Ryan Collier

4B VTFT

Service Learning Logs

Pre-Internship Blog

I’m extremely scared to go into my internship as I am a student intern for a 7th grade
class, and middle school students are a grade of students that I do not want to be teaching.
However, I have heard that the teacher that I am doing it with is really nice so maybe that will
help but for now I am hoping that I will be able to connect with the students and be successful at
leading certain lessons. I’m also hoping that the kids will not hate me but I am optimistic that I
will be able to use this opportunity to really gauge how much I actually want to be a teacher.

Week 1 - 2/25/19 - 3/1/19

I just finished my first week at internships and it makes me seriously doubt my

aspirations to be a teacher. Right now, I dread going to my internship but I am optimistic that
once I get the hang of things and get to know the kids, it will get much better. So far, all I’ve
done is observe and I answered one or two questions that the kids had. The kids are constantly
acting out and my teacher has to discipline them quite often, and as that is the scariest part of
teaching to me, it makes teaching as a whole extremely scary to me. However, I think as I gain
more responsibilities in the classroom and feel more comfortable with the kids, I will be able to
practice my weaknesses and truly aid my teacher in facilitating learning.

Week 2 - 3/4/19 - 3/8/19

Since I had strep throat this week, I actually did not go to my internship at all this week.
However, the kids are doing the Great Depression Unit right now and their test is next
Wednesday. So their review day is on Monday and my teacher has tasked me with creating a
review activity, so I have been working on that this week. I’ve decided to do a Jeopardy review
for their material. However, the teacher did not give me too much to work with, so some of the
questions are general and I’m not sure that they learned the material. Nevertheless, I think it will
be a fun activity and will give me more of a responsibility.
Week 3 - 3/11/19 - 3/15/19

On Monday, I did my Jeopardy review, and while the class was extremely loud as they
are 7th graders, it went really well. The class was really engaged, and I think they like me. Their
teacher is really strict with them, so I think it’s sort of a good cop - bad cop type of deal, which is
good for me. However, it was really fun doing the Jeopardy and I had one of those moments
where I realized why people are teachers, so that was really positive. However, I think that was
because I had something to do. On the other days of my internship this week, I felt like I did not
have a job and it’s sort of awkward. However, I was able to answer student questions as they are
now doing World War II. It showed me how much I actually remember from history. I think my
hesitation for this internship comes from my lack of responsibility and I think as I gain
responsibility, I will become more affectionate towards the class and going to my internship at
all.

Week 4 - 3/18/19 - 3/22/19

This week the kids did more lecturing than they usually do, so most of what I did this
week was sit and listen as I would not want to interrupt the teacher during note taking. However,
after she was done, the class had a few minutes left and they were working on a project they had
been assigned concerning World War II and during this work period, though it was short, I was
able to observe the kids working and try to help with any questions they may have had.

Week 5 - 3/25/19 - 3/29/19

This week the kids mostly worked on their projects and I am starting to feel like there
really is no job description for me to take, as some classes I mainly float around and try to find
questions or things to help with. I’ve been able to observe this week and I need to start thinking
about what my activity is going to be for my shadow day, which I have recently starting
discussing with my teacher. I’m very scared of the shadow day and feel very intimidated by
having to create an entire lesson for the kids when I don’t feel super comfortable within the
classroom to begin with. However, my Jeopardy review near the beginning of the year went well
so I could do something similar.
Week 6 - 4/1/19 - 4/5/19

I was a little late this week due to some schedule issues with advisory block and I was
also absent this week so I didn’t spend too much time in the classroom this week. I feel like I
didn’t do anything super productive and am starting to feel like the role of teacher is not for me.
However, I worked a little with the activity they were doing as well as with their project that they
have been working on for about a couple weeks now. I especially helped two girls with the
project as they are doing the project option where you create a diary from someone from World
War II so I was able to talk with them and help them work out what scenarios they would create,
what perspective they would take, and how they would incorporate the vocabulary words and all
the necessary content that needed to be included so that helped me have something to do that I
felt was very productive.

Week 7 - 4/8/19 - 4/11/19

This was the week before spring break, and since the kids did IPT testing, which is their
new equivalent of SOL’s on Tuesday, I only saw them on Thursday, so I only had one class with
them this week. However, they were working on a project that they have where they have an
option to make either a game board, a diorama, a timeline, an online “tour,” among other options
concerning World War II. On Thursday, I was able to walk around and help with the project,
answer questions, and help kids decide on what to do with their project or get farther with their
projects. I am starting to get more comfortable within the classroom, and though I still feel out of
place sometimes, I am learning how to work in a classroom more and more and what exactly I
can do to help the students.

Week 8 - 4/22/19 - 4/26/19

I did my shadow day review activity this week, and I decided to do a Family Feud style
game with four teams to review the things that the teacher had just taught as well as what they
had previously learned. It was going well, but the class was getting talkative when I would go to
a separate team, so instead we switched halfway to just doing teams with whiteboards where they
would write the answers to the questions. Overall, it went really well and it felt good to be doing
something that really helped the kids within the classroom. I was ridiculously nervous but I am
glad that it is over and that I did well. It showed me that I am much more capable within the
classroom than I sometimes believe.
Week 9 - 4/29/19 - 5/3/19

This week felt better as I am getting to know the kids really well now. They played a
Quizlet live type game called GimKit online and I was able to help facilitate that and answer
some questions concerning the material as it was a review game. The project that they are doing
was also due on Monday but Mrs. Mast gave them extra time to finish it so I also helped the kids
with questions as they put hopefully just finishing touches on their projects, though some still
had much to do. Like usual project work time, however, I answered some questions but as a
whole they are relatively independent so they worked pretty well without me.

Week 10 - 5/6/19 - 5/10/19

This whole week the kids were doing a decades activity where three teachers had
classrooms focusing on different aspects of one decade per class. On Tuesday we did the 50’s
and the teachers dressed up, played music from that time, had displays, etc. On Thursday, we did
the 60’s and talked about the culture of the time, the music, the counterculture, and all that. I was
able to take some pictures of this extremely diverse activity and while I was not able to be
actively helping with it, I was able to observe and move with one group as they rotated from
teacher to teacher every thirty or so minutes, learning about what exactly made that decade so
influential or important. So while most of what I did was simply observing, It was much more of
an interesting lesson than usual, so it was still not too bad of a week of interning, as the teachers
really went all out to make the students feel immersed in the culture of whatever decade that day
hosted.

Week 11 - 5/13/19 - 5/17/19: Final Week

This week was my final week of internships and since I had an AP Biology exam on
Monday, I only went on Wednesday and Friday. I was able to interview my teacher this week,
give her present, and help a significant amount with the kids and their work. They were doing a
news segment project where they had an event in history and had to film a news segment about
it. The topics were things like Nixon resigning, Levittowns, and Reaganomics. On Friday
specifically, I walked around and answered a lot of questions about their topics, what to do, and
felt more productive than I had in a while. I felt like this was a good ending to my internship and
I was able to learn a lot from it.