Week of 3/25

THRIVE Director Notes

Posts on this Blog will be directed to help families see what is going on in our THRIVE Program.  Items discussed on the Blog have already occurred. To keep updated on what’s coming up please refer to the THRIVE activity calendar or UCM activity calendar.

First-Year Students:

Workplace & Community Skills:

Monday started busier than ever. Dr. Manning discussed updating their resumes and cover letters. Students were instructed to make an appointment with Dr. Manning this week to discuss classes for next year and internships. He went over what a cover letter was and should include. Wednesday discussed was the difference between criticism, praise and feedback and how to react to each of them. Also covered was how to choose your words carefully when in a work environment. Becoming more descriptive in emails, homework and job interviews. Topics on Wednesday included behaviors on social media affecting jobs and careers. We are going to increase our time in class and start having workplace class meet on Fridays at 9:00 until the end of the semester. April 12 an internship paper is due to Dr. Manning.

Learning Strategies:

Discussed were acronyms or catchwords or phrases to help us memorize lists. Mrs. Southard demonstrated some ones she had memorized of the years. R.I.S.E., B.R.A.T. and C.A.U.T.I.O.N.  Ways to improve notetaking was discussed and how to expand answering homework questions. Advantages and disadvantages of professors using power point were covered.

Personal Math:

Personal Math is learning how to determine yearly, monthly, and weekly salaries.

Read a time card and find overtime pay.

Find income based on salary and tips.

Determine job-related expenses.

Determine commission and find income based on salary and commissions.

Math Skills

Add, subtract, multiply, and divide the money

Find the percent of a number

Round money amounts to the nearest cent.

Second-Year Students:

Transition Planning II:

Students have made appointments at the Career Service Office to have a mock interview with employers from different areas around Warrensburg.  The interviews will take place next week. This is exciting for the students but also scary. Some of the students have never interviewed with an employer before.  We have discussed professional dress, resumes, elaboration on answering questions, professional communication and being relaxed during the interview. We will let you know how the interviews go.  I am very proud of how hard the students have worked on this.

Internship II:

The students have been getting back into the routine of their internships/jobs with having last week off.  With only having about 5 weeks left in the semester the students are having to make sure their time management at their internship and rest of their classes are going well and taking care of their work.  This can be difficult and frustrating at times.

PLATO:

Students are working hard on plato.  I see several students working on PLATO throughout the day. That is an advantage of the program it fits in to each student’s daily schedule.

Study Time:

The students are still doing great at coming in on their own to study.  Either in groups or by themselves. Great Job!

Look who helped me at one of our Transition Fairs--She was a good help.  She had already spoken to a class over the winter break and had students excited!!

THRIVE Activities:

This week Jesse had the students do games in the Rec Center.  We reserved a court and this is what the students did... It looks like they had fun.

New Peer Mentor:

Hello everyone, we are happy to announce that we have a new Peer Mentor on our team.  Claira will be helping us the rest of the semester. She had already been working as a volunteer and came highly recommended by our Peer Mentors and others.  

Important upcoming dates:

Graduation items: Yes, I’ll be getting items and dates put together over the next month for our THRIVE graduates and families.  The Commencement date is May 11th from 10-12. We’ll then have a THRIVE Reception and presentation of THRIVE Certificates of Success to the new Graduates, from 12:30 - 3:30.  This is an exciting time and Mr. Brunkhorst will be sending out emails to 2nd-year students and their families in the coming weeks to start getting a count of how many will be attending.  I’ll have more information I’ll email 2nd-year families closer to the date.

Athletics to watch:  Men’s and Women’s Baseball, Softball, Bowling,

In addition, the students can participate in Intramural Athletics:

• We had enough students to have a Spring Softball team.  I’ll keep you updated on the dates of the games.
• The students can also look to their Spring Student Activities calendar that was left for them the first week.  We also have copies in the THRIVE Classroom.

"This blog is a programming blog written by the director and staff of the THRIVE Program on the University of Central Missouri campus.  This blog doesn't accept any form of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions.

The views and ideas expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners.  This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.  We are simply telling you what we plan to do in our program and using the blog to help spread what we are doing on a weekly basis."