Prompt+6

//Jennifer Brown, Bullock Creek High School Counselor// jennifer.brown@bcreek.k12.mi.us
 * PROMPT #6**

My question revolves around difficult, heart-wrenching issues that our district dealt with over the last school year. I am hoping that others may be able to share how they have addressed this in their districts.

I am a Counselor at Bullock Creek High School. We are a very "community" oriented, tight-knit district. During last school year (2011-2012), our district of nearly 2,000 students experienced the deaths of seven parents (one was also a Middle School Teacher/Coach). Five of them were from suicide. In addition a recent graduate lost his battle with cancer. We addressed each death individually and specific to the age of the student(s) involved. However, we were at a loss as to what more we could/should be doing for our community and long-term for the students directly impacted.

With the budget cuts (that all districts are experiencing), our Counseling Staff has been shrinking. The Counselors that are still here have added responsibilities and we are stretched too thin. What can we do to help "heal" our community that doesn't take a great deal of financial commitment or time? One of our ideas is to involve our local church communities to help us out.

I found an interesting resource on Restorative Justice in regards to suicides. The link is: []. I would be interested in doing more research on this method of addressing the issues. Our 8th grade students recently read the book "Touching Spirit Bear" which addressed restorative justice and our newly created English 12 class is about social justice. Perhaps there is a way we can reach out to our community through our students.

I also found a useful resource that I am going to add to our Crisis Plan notebook for reference. It is: []. It contains quite a bit of resources, as well as, specific responses for all aspects of a community.

Prompt #6 Eric Albright Midland High School

My question is technological in nature. In the spirit of fostering creativity, authentic assessments, motivation, and inquiry based learning opportunities, I am interested in having students create podcasts to demonstrate knowledge of their subject matter and to ask probing questions still unanswered following their research. Does anyone have experience in this endeavor? What software and hardware are required to get started? Is it cost prohibitive to the classroom teacher?

I found two youtube instructional videos that were quite helpful.

Integrating Podcasting into your classroom: []

How to create a podcast for dummies: []

I am looking for some real world practical tips as well. Any pitfalls that I should anticipate?