A Study on the Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Educational
Practices and Policies within Public Middle Schools
INTERNSHIP BACKGROUND
• For my internship, I chose to intern at McClure
Middle School, a local school in my area. I chose
this for a number of reasons, but my primary
motive was to understand the effects of COVID
on the children of today. I attended McClure
before the pandemic, and I thought that it would
be interesting to be able to contrast the
experiences, whether that be through teaching
styles, social dynamics, or educational
differences. I studied under Mr. Ryan Limpert for
around four months, and I gathered valuable,
firsthand experience with the children of the
next generation, experience that I will share with
you in this report.
INTERNSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES
• During the extent of my internship opportunity, I
shadowed Mr. Ryan Limpert, a teacher at McClure
middle school. Mr. Limpert has been at the school
since its creation and is dedicated to his 6th grade
class, teaching life science. For the four
months that I was in the classroom, I had a myriad
ofresponsibilities, all that I tried to approach with a s
ense of respect and integrity,two traits that I think th
at I represented well. While I did have many small
tasks throughout my average day, the majority of my
day was spent assisting Mr. Limpert, doing whatever
I can to help the students learn and prepare for
various upcoming assessments. Due to the age of
the students, we often had fun activities and songs
to incorporate curriculum, which established and
then maintained a lighthearted and genuine
atmosphere, which was a new side of the classroom
that I had never quite seen before. Overall, my
general tasks were to grade assignments, pass out
papers, and assist in general teaching practices.
Adam Crabb
APPLIED LEARNING PROJECT
OVERVIEW
For my applied learning project, I chose to build a website database for parents.
The website will be a collection of my experience at McClure during my
internship, and its purpose will be to help parents understand the type of
educational environment that their kids either are in currently or will be
prospectively. I have tried to fully encapsulate my firsthand experience and
provide a background on how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the role of
education in the lives of their children.
NEED
In this new, post pandemic
age, it is hard to predict the
effects that COVID had on
humanity, especially for an
everyday citizen with little to
no scientific or research
experience. Many parents are
worried about their children
growing up in such an
unpredictable learning
environment, and have trouble
finding reliable, evidence-
supported research, leaving
them no place to turn to with
questions. This is where my
product comes in. The website
that I have created is
accessible, approachable, and
understandable to the average
parent, and gives sound,
research supported
information about the current
state of education, at least at
the middle school level.
This survey clearly shows the general effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, and
showcases the depth of impact that the quarantine had on education
MY PROCESS
For such a large project, there must be months of planning research, in order to deliver
a strong, supported claim about current education. I have taken these required steps in
advance, allowing me to be proud of the work that I have put forth. I started the
website early into my internship, sometime in early February. From there, I continued
to document my day-to-day findings, as well as any major results on a separate
document, which I would then filter out to the most important elements. Once I had
these elements, I slowly worked them into my website, making sure that only the best
of my work is being represented. I continued this until late April, when I complied all of
my experience into a formal draft. I continued to edit, creating the website that is
accessible today.
GENERAL FINDINGS
I chose to take this specific internship for many reasons, but
the most prevalent of these was to compare the effects of
the COVID-19 pandemic. I myself went to McClure Middle,
and I thought that it would be interesting to contrast the
two experiences and note the effects that the 3-year
quarantine had not only on the students, but on the
teaching styles of the educators that I shadowed. Overall,
this objective panned out quite well, and I was able to note
many subtle, yet present, differences between their
experiences and my own, and they may surprise you. Many
researchers would approach this situation pessimistically,
looking for weak areas that have sprouted, but I decided to
take a different approach. I came in looking for both good
and poor performance, and I pleasantly surprised at the
results that I found. While many would expect less of
students that were not given a fair shot, I found a hearth of
enthusiasm and ingenuity, spreading not only from the
educators, but primarily from those being educated. A clear
example this were the "STEM builds", a new addition to the
McClure science program, where kids are given hands on,
interactable activities weekly as a part of their classes. This
was not a thing when I was at McClure, and the addition of
these activities have had indescribable benefit in the
environments that they are put in. I got to see firsthand the
effect of this kit, and the addition of many other new, fresh
additions to the curriculum. Instead of using the pandemic
as an excuse to become lazy, McClure used the time that
COVID-19 provided to improve upon themselves, providing
incalculable value to its students. While this one school is
not representative of the entire nation, it is a beacon of
hope in a seemingly dim future for education.
REFERENCES
Canac, S., Crepin-Obert, P., & Roux-Goupille, C. (2024, March 13). Cross-referenced
perspectives on three science teachers’ practices incorporating the history of science in
their classrooms - science & education. SpringerLink.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11191-024-00501-7
Le Thi Thu, H., Tran, T., Trinh Thi Phuong, T., Le Thi Tuyet, T., Le Huy, H., & Vu Thi, T.
(2021, July 14). Two decades of STEM Education Research in middle school: A
bibliometrics analysis in Scopus Database (2000–2020). MDPI.
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/11/7/353