What Is a Guidance Counselor

Guidance counselors wear many hats. Their responsibilities can range from helping students sign up for their classes to helping them deal with personal issues. Major responsibilities that school counselors will have on a regular basis: Helping students set up their class schedules each school year.Helping students chart their educational or vocational path after high school.Assisting students as they fill out college applications.Arranging college visits and fairs for students and parents.Advising students and parents on college selection and entry requirements.Delivering character education or other guidance related educational programs.Helping the student body deal with school-wide tragedies like deaths or acts of violence.Providing students with counseling support for personal issues on a limited basis.Informing the authorities of dangerous situations for students as required by law.Ensuring that students meet the necessary requirements for graduation.Helping with and sometimes leading the delivery of standardized tests to students. Required Education Generally, guidance counselors are required to hold Masters or higher degrees in counseling along with specific hours dedicated to supervised counseling hours. If the counseling degree is not specifically focused on education, then additional classes with an education focus might be required. Following are three examples of state requirements for Guidance Counselor certification: In Florida there are two paths to certification as an educational guidance counselor. Plan One. Individuals are required to hold a masters or higher degree with a graduate major in guidance and counseling or counselor education. They must also have three semester hours in a supervised counseling practicum at an elementary or secondary school.Plan Two. Individuals must have a masters or higher degree with thirty semester hours of graduate credit in guidance and counseling including specific requirements in education such as administration and interpretation of standardized tests and legal and ethical concerns of school counselors. Three of those semester hours must be completed participating in a supervised counseling practicum at an elementary or secondary school. In California, counselors must meet the following requirements: They must have completed a post baccalaureate degree study which includes a minimum of forty-eight semester hours in an accredited program that specializes in school counseling. This must include a practicum in an elementary or secondary school.Individuals must also pass the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) with a score of at least 123. Texas adds an additional requirement of requiring individuals to have taught for two years before becoming a counselor. Here are the requirements: Individuals must hold a masters degree from an accredited university.They must have completed an approved educator preparation program for counseling.They must have a minimum score of 240 on School Counselor Exam (TExES #152).They must have taught for two years in a public or accredited private school. Characteristics of Guidance Counselors Successful guidance counselors typically exhibit some or all of the following characteristics: Detail oriented.Discreet and trustworthy.Problem solver.Compassionate.Great manager of time.Great communication skills in order to talk to students, parents, and administrators.Tolerant and understanding of student situations.Motivational and enthusiastic for student success.Belief in the ability of all students to succeed.

Essay on Barriers to Effective Communication - 1670 Words

Barriers to Effective Communication CJA 304 Barriers to Effective Communication Effective communication is a major element to success in any relationship, business, or organization. Communication barriers attempt to impede, and in some instances stop, the successful completion of the communication process. Law Enforcement agencies are susceptible to the consequences of ineffective communication and should work toward reducing and eliminating barriers blocking the flow of communication. Organizational flaws in the entangled hodgepodge of agencies within the American criminal justice system cause various communication barriers resulting in confusion and inefficiencies throughout the system. Law enforcement agencies began sharing†¦show more content†¦Criminal justice professionals can overcome emotional barriers by using peer support systems within the police department or support from outside sources (Wallace amp; Roberson, 2009). Physical barriers are obstructions that interfere with movement of a message and are the hardest to overcome. The weather, distance, and failures in technology are a few examples of physical barriers a police officer may encounter (Wallace amp; Roberson, 2009). Some barriers are out of the officer’s control and cannot be overcome quickly such as an ice storm that becomes a physical barrier when power and telephone lines go down ending communication. Semantic barriers consist of language differences and ambiguous word meanings and prevent a clear exchange of ideas resulting in failed communication. Hiring a diverse group of officers can reduce language barriers and choosing words carefully with the receiver in mind can help ease semantic barriers. Ineffective listening is another barrier present in the criminal justice system and occurs from disinterest, speaker bias, emotions, distractions, and words that invoke emotion (Wallace amp; Roberson, 2009). Every officer needs active listening skills. An officer using active listening skills can diffuse dangerous situations when armed with a clear understanding of the circumstances. Active listening is different from hearing. Hearing is an automatic response to sound andShow MoreRelatedBarriers to Effective Communication1654 Words   |  7 PagesBarriers to Effective Communications Everyone has experienced, at one time or another the frustration of feeling misunderstood and being unable to make ourselves understood by another person. Anything which, blocks the meaning of a communication, is a barrier to communication. Effective communication is like a house built one block at a time. First to build a house trust must be built; trust is not a group process it is created in one to one connections with each individual. Second, be bold andRead MoreBarriers to Effective Communication1620 Words   |  7 PagesBarriers to Effective Communication CJA304 In this paper, I will describe the process of communication as well as its components, describe the difference between listening and hearing, describe the formal and informal channels of communication, and suggest strategies that may be implemented to overcome communication barriers. Communication can be described as â€Å"a process involving several steps, among two or more persons, for the primary purpose of exchanging information† (WallaceRead MoreBarrier to Effective Communication1289 Words   |  6 PagesIn this paper I will be discussing the process of communication and its components discuss the difference between listening and hearing in communication, talk about the formal and informal channels of communication, talk about the different barriers to effective communication, and lastly discuss the strategies that may be implemented to overcome communication barriers. Communication is very crucial in the criminal justice system; it is the key element for success. From a rookie all the way up toRead MoreBarriers to Effective Communication1727 Words   |  7 PagesBarriers to Effective Communication Kevin Borem CJA/304 November 2, 2011 Fred Staedel Barriers to Effective Communication Communication is a way of life for sociable organisms on earth. 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Emotional barriers, physical barriers, semantic barriers, and ineffective listening all prevent effective communicationRead MoreBarriers to Effective Communication2391 Words   |  10 PagesBarriers to Great Communication There are seven types of Barriers to Communication. Many people think that communicating is easy. It is after all something we do all our lives. There is some truth in this view. Communicating is straightforward. What makes it complex, difficult, and frustrating are the barriers we put in the way. Physical barriers Physical barriers in the workplace include: marked out territories, empires and fiefdoms into which strangers are not allowed closed office doors, barrierRead MoreBarriers to Effective Communication1479 Words   |  6 Pages1 Barriers Barriers to Effective Communication Paper Robin Mravik Due Date: Monday October 10, 2011 CJA/304 Instructor: Janette Nichols 2 When it comes to communicating with people in our daily lives, there are many people that think there is just talking and listening to the other people in the communicating process. However, there is actually five step in the communication process; which are as follows: 1.) sending the message out to someone, 2.) sending the message through a mediumRead MoreEffective Communication And The Barriers Of Communication Essay1203 Words   |  5 Pagesstudy of effective communication and the barriers of communication is very important in the workplace in order for the company to be successful. Every person in the business will have to communicate in one form or another. The better the communication in the workplace the better the relationships with each other. In this article I will help you to understand the processes needed in order to have effective communication in the workplace. I will discuss the importance of effective communication, theRead MoreBarriers to Effective Communication2071 Words   |  9 PagesTable of Contents What barriers to effective communication do you detect in this case? 2 Perception barrier 2 Personal barrier 3 Information overload / Work overload 3 Gender barrier 4 Language barrier - Ambiguity 4 Is anyone wrong in this situation? By what other means could Randell have requested the information from Tom Ballard? What do you think of Tom Ballard’s reaction? Why? 6 Tom Ballard 6 Leigh Randall 7 While communicating information vertically up or down the organizationRead MoreBarriers to Effective Communication Essay1713 Words   |  7 Pagesbecause they are the managers those who do run the company and therefore they need to be excellent in dealing with people. However, when the issue of communication is discussed, it is understood that there are more than two people in communication. Moreover, as there would be a number of people working in organisations, there is a lot of communication among companies’ staff everyday. From this context, it can easily be inferred that the organisations’ employees should also be able to communicate effectively

Nutrient Availability from Grassland-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Nutrient availability from Grassland. Answer: Grasslands The ecosystem that is dominated by the grass-like plants such as sedges and rushes and vegetation are called the grasslands. The grasslands are distributed throughout all the regions of the world except Antarctica. It is estimated that about 25 to 40 percent of the Earths lands are covered with the grassland areas. The grasslands are broadly divided into temperate and tropical. The temperate grassland is found in the zones of the cold winters and warm-to- hot summers. They are the soils of huge fertility. However, the plants found in the temperate regions are often nutrient limited. The reason behind this is most of the nitrogen available in the soils cannot be utilized by the plants (Leff et al, 2015). When the plowing disrupts the the soil then the nutrients can be made available to the soil. Grasslands are the ideal candidates for crop production owing to high soil fertility and gentle topography. Tropical grasslands, on the other hand, have warm and dry climatic conditions and ar e often pronounced with the wet and dry seasons. The soils of the tropical grassland are less fertile than the temperate soils. This is due to the reason of the high amount of rainfall that the regions receive. Most of the shrubs and trees are found with high density in the tropical areas (La Pierre, Joern Smith, 2015). Grasslands of the vertisols The carbon biomass and the ecosystem in Vertisol are regulated by herbivory and the nutrient composition. Vertisol is the soil which has the high content of clay known as the montmorillonite. The soil forms deep cracks over the years. The natural vegetations of the vertisols are grassland, savanna. The heavy texture of the soil makes the soil unstable for the growth of plants and crops. The nutrient availability from the vertisols of the tropical grassland It has been shown that the herbivory influences the source of carbon from the vertisols of the savanna grasslands. The nitrogen and the phosphorus are the major nutrient source from the vertisols of tropical grasslands. In Africa, the key determinant of the plant productions and the maintenance of the nutrients level of the vertisols is the rainfall. Grazing can reduce the carbon content of the grasses but enhances the organic matter and the nutrient content. Grazing can improve the quality of the grass by increasing the foliar N and the P. The herbivory accelerates the nutrient cycling and stimulates new shoots regrowth. The natural nutrient cycle is facilitated with the fecal matter deposition can increase the overall nutrient content of vertisols. Thus it is observed that high percentage of the nutrients consumed by the animals while grazing is cycling process. The N of feces does not get volatilized easily in the deposition.(Patel, 2014). P cannot be volatilized easily because of the bad quality drainage system in Vertisols. Thus are less available to the plants. The phosphorus can be made available with the reduction of the absorption into the clays. Increased P uptake will help in more in a regeneration of the tissues of the plants. Thus the foliar N:P content determines the nutrient availability of vertisol for the biomass. The lower N:P ratios of the grassland suggest that the productivity of the open grasslands in tropical areas are in short of nitrogen. While under trees are found in the limitation of phosphorus (Hobbie, 2015). The vegetation growth is not only influenced by the availability of nutrients but alongside mainly requires the water. Mainly the nutrients CO2 and water increase the overall productivity of the soils. The tropical grasslands are more subjected to water stress due to open grasslands for which even if the high amount of nutrients available they cannot be used by the plants (Vourlitis et al, 2015). Plant and soil interaction model for vertisol nutrient availability It is already known that the nitrogen source which highly present in the soil can only be made available by plowing (Bardgett, Mommer De Vries, 2014). There are substantial sources of carbon that can be sequestered in the temperate grassland and can only be found deep below the ground of roots and soil. Good source of carbon is obtained from these grasslands. The deep plant roots of plants in vertisols offer rhizodeposition resulting from the exudation, mucilage formation and the sloughing from the animals. Moreover, these are the reservoir for rhizosphere. Thus the soil nutrition in the vertisols is determined by the plant tissue chemistry, the C: N ratio and the C4 grasses and the not native rhizomatous C3 grasses. The C4 plants show highly slow nitrogen mineralization and the native C3 plants have increased in the rate of the N mineralization (Siebenks Roscher, 2016). Thus the vegetation present there itself maintains the carbon pool of the grasslands because of photosynthesis b y plants. The nutrients are also made available due to the soil microorganisms present. The temperature there is the main reason behind the soil organic nutrient availability. The vegetation is very rich and the soils are highly fertile due to the package of the roots with rhizomes. The soil is available for rich source of phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, sulfur, calcium and iron (Mulligan et al, 2014) . Vertisol grasslands are mainly not suitable for the nutrient uptake. It can be increased artificially to use it for the agricultural purpose. Sequestration of carbon can increase the overall nutrients of the soils. The biological processes that can increase the nutrient availability of the soil are by the accumulation of above and below ground litter, plant rhizodeposits and by products from the decomposers (Hulugalle et al, 2017). Methods that make the availability of the nutrients in vertisols The grasslands of vertisols are the good source of agriculture, alternative agriculture. There are various biological, chemical and physical processes that maintain the management of the center of nutrients in the soil. The essential nutrients can be available with the nutrient cycling. There are the huge amount of minerals required to maintain the growth and development of the vegetation. There could be nutrient rich sediments from the erosion makes the increase in nutrients in the grasslands areas. The weathering of the soil minerals also increases the availability of the micronutrients. The decomposers present there also plays a role in the recycling of the biomass and the decomposition that helps to enhance the organic matter contents which in turn increases the organic nutrients in the soils. The nutrients are also available in different conditions. They could be soluble, readily available or weakly bound forms. The following diagram shows the different ways the nutrients are av ailable in the grasslands. Figure 1- The different ways by which nutrients in soil available to plants (Source- Mulligan et al, 2014) Threats to the nutrients availability in grassland The grasslands are also not free from the depletions of the availability of the nutrient pools from the soil. These include the forest fire, overgrazing, loss of nutrients in the water which is due to excessive rain, erosion, leaching. There could be the primary loss in the nutrients due to gaseous losses to the atmosphere (Lehmann Joseph, 2015). References Bardgett, R. D., Mommer, L., De Vries, F. T. (2014). Going underground: root traits as drivers of ecosystem processes.Trends in Ecology Evolution,29(12), 692-699. Hobbie, S. E. (2015). Plant species effects on nutrient cycling: revisiting litter feedbacks.Trends in ecology evolution,30(6), 357-363. Hulugalle, N. R., Strong, C., McPherson, K., Nachimuthu, G. (2017). Carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus stoichiometric ratios under cotton cropping systems in Australian Vertisols: a meta-analysis of seven experiments.Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems,107(3), 357-367. La Pierre, K. J., Joern, A., Smith, M. D. (2015). Invertebrate, not small vertebrate, herbivory interacts with nutrient availability to impact tallgrass prairie community composition and forb biomass.Oikos,124(7), 842-850. Leff, J. W., Jones, S. E., Prober, S. M., Barbern, A., Borer, E. T., Firn, J. L., ... McCulley, R. L. (2015). Consistent responses of soil microbial communities to elevated nutrient inputs in grasslands across the globe.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,112(35), 10967-10972. Lehmann, J., Joseph, S. (Eds.). (2015).Biochar for environmental management: science, technology and implementation. Routledge. Mulligan, A. A., Luben, R. N., Bhaniani, A., Parry-Smith, D. J., O'Connor, L., Khawaja, A. P., ... Khaw, K. T. (2014). A new tool for converting food frequency questionnaire data into nutrient and food group values: FETA research methods and availability.BMJ open,4(3), e004503. Patel, S. (2014).Integration of nutrient inputs on rice yield, nutrients uptake and availability in a vertisol(Doctoral dissertation, JNKVV). Siebenks, A., Roscher, C. (2016). Functional composition rather than species richness determines root characteristics of experimental grasslands grown at different light and nutrient availability.Plant and soil,404(1-2), 399-412. Vourlitis, G. L., de Almeida Lobo, F., Pinto, O. B., Zappia, A., Dalmagro, H. J., de Arruda, P. H. Z., de Souza Nogueira, J. (2015). Variations in aboveground vegetation structure along a nutrient availability gradient in the Brazilian pantanal.Plant and Soil,389(1-2), 307-321.