation where they may fail and fail to learn what to do when they fall. And everybody falls eventually.” This is a mindset that is settled in many students. These students are not pushed to try new things, to step out of their comfort zone. The students of this school could be different when they rid themselves of fear. This fear is what hold back any person to truly find a passion. What people fail to realize is that there is so much possibilities beyond that barrier of fear we put in front of us. We stop ourselves from going further in life because we do not accept this fear. Ray, also says, “The teacher should definitely encourage us to take risks because without taking risks you’re stuck in one place. It’s when you take these risks uh when you pursue, it makes you pursue different things to open doors to possibilities.” People, not even just students must pursue risks, accept fear along with it. We fail to realize the unlimited amount of possibilities that lay before us because we choose to stop ourselves from moving forward. Fear is what stops us from progression. Once students embrace fear and accept the unknown, doors of opportunity will open before them. Students who are open to endless possibilities will eventually find their niche. If they are willing to just try it, to go past their fears, they will find their place of passion.

The school would offer a variety of options for students. However, in order for true passion to be found, students must be more open to appreciate the experiences they go through. Students should have fun with what is offered so that the experience is felt to the fullest extent. The narrator of the Passion Project Video says about the classroom, “Imagine it as a temple removed from society’s influences harboring a vault where time ceases to exist and where wisdom is practiced. Imagine a thousand possibilities between teacher and student waiting to unfold. Imagine passion burning away the black armor.” This black armor is what prevents us from reaching our full potential. This armor holds us back from feeling experiences that we go through. Students must not be afraid to enjoy and live in the moment. We are always afraid of the future or haunted by our past. The moment is now and the experience is what needs to be felt. Students who learn to enjoy the moment and live to their fullest extent will make this dream school a livelier place. Schools are often deprived of life because of this “black armor.” Students are miserable because they are so focused on figuring out their future. Our students in this school will be able to have fun and enjoy every experience that this school will offer to them. In Broda’s book, he introduces Catherine Padgett, a passionate outdoor educator. Broda says about Catherine Padgett that, “Beyond knowledge and passion, though, she feels that students need to be empowered to actively care for their schoolyard environment.” This ties into students “enjoying the moment,” because passion is derived from being actively conscious about your feelings. Students who continuously have feelings of care for any project they work on will lead into a feeling of passion. Living in the moment is tied to having a conscious mindset of what you care about. Passion comes from this ideal. Students will be able to figure out their passion by enjoying the moments they experience and also by knowing the feelings of what they care for.

Students often go through experiences on a daily basis. Unfortunately, some of these experiences go to waste because it is not learned from by these students. Students can be different by actually learning something from the new things that they go through. In the Passion Project video, the narrator says, “Instead of fearing mistakes we can learn to welcome them as a mentor teaching valuable skills of appreciation and hard work so when students step into the real world they are prepared to face all that life offers, welcoming her as a beautiful bride packaged with lessons and hardships.” This is important because that is how any progression in life is made. We make progress when we learn how to fix the mistakes we have made. Students fear mistakes, yet they fail to realize that mistakes helps create who we are as a person. We must learn how to accept these mistakes as our past and create a better future. In the video, Andrew--a student--spoke about success. He said, “I think you have to succeed and fail to appreciate what you have. You know you see all your failures and then you you take into account those failures and then you think okay well now you feel successful you know you succeeded for once. You know, you appreciate that.” Things usually go unappreciated because there is no failure or loss. When someone goes through so much negative experiences, the positive experience that they do go through feel so much better. This occurs because these people understand how it feels to be weighed down and they would have more appreciation of what they have. The students of the dream school can be different by accepting their mistakes. People will always consistently make mistakes. However, it is those that learn from the mistakes made are the ones who create a better future for themselves. The students of this dream school will be different once they learn from their past experiences.

TIPS FOR DOING INTERVIEWS

For this essay project you will be doing  at least 5 interviews. (If you want to do even more than that, that is cool!) Interviewing someone can feel a little weird or maybe even make you nervous. Below are some tips/advice for making it a smoother process. All this advice comes from students who have done interviews. They are sharing what worked best for them. Please read this carefully, and after each interview you should read this again, so you can weigh your experience against this advice.

1. Make the interviewee comfortable. The more this feels like a conversation, the better.

2. You may want to send them the questions before the interview. Interviewees WANT to do well, and having the questions ahead of time can relax them.

3. Don’t ask YES/NO type questions. Ask open ended questions. Example: Do you like Hayward? Is not nearly as effective as What do you like about Hayward?

4. If they get off track in their answers, steer them gently back. BUT, pay attention to what they are saying… sometimes what seems “off topic” actually has value.

5. Don’t talk too much. You KNOW what you think. Let them tell you what THEY think.

6. Be sure to ask follow-up questions when they say something good. Don’t be a slave to the questions. The questions are just a start. 
7. Be sure to record the interview. ALSO, take good written notes. You will want to have BOTH sources.

SYLLABUS for ENGLISH 4 --SUMMER 2020

ENGLISH 4 —SUMMER  2020—CHABOT—MCFARLAND

Instructor:  Sean McFarland   

Email: smcfarland@chabotcollege.edu         smcfarland2011@gmail.com

Please Note:

At this time there are no required texts. We may likely add some later. Meanwhile you will be given a wide variety of essays and articles to read, in addition to other media, such as videos and websites. The recent events that have rocked our country and the world, including Covid-19 and the protests for racial and community justice will be a central focus of this class. 

We will be setting up opportunities for you to take part in occasional class Zoom calls. I will be sharing possible times for you to choose from. 

Some of the focus of this class:

1.     Investigation of Project Based Learning and Group Dynamics as education tools

2.     Relationship of individual to their community and to the natural environment

3.     Urban planning, community change, climate change, sustainability, equity

4.     Community/Asset Mapping, creating focus groups, forging resiliency 

5.     Investigating the city of Hayward (and other cities like it) 

Course work and class goals:

1.     Complete 4 formal essays or larger projects. You MUST complete—and I must accept--all the essays/projects if you hope to pass the course. These projects may include things like creating websites, movies, multi-media materials, surveys,  etc. 

2.     Introduction of analysis and critical thinking, and its application to essay writing and project creation.

3.     Analytic reading & discussion of essays, articles, full-length works & other media.

4.     Review of Grammar and Punctuation.

5.     Study and review of the composing process—that is, the steps in how to write an essay.

6.     Participate in class discussion, collaborate with fellow students on ambitious projects.

7.     Conference with the instructor.

8.     In-class writing, presentations, projects, field trips, quizzes, final exam.

9.     Frequent homework assignments—these should be typed if possible. They will almost always lead directly to the formal essays and projects, so doing the homework will prepare you for the larger work. 

Requirements and Grades:

1.      Participation is vital in this class. Please share your thoughts!

2.      It is crucial that you stay on top of your work. Summer classes go VERY fast. And online courses demand that you are able to organize your time wisely and not get behind. It is very hard to catch up in an online summer class. 

First English 4 assignment--Summer 2020

For your first English 4 assignment, we will be investigating the “Staying IN: Hayward” website. This spring semester, Chabot students created the content for this website in response to the Covid pandemic, and being asked to quarantine at home. The goal of the website is to demonstrate that Hayward (and other local cities) is a "resilient community full positive examples of humanity."
You should spend a LONG time on the website...going through all the posts. Once you do this, you have 4 questions to answer below. I want you to write long paragraphs in response to the questions. I think you will be very impressed with the quality of work here. 
Here is the link to the website.  https://sicchabot.wixsite.com/stayinginhayward

Here are the 4 questions you will be answering:1. What are your impressions of the website? The look, the overall feel, how you navigate it, the layout, etc? (2 paras total)2. What are three things you learned about these Chabot students? (3 paras total. You must pull quotes from different presentations to support your points. We are interested in TRENDS here. Dont just look at 3 random presentations and talk about 3 individuals.)3. What is your favorite presentation (2 paras total. You should talk about WHY you like it. Pull quotes to support your points.)4. How successful do you think the website is in achieving the goals of “providing positivity, building community, and finding ways to support one another”?   (2 paras total.)

Once you answer these questions, hold on to them in a word doc. As soon as my Canvas site is up and running, I will have you upload your work into the Canvas site...

Final English Assignment. for all Spring English classes....

Final English Assignment.

Hey all,

for this final, you have 3 questions. You will type up your responses and email them to me by this Friday, the 22nd...


1. What has it been like to transition to remote learning? (2-3 paras) You can talk about how it has been in each class you are taking...you can talk about how it has been for you mentally or emotionally... 
2. What advice would you give someone who is going to do this kind of remote learning? (2-3 paras) try to be as practical and specific as possible --what advice would you give to CHABOT teachers and administrators...
3. What are your educational plans for summer and fall?  (1 para) you can talk about your feelings about doing in-person learning vs remote learning, etc...