Looking Back Looking Forward

The day that seemed so far away has finally arrived. I am almost at the end of my
internship, one of the most difficult and joyful rollercoaster rides I have ever been on. This has
been a journey full of fails, successes, and lessons learned. Long weeks and months of laughter
and tears shared with smiling little faces have made that experience worthwhile. These students
will always keep a special place in my heart, especially since they helped me in my endeavor to
become a better teacher. I am far from where I would like to be in my professional career, but
there is always room for growth for a life-long learner. One day, I hope to be as efficient and
caring as some of the fabulous teachers I met during my internship. While I learned many things
I never want to do, I also made an abundance of positive experiences that I want to incorporate in
my future classroom the best that I can.
My internship placements and experiences couldnt have been more different. The first
placement took place in a 1st and 2nd Grade Multiage Classroom with children whose abilities
were worlds apart. The teacher was often mean and never hesitated to raise her voice. Students
were never able to experience consistency. One day the teacher would be nice, and the next day
the teacher would scream at the top if her lungs. Amazingly, these wonderful human beings
never lost their curiosity to learn and experience new things and lived in the moments of warmth
and welcome. While I was almost at the end of my rope with this hostile situation, the students
always stayed positive in their own ways and helped me to keep going. With a tear in my eye and
full of concerns for these loving students, it was time for me to transition to placement two.
Placement two was like a breath of fresh air, a breeze of a warm wind on a beautiful fall
day. A teacher so kind and caring that it was a joy for me to watch her interact with so much
concern and care with her inclusion students. A person careful to never raise her voice and

always talk to students with respect and kindness. Even during her hardest times, this teacher
extended her loving arms to guide the students back to where they needed to be. Furthermore,
this teacher was always concerned about ensuring that her students progressed based on their
individual goals in the resource and general education classroom. She was clearly a teacher who
was not only loving towards students, but she also wanted to be a helpful co-worker.
Instructing students is hard, especially with many diverse learners in one classroom that
have many different interest. Planning a grounded and hands-on lesson doesnt necessarily
promise success. What works for one student or classroom might not work for another
classroom, but I learned you should always keep your promises, big and small, and stay
consistent with what you do. During placement one, it was especially hard to instruct two grade
levels without wasting time or occupying students with silly busy work. While in placement
two, I was able to center almost every lesson around an individual students interest and needs
because most of the resource time was spent one-on-one with the teacher.
One lesson during placement one was an epic fail. The class had been talking about
plants and animals for a few weeks and their basic needs. I thought that students had enough
background knowledge to take it a step further. As a whole group we reviewed the basic needs of
plants and animals and talked about it. In table groups students created a foldable graphic
organizer. Each flap of the graphic organizer stood for one basic need. I wanted students as a
group to talk amongst themselves and explain why animals and plants needed things such as
water and air. I made sure to group students heterogeneously and let first and second grade work
as a team. I thought students would be able to come up with at least one reason why certain
things were needed for survival. When I planned this lesson, I was hoping that students could
utilize some high-order thinking skills and reason together to produce valid answers.

During this activity students were just not able to get anywhere. I did not take into
consideration that their regular classroom teacher had a very teacher-centered classroom with
little time for students to construct their own meaning. Students were just completely
overwhelmed with the task and were unable to make any progress. They just couldnt wrap their
heads around the assignment because they had never practiced anything like that before. I came
to the conclusion that even high-order thinking, similar to other routines in school, had to be
practiced often and modeled. So, after coming to the realization that this lesson was going
nowhere, I took a step back and modeled the activity for students by talking them through my
thought process. I do believe with further practice they would be able to complete such
assignments in the future.
Of course, student learning is the focus of all we do as teachers. I always like to try new
things and keep it interesting for the students as much as I can. Students do need consistency, but
they also need a variety of different instructional approaches so all the students can be reached
with the content that needs to be taught. It also seems like that most typical and special education
students love technology. I try to incorporate technology into my instruction and let students do
their own research on a topic. Technology can also be a great assessment tool, especially
something like clickers if students know how to use them. Using assessment tools on the
computer can cut down on times needed for grading for the teacher, but I still think that they
should be used with care.
In my first placement, I was told to use the assessments from Pearson that go along the
basal reader. In my opinion, some of the tests did not go along with what I was trying to
accomplish in the classroom or what the classroom teacher was teaching. I dont know how an
assessment that does not measure what you have taught as the teacher, accurately assesses

student growth and learning and the success of the teachers instructional strategies. It is easier
on the teacher, no doubt, since the assignments are already made up and can be given on the
computer, but it seems like they defeat the purpose. They do assign grades, but that is about the
only purpose a random assessment serves.
During my second placement we focused more on monitoring individual students
progress with a direct focus on their IEP goals. Rather than giving assessments at the end of
every other week, we would purposely give assignments during class that were targeted towards
certain IEP goals such as digraph sorting activities or reciting the alphabet in the correct order.
Working with 5th graders on how to find information in a book and recording it on a recording
sheet that was used for progress monitoring, but it was also as a reference for students for further
use. I always tried to use all the available resources we had for lessons and assessment because
you never know what works for a specific student.
My teaching rational and belief system has been refined over the past few months. It is
not that it really changed, I just think I have more specific goals for my students which I want to
work towards. I always want to focus on empowering students through education and provide
them with the best instruction and experiences that I can. Never do I want to belittle or talk down
on anybody who is under my care. Also, I know that you have to be firm sometimes and
classroom management is one of the most important factors to ensure success in the classroom
for teacher and students, but I will never raise my voice to scare students into submission. I never
want to be feared; I want to be respected and liked. I want to respect and welcome all the
students into my classroom. I think teachers are such an important example of how students
should act towards others that showing anything but kindness it unacceptable. Students need to

feel welcome and safe in their classroom information in order to be able to live up to their full
potential; citizen education is just as important as teaching the students the curriculum.
I enjoy nothing more than learning about students and incorporating their diversity and
interests into my lessons and assessments. I think it is most important to get to know your
students and find out about their diverse cultural backgrounds in order to serve them better. Some
students might not be able to strive in traditional assessment, therefore it is very important to
give students the opportunity to create something such as crafts with a small writing piece.
Another option is giving students the opportunity to draw what they know about a topic and
write a short summary of their drawing. I was able to incorporate these two formal assessments
into my science lessons and was so pleased with the progress and understanding students showed
on the topic. Students took pride in their work and were eager to finish their assignments. I want
to incorporate these types of creative assessment and activities as much as I can, especially since
not every student can succeed on traditional paper and pencil assignments.
Communication is also very important aspect of teaching. It is so important to
communicate with students and conference about their progress often. Students feel important
when a teacher shows interest in what they are doing. I try to foster an honest relationship with a
communication system where the input of the students is as important as the input of the teacher.
I think this type of communication can go a long way and significantly improve the willingness
of students to learn and participate in the activities. Furthermore, it is important to communicate
with parents and keep them up to date on things that are happening in the classroom. Keeping
good relationships with the parents can help with the success of students in the classroom. I
always enjoy talking to parents and learning about them because it helps me connect to students
know about their parents and what they want to share about the home life. This is especially,

since the home life can really impact the academic performance of students in the classroom. I
do believe that my strongest areas are communication and diversity, as I always try to take
diversity into consideration in my lessons, and I always try to have an open ear for students and
parents alike.
Overall, my weakest areas are time management and firmness when it is needed to ensure
that I stay with my classroom management plan. I believe I got better at keeping my time as the
internship progressed, but there is always room for growth. I try to pace myself by checking the
time frequently. I also try to make activities and centers easy to understand with specific
instructions. It seems time management became a little bit easier over time when I was able to
learn about how my students learn and what they are able to do in an allotted amount of time. I
also need to learn how to be firmer sometimes, so students know that I need them to stay on track
with the lesson. After my first placement, this was difficult for me to grasp because that teacher
was very loud and hostile at times. I am still trying to find a happy medium that will work for me
and signal to my students to refocus.
Overall, this internship experience was great. It was a rollercoaster ride, but I would
never give up the memories that I made with my precious students. I was awake many nights in
my bed thinking about what to do in class and how to serve the students better. I love what I do
every single day and couldnt imagine doing anything else. I cant wait to take everything I
learned to my own classroom and really see students learn and grow. In the end, with everything
else aside, the reason I am doing this is to give students the educational foundation they need to
be successful adults, and those little smiling faces make everything worthwhile.