Final Work Study reflection

     Last September, I started my 150 hour internship at Paynesville Elementary.  I was able to observe open house and conferences plus all the prep work to go into them!  I also got introduced to such things as copier machines, writing letters to parents, the headache of scheduling para professionals and foster grandparents, and doing countless other prep work!  I was able to work with five wonderful teachers during my internship and observe a few others.  I was able to observe two school meetings, and also a program put on by the kids.  Most of my time was spent working one on one or in small groups with the kids in special education.  I loved being able to do this.  The teachers were great to let me work with the kids and I came away from it all with a lot of experience and confidence.  I think it is easier to reach kids when they are given one on one time.  It is easier as the teacher, because then I can tell if the child understands or if I need to approach the topic another way.  I think it is easier for the student, because then they are able to ask questions if they need help.  I also spend around an hour to an hour and a half a week in the second grade general ed. classroom.  This is much different than Special Ed.  The classroom I helped in had twenty six students.  One teacher to twenty six students is a huge difference than the one on one in Special Ed.  I think it would be much harder to teach to that many students. 

      I had the opportunity to see an IEP review,Other things I was able to see were a music class, an afternoon observing the speech clinician, ECSE (Early childhood special education), a few phy ed classes, and a departmental meeting (child study meeting).  I learned about social stories and other various ways to deal with behaviors.

  I would recommend any student planning on becoming a teacher see most of these areas.  It was pretty interesting to see what goes on while the kids are not in your classroom.  Another exciting thing I was able to do was plan and teach my own lesson to second graders!  I was actually given the opportunity to teach it to two different second grade classrooms.  I planned an hour long lesson on roman numerals.  None of the kids knew what roman numerals were, so it was an all new topic for them.  I created a power point to give a very brief background on roman numerals and to teach them how to write the numbers one through ten.  I also explained how roman numerals compared to our number system, the Arabic system. 

    Two mornings a week I was able to work with the Barton system.  It is a reading and spelling system that works on phonics.  It starts out with the basics of listening to sounds and realizing what sound is different from word to word.  The main goal is to train the student’s ears.  As the students learn and progress in the system, the lessons get harder and more in depth.  The last level I was able to work with was level four, where the kids were working on phrases in sentences.  They worked on decoding what the who, did what, and where parts of each sentence were.  The kids really enjoyed this curriculum.  For the first half of my internship I observed and participated from the student side of the lessons, but during the second half I was able to teach the lessons to the kids.  I loved it! 

   I learned a lot during my time at Paynesville Elementary School.  I learned things about me like which path I want go into as far as sped (DCD, LD), and which one to stay away from (EBD).   I learned that I have the potential to be a great teacher.  I am many times more confident about being in a classroom with kids than when I started.  I also learned a few things about being a special education teacher like how stressful and time consuming the job can be.  I also learned how to deal with students who are misbehaving.  I started my internship knowing very little about special education.  Now at the end I have a much larger knowledge base as far as what areas there are, what a sped teacher does, what is expected, and just how to do things. What better way to learn than to do it hands on?  Overall I think I really grew from being still unsure of myself and my role as a student helper into being a respected teacher.  I would not take back this experience for anything.  I gained friendships and contacts with my supervising teachers and also great relationships with the students I worked with.  I cannot express how beneficial this experience is and can honestly say that I will truly miss working with the kids and teachers.  Another part of this experience I will miss is seminar.  It felt nice and comfortable to come in once a week and tell the other women what I have been doing, and hear the joys and struggles they have been working with too.  It was also nice to get feedback from Lori on how we are doing, and things that we could try.  It felt like we were all a team and that we were all there in each other’s journeys becoming teachers.