REFLECTION PAPER

Reflection Paper

Reflection Paper

As a school counselor I've found it to be a bit challenging to navigate into a virtual world of counseling. When you typically think of school counseling you immediately think of the face to face interaction. As most school counselors would agree you arrive in the counseling profession because you enjoy working directly with students. You enjoy being there to help, to be part of milestones the students achieve, being able to listen, provide guidance, support, answer questions and disseminate information. Now working with as a counselor with and online program I've had to find new and innovative ways to communicate with the students as well as build a rapport with the students. I'm fortunate in that our program is of a hybrid model and the students enrolled in our program do come to the residential school campus for various weekends to spend quality time with their instructors by participating in class work, labs, experiments and educational enrichment activities.

The students that spoke during the luncheon when asked, if given the opportunity what would they change about their online experience and they unanimously agreed on making the classes “more fun” more inactive, more engaging. Their comments said to me, most students still need that face-to face inaction or engagement. I suspect that if the students from the panel would have been involved in hybrid programs that offered a face to-face component their comments would have been different. Several of the workshops that I attended while at the conference had a common thread of being a “hybrid” program. The students enrolled in these various schools or programs come to a centralized location on a regular basis and have a group of caring staff members that are supporting the students' efforts. For example, the workshop “Tips on Advising Online Students” that was conducted by the staff from TRIO Wolf Creek High in a rural area of Minnesota has an excellent model for advising students, Learning Managers. I've begun to think about how I can approach my role differently and make it much more meaningful and fulfilling both personally and professionally.

Another interesting workshop was, Hybrid Models as Disruptive Innovation. There again this workshop highlighted two very successful programs. Both programs are blending online and face-to face and this model has proven to be successful in their efforts. The students participate in team building activities such as rock climbing, ropes ...