WESTFIELD – Juniors from the Business Technology shop at Westfield Technical Academy gave one-on-one Microsoft Word instruction to ten participants from the Westfield Senior Center during a new class at the school on Wednesday. A second class on Microsoft Excel was planned for Thursday.
Business Tech instructor Karen Tyburski said principal Stefan Czaporowski had encouraged the shop to reach out to the expanding Senior Center program for a collaboration. Tyburski called Tina Gorman, executive director of the Senior Center, who thought a class with one-on-one instruction by students as a component would be best, and the school would be the right location for it.
“I think it’s valuable for the seniors to get out there in the community,” Gorman said, adding she hoped that they would stop at Tiger’s Pride and have lunch as well.
Tiburski said the students have been working hard to prepare for the class. Two students, Liza Belyakova and Lexi Doiron ran the class; Belyakova giving the instructions, and Doiron running the teacher’s station posting instructions on the Smartboard simulation.
Each senior sat at a computer, with a student on hand to help. At the start of the class, a photo was also taken of each participant, to be inserted in the “Wanted” poster the class was charged with creating. Tiburski said the seniors would learn how to create a flier, work on margins, wrapping text, word art, clip art and formatting.
Halfway into the class, both Belyakova and Doiron said they thought it was going very well.
“I think they’re doing great,” Belykova said about the seniors.
“They’re awesome kids,” said Business Technology instructor Deborah Falcetti, who was in charge of Thursday’s Excel class.
“We have extremely bright students. Our course work is rigorous enough to be college level,” she added, saying the colleges know that and give their students credit for the courses they take.
Tiburski explained that if the students maintain a “B” or better in the shop, they can attend STCC with anywhere from 17 to 26 credits under their belt, depending on whether they take advantage of all available programs, including three changes for dual enrollment.
The students also participate in coops working at local businesses, opportunities the school is seeking for more students.
“We need small manufacturing companies to come in and give our students jobs,” Falcetti said. She said they currently have students in positions at Aero Fasteners, the Westfield Water Department and Westfield Gas & Electric, along with internships at City Hall.
“This is why we’re here, to get them out and working,” Falcetti added.
Business Tech students run the copier room for all of the shops in the school, and take turns serving as office manager, handling phones and copy jobs. They also run the Tiger’s Den school store, which sells apparel, school supplies, nutritional snacks, and returns money to the program.
Tiburski and Falcetti are co-advisors of the Future Business Leaders of America at the school. Recently, two of their sophomores took home second place awards in desktop publishing at a state contest held in February at Bentley University, Tiburski said.
Following these classes, Tiburski and Gorman will evaluate the results of the program. For Tiburski, it was already a success.
“The best way to learn anything is to teach,” she said.
