Reed McCoy

 

Internship 

From November 14th to December 17th 2014, I worked at Franklin Elementary fifth grade classroom as a teacher's assistant for my old teacher, Mr. Brantley.

 

 

Reflection

 

Over the course of this internship, I learned a great deal about how to work with fifth grade kids. I expected them to be hard to keep in control, but they remained quiet whenever I, or Mr. Brantley spoke to them. For the most part, the classroom was not chaotic. When it was chaotic, my patience managed to hold out quite nicely, and I never had to raise my voice. It also proved to be a useful skill when I was helping them out with a difficult problem. When a kid didn't understand a particular problem, I slowly explained and wrote the problem several times, and if they still didn't understand, I would refer them to Mr. Brantley for further assistance. In addition, I prepared and sometimes led several class presentations, as well as grading their homework and tests. The average two hours a day I spent working in the classroom generally went like this: I spent the first hour mainly supervising and making sure everyone was paying attention and not talking. The second hour I usually graded papers, and assisting the kids and Mr. Brantley with extra help or supplies. I feel like when I worked with these kids, I got to know a lot about myself. I never thought that I would be able to work as well with them as I did. I had no previous experience with this level of assistance until the first day I started. During those five weeks, every one of those thirty kids at some point said that I was really cool and fun to be around. I didn't expect that to happen, I mainly thought that they would only say: "You were helpful" or "You did a good job" when asked to comment about me. Despite being on good relations with everyone, I did face several challenges along the way. The most notable challenge was trying to have patience when kids talked out of turn during lessons that Mr. Brantley and I were teaching. Previously, I had worked with sixth graders for Hannah Camp, and the whole time I had no patience for interruptions. In the classroom, it was difficult at times to keep my cool until I got to know the kids a bit more. Ultimately though, interruptions after the first week seemed to decrease, which I believe was because they held a good degree of respect for what I had to say. All in all, I had a wonderful time working in that fifth grade classroom. The experienced ended up exceeding my expectations by a million, and I managed to have little difficulties along the way.

 

Journal Entries

Week of November 11th

This week has gone very well. I spent these initial few days getting to know the kids and observing the classroom activities. Mr Brantley was very helpful to his students and held a few science discussions that seemed to go beyond fifth grade level teaching. He even showed the class a few parts of the amazing documentary "Planet Earth". We also went across to Franklin Park to play capture the flag. None of the kids knew how to play, so  I had to teach them how, which was quite fun. Overall, I had a good first week.

 

Week of November 18th

This week was quite exciting. For the first time in my life, I got to help out with kids who were struggling with their classwork. It was very enjoyable knowing that I could assist them. Sometimes though, I didn't know what the answer was. This happened a lot with math problems involving decimals. In addition, I got to grade everyone's homework, which was a very tiring task, but I managed to get through it without a hitch. Another good week!

 

 

Week of December 2nd

You could say that this week went pretty well. I got to make my very own Teacher's presentation for the first time. That was quite exciting, even though I wasn't able to actually present it. I watched Mr. Brantley present it, and I made notes on how he communicated the words and ideas on the Powerpoint to his class. I also had to review his performance as part of getting ready to present my own lesson. He did a very good job! I feel now that I am ready to make and present a full length presentation. That is what I am actively preparing to do.

 

Week of December 9th

All is going well. I have encountered no problems this week, and I continue to have positive relations with the kids. It seems that they are doing much better doing their homework since I started working here. However, they continue to struggle with multiplication and division. This week, Mr. Brantley held a math lab after school. I assisted him in making sure everyone there got help if it was needed. I even got to meet other kids in other classes who also needed help with their math. My week was made that much more pleasant by this experience.

 

Week of December 16th

This was the final week, and boy did I have fun! I had to present a whole lesson to the class about the explorers of the Americas! I had a lot of fun making the powerpoint, and also made test questions for everyone to answer after I was done in order to test their knowledge of my presentation. It was also my last day, and presenting this was a great way to spend it. I had lots of fun doing this internship, and I hope more internships like this are in the future!