Internship Capstone Podcast

Justin Dunn and Carson Douglas discuss their internship experiences. Justin learned the importance of balancing personal relationships with students and the need for effective planning and organization. Carson learned the importance of teaching from a student's perspective and establishing clear boundaries with students. Both interns emphasized the value of getting involved in extracurricular activities and building relationships with students outside of the classroom. They shared fond memories of attending soccer games and feeling appreciated by the students. Hey everyone this is Justin Dunn. I just finished my internship this past semester with Mr. Sturge up at Southside High School. Going strong since about January 2nd. I finished up not too long ago and I'm sitting here with my good buddy Carson. Hey everybody this is Carson Douglas. I just finished up my internship with Chris Morgan at Cedar Ridge High School. I did the same thing. I started in January on the 2nd and I just finished up in the last week of April. Same as Justin. Went really strong. Finished up strong and kind of had the ups and downs going throughout the semester but we ended on a strong note. So Justin as far as your internship went, what were some things that you consider to be the most important skills or just knowledge that you gained throughout your time at Southside High? Good question Carson. I think a lot of the most important things I learned came from a lot of the struggles that I kind of had. In the beginning, and this might be different for anyone who's interning, but kind of in the beginning it's almost like you're observing again. You're kind of learning the classroom. Not really teaching as much but more of here's the class, here's the students. Kind of get to know them and I've written about this a lot in kind of the reflections we've had in the years. One of my strengths as a teacher is I like to form like very kind of personal and individual bonds with my students and so I always knew that was my strength but I've never had the opportunity to kind of see the weakness that that might have and so I remember it was kind of not yet the middle of the semester but getting close when we kind of start taking on more and more control of the classroom and this was actually Ms. Harris came for her second observation. My first formal observation which I'm sure you can attest Carson is one of the most it's very nerve-wracking but we get through but she came observed and I created this project where because I taught all economics that they had to create their own kind of tax bracket because I wanted them to see how does maybe this group and each group was assigned a different income level and I wanted to see well this is the richer group how did they divide taxes and kind of get in thinking about policy so I created this project but because I thought I had this firm relationship with the students I defaulted more on that than my planning kind of went so I didn't create a rubric I kind of just told them the instructions didn't post it on to classroom because I thought in my head I already have this relationship I don't really need to I have these expectations I'm sure they're going to meet them and what I learned what the project is they had to create a poster board Mr. Dunn we don't get this Mr. Dunn what's going on very late work was probably one of the most irksome moments I've had during my internship a lot of it because it's a lot of it I was like this was me but what I learned from that is a like we can have these relationships our students all we want we can have these great bonds and that's honestly probably one it was not the best part of the teaching practice is getting to know your students as individuals but at the end of the day we're teachers and we can have these great bonds but we're here to make sure that they are learning this content so I learned like yes I'm good in this kind of relationship side but maybe not forgetting that there is this whole planning part that comes with it I think the biggest thing that I didn't have was that rubric so it kind of taught me before going into any big project or any little assignment do I have every single thing that I need almost thinking of it kind of this viewer student I think that's one of the biggest things I've learned when you're creating a project yeah we have all the planning we have all that but kind of when you get to the nitty-gritty of it thinking about I'm a student in my classroom what would help me to succeed and what would the teacher need to provide me so that's one of the big things I learned what about you Carson what are some kind of the big things that you found I think you kind of drove the nail into the coffin with the idea of teaching as if you were the student I think the thing that helped me the most in my planning and preparation overall was just understanding when I was a student why did I not retain this information what would have helped me retain this information and when you give it when you look at it from that perspective as a teacher you you start to teach a lot better and you start to plan a lot better but in the same regard to you and the relationship side of establishing what you have between the students whether it's a friendship whether it's a personal relationship individually I think I got hurt in the same way teaching I think mine was I wanted to establish this friendship between me and the students where they felt like we were close and they can trust me but in the same way that they I would also expect respect out of them and I think just kind of having that idea that I automatically gained that they were their respect on that first day or the first week is kind of where I was disillusioned in my internship so I kind of came back to bite me after a after a week or so I came down to me being in full control over a sociology class and I was trying to student kind of disregard one of the statements that I made and I kind of just realized that they saw me as more maybe an older student in the classroom instead of a teacher figure so it took me really kind of really kind of locking in and kind of putting my face down and saying listen you guys are going to listen to me I tried to be friends with y'all I tried to establish that relationship but that's obviously not going to work that's obviously created some sort of problem and some misconception between you guys thinking that you don't have to respect me but it also helped in the same way because there were students that would kind of step over and say listen like why are you doing this you know he's been very respectful we have a relationship with mr. Douglas you know there were students that were stepping up so I just kind of saw two sides of the story you know two of them or a few students would say you know we need to be respectful we are respectful mr. Douglas respects us we should do that in return and then there were students that were like he's only three years older than me you know he's been friends with us he's been laughing with us like I don't have to respect him so I think it came back to bite me in the end but for me that's just going to be another learning experience I have to realize initially I have to start and I've got to put my foot down and I've got to say you know this is how it's going to be now we could be we could build this relationship you know there I'm going to be strict I'm going to be stern but outside of that you know when you're not in my classroom we can chop it up I'll go to your games you can invite me to your games you know but once you step but in my classroom like we got a mean business we got to do we got to do history or whatever whatever you got to learn but just kind of talking about that that's kind of a bad thing maybe like a not so much a bad memory but just kind of something that we learned from from your time in Southside we think your best memory was or has been in your internship I think it's funny kind of how in there you were kind of talking about like there's only about three or four years that really separate us from the students and especially for anyone who's listening the future intern students it can be kind of weird setting up that kind of boundary of like yeah I've only got about three or four years of age on you and but like at the end of the day I am your teacher finding that kind of I don't want to say stern fist but like the rules kind of following but then after that you said like outside of the classroom going to like everyone's games and things like that I think for me one of the my favorite memories and kind of just if I can say like any advice to any intern out there is because during the earlier education classes when you're doing like your observations you're I forget the name of our class we take where we first do it practicum you can see where intern students are we've kind of have maybe not some fond memories from what you're probably going through in this moment probably some great ones but during those classes you don't really get to see the opposite side of everything that goes along in the school like sports games pageants ski club events field trips because you're only really in the classroom for that short amount of time but I think one of my fondest memories of internship and I recommend it to any really anyone who goes through any student teaching practice is getting more comfortable with that opposite side I remember kind of near the end of the year soccer season at Southside and soccer is a very big deal Southside I went to a school that didn't really have a soccer team at all so it was kind of a we had sports teams and all that and so I knew the excitement but when football season was over it was really nothing that was kind of the school I went to so it was nice seeing it felt like the very community driven like we want to make sure our students are getting anything extra-curricular that they might want and so they're like Mr. Dunn please come to our games Mr. Dunn so I went to started going to a few of their soccer games and just the joy of seeing like you can see it on their faces when they notice you in the crowd or it's after the game they're going to the locker room and they're saying hi the parents and everyone it's like Mr. Dunn like it's crazy seeing you here and then you keep kind of going more and more and like they start coming up to you I remember one of the fondest memories I had is this past Monday I was finishing my internship but Southside was having their senior band recital and a lot of really almost all of my students are part of the band and I said Mr. Dunn we know you're gonna be gone because at that point I had been three it'd been the weekend and then about three or four weekdays I've been gone now like Mr. Dunn please come to this recital I said if I'm free I'll be I might be able to so didn't tell any one of them I had a few students actually that tried to get my number my mentor teacher told me because they wanted to text and invite me and so eventually I was like I don't really have anything else why not so I went to the recital great recital and then at the end because I was gonna say hey good job to some of my students a few of them came up to me without me doing anything they said Mr. Dunn we didn't think we would ever see you again and then the tightest hug that anyone has almost ever given me because they're like we like we miss you please come back and it almost gets you emotional in a way if it wasn't like so late at night I may have it was pretty exhausted from working on other stuff I may have just said that you gonna make me cry but just seeing like how like much even in that short amount of time we were there about four months or so showing like we care about you not just within the space of our classroom we care about you in the classroom outside of the classroom we want you to be the best possible not just student but the best possible human you can be and we're here to support that seeing even those four months that we were there seeing on their face how much of a difference that made like it's it's almost I know we're here to speak about it but it's almost unspeakable and so if I could say anything to any intern is if you get invited to those events even if you're some of those times I did not want to go you like we're not gonna sugarcoat it you're gonna be exhausted at some points during this but like seeing that difference almost makes it worth everything you're gonna be proud and I told my parents it made me proud to be out as tired as I was because like I saw the difference that was made that was really one of the big things I learned how about you Carson what were some of some of the fond memories you had or what is like the big thing you say you may have learned over the internship I would say kind of just as I looked at the guidelines for the capstone when I was trying to think of ways or knowledge or skills that I gained this was more so like a motivation that I gained these memories building these memories it's kind of like pushed my motivation or built my motivation just to become a teacher because what you said like just in a short amount of time the amount of impact that you can have on a student's life it's kind of kind of tugs on your heartstrings like January I got there and my first my original thought was these are 15 or 16 year olds you know it's going to be difficult to get their respect to gain this to gain this respect build this rapport with them and I think it had to be probably a month into my internship I asked one of the kids that walked in he had a sports hat on and I said you play you play any sports you know what do you do he's like well I play basketball in the spring I mean in the fall and I think I'm going to play I'm playing baseball right now we kind of got this tournament coming up and didn't really didn't really say anything about me getting invited and then I finally kind of fully took over how I was teaching for a few weeks and then about a month went by month and a half went by and he came in again he said Mr. Douglas this is after I started teaching Mr. Douglas he's coming to our baseball game tonight and at first it's kind of the same thing as you I was just like you know Cedar Ridge is about 20 minutes away 25 minutes away I don't really want to so I was like you know what if I'm free tonight I'll show up to the game and I got home sat down for a minute and I just thought man I really did not I don't want to drive out there but I did I drove out there and I sat at the game and I mean baseball is just like it's like watching grass grow it's just it's slow but I once I sat down and I kind of paid attention to my students and just kind of saw them in their element after the game they ended up winning and the second that the game ended Dawson and Colby two of my students run around the corner running one of them jumps in the air to hug me Mr. Douglas I didn't think you were going to come and that was just kind of like a funny laughing moment but to read like just to see how much it meant to them that I actually came was really cool just because not even just really cool it just showed me how if you're intentional as a teacher or an intern and you really your internship is going to be what you make of it if it's a really fun time if you want to have fun with it if you want to enjoy it and you want to get to know the students that's how it's going to be but if you're if you're dreading every day that you go and you're making it you know today's just going to drag out this week's gonna go by slow that's that's how it's going to be but from that point on I had the softball girls ended up asking me to go to one of their games they don't really have a an established soccer team but just it was just here and there students telling me whether it was baseball band track soccer hey you should come teach here next year I had a student come tell me that so there's just little things like that that it's not one defined specific memory but just those little moments where you can tell you're actually making a difference to the kids I think was probably my favorite part of the internship over the span of those four or five months yeah it's great if I could like look back of saying if there's like one thing that I would change about like the course of my internship I think it'd be going to those events like sooner I did cuz it's kind of like as you said it gets it's very nerve-wracking in the beginning of like come to this come to this all right I kind of just met you because you're gonna have some students are gonna be very shy like you are and then I'm sure you've experienced this car so there's gonna be some students who are gonna be in your face day one want to know every little thing about you but if I could change anything it's being like ready to go to those events more and more it's kind of like you said once you get back to your room on some tough days of internship you kind of just want to lock the door turn off all the lights but you kind of once you start going that flip kind of switches and you're like I don't want to leave yeah cuz I'm at the end kind of similar they said mr. Dunn you should start teaching here and I was like well I don't think they have a history job open but as we've kind of learned we might be started looking at our boundaries what we're teaching but I was like I started well just maybe and then at the beginning of school year I would never would have considered like working I'm here for my internship get it done but hopefully I was spoken to my mentor teacher and hopefully you know or listen to have a great relationship with your mentor teacher especially if you kind of get that and I see your growth it's almost like having the ultimate resume builder too because I know I'm like my as I said I was home research I'm starting to interview or go anywhere just getting their number you can give me probably the best glowing recommendation I ever had about you card like the view experience anything kind of in that same domain or I would say that was something that impacted me more towards the probably the last two months of my internship is when I realized like coming from baseball to Cedar Ridge and Cedar Ridge is so small and it's like as a coach it's a small football team and I always thought well you know I would never really work I would never work at Cedar Ridge that's not really it's not something that I have my sights set on but you know as a as a graduate or an upcoming graduate it's not we can't really be picky with our first job but it's always just kind of it's been my nature to kind of fare towards or lean towards another school or other places opposed to Cedar Ridge and I think that did play a huge role because I experienced the same thing about a month before my internship ended coach Morgan called me in on our prep period I was going to sit in the teacher's lounge or get a get a snack or something and he pulled me in his room and he said listen like you might not be interested in it there might not be a history job but I think one might open up here in a here a few weeks and if you want the job or if you want to end like you know if you're even thinking about coming here I think this opportunity can open up and I just think kind of what Justin said that's establishing some sort of relationship establishing a friendship getting close with your internship teacher it's going to make your internship so much more enjoyable because you're going to be around that person every single day every parent teacher conference every PLC or PD day if you experience what I experienced at Cedar Ridge that's going to be never with PLC or PD but you're going to spend a lot of time with that person you're going to sit in an empty prep period with that person for 40 minutes and if you never talk to them then it's just going to be awkward and another hole draining it's sitting there in silence yeah so for me to anyone listening to this video in the future just establish that relationship early whether it's practicum one or two if you're only spending 40 minutes in the classroom make that 40 minutes make it worth it you know utilize every bit of time because even if you show up every once a week for 40 minutes and you show that teacher you're happy to be there you're spending your time observing or you're spending your time teaching and you're enjoying it that's going to that's going to play a bigger role in the future for you as a teacher you know because in a few years you're going to be the person that's going to be hired you're going to be the person that needs an internship spot and if you kind of go there and you waste their time and you don't really devote any time and commitment to them then not every internship teacher has to accept an intern you know if they say hey Cade Mallon he's a he's an intern or Georgia Holster she's an intern or Slayton Wheeler or you know if they see these names down the road then they can say no to things like that and just for like this upcoming class I know Jackson's up at a Jackson at Southside now or is he he wants Mr. Barber at Southside yeah so like Jackson Fikes you know so you have to be very very intentional with these internships I'm just speaking with these classes coming up you have to be very intentional with your teacher that you're with because people can deny an intern if you don't commit to them you don't show them that you're engaged and committed to actually putting the work in you're not always going to get accepted into an internship and which is something that could result in a future job so I'm kind of yapping on but I would just say as you go up to go throughout these next two years or people coming in three years or four years just be very intentional with your internship appreciate every minute and just do it and be passionate about it because it flies by and you're not going to be an intern for very long and then one day it's just going to turn into a job opportunity so for me I know that that's more of like a relationally that's how I felt you know building up a relationship establishing and gaining new knowledge what do you think your your most valuable valued skill was that you've gained in your time at Southside something that you saw related to something we've learned in education or something that we haven't learned in our classes but what's a skill that you think that you you now have equipped as a teacher over your time and in your internship good question I think honestly what the internship provides because we these the classes that we kind of talked about with practicum and all that like they are kind of like the mold you to get ready but I think in my opinion there's no really or the most that I think I've learned throughout my time that through the line education program was the experience I gained during internship there's really no better teaching tool to like learn how to be a good teacher and kind of just go and do it kind of screen you've named a couple of the ones that are coming up at the internship I hope y'all are taking some of the advice we have why they are taking it not lightly because Carson said especially about form that relationship with your mentor teacher not only because you're going to get a great job opportunity but me and my mentor teacher every prep period we wouldn't got milkshakes and so it's kind of that you don't only gain that kind of professional but you really do start getting kind of like lifelong friendship with some of your teachers we kind of talked about mr. Sturge I talked about mr. Barber and earlier like I'm inviting to my graduation some great friendship so I'm really glad you hit on that Carson but I think the biggest thing I learned and kind of as a closer I think we're kind of getting here close to time but was learning that to be a teacher you almost have to have kind of I don't want to call it separate personalities but almost like there's different kind of levels within one person's to be a teacher you can't just be snagged and I'm going to go into the classroom I'm going to do this one thing every single day because that's how you're going to lose kids but then also you go in there you change if you're teaching you're really energetic but then here comes a student a student getting to a fight what are you going to do you all right then you can be good handling things like that you can be good in the classroom soon comes up to you I have this incident just happens in my home life I just want to talk to you you don't know what to do right now I do I think a lot of the people outside of teaching and outside of kind of internship what a lot of you are listening about to do don't really know how much really how many roles we have to fill we're not just teachers were counselors were authority figures were sometimes parental figures almost in a way for some kids and so I think the biggest thing I learned was yeah I'm mr. Dunn I want to be a teacher I'm here to make sure that these kids get economics but it's almost like that it's just such a small part of it like yeah you're here to learn but how are you going to make sure that they learn in an environment where they're comfortable how are you going to make sure that they learn an environment that they're excited to come to school every day and so I think understanding those different roles and a more kind of defined level and not just seeing them as oh this is just one thing as a teacher understanding kind of this we've talked about the four domains here's like am I good planner yeah I'm a good planner but am I good planner is also good at forming interpersonal relationships am I good at forming these interpersonal relationships but am I good at my classroom management and understanding that I'm not as good as this but I'm good at this how can I work on this to make them not just even out but excel in all these domains and so I think learning how to figure out this is how what I'm good at here this is what I'm good at here that you get from that natural experience that well I improvised that's really like you can't get really much anyone so like just getting that experience understanding these are the different levels that I'm as a teacher I think by far was one of it's not like the greatest thing I learned at least for myself what about you person I would say in a very similar fashion but more related to the planning preparation side of it is the one skill that I gained most is probably to always come prepared to teach for either ten minutes longer than you've anticipated or to pack up and have more questions than you thought you were going to ask just ready to pull out and kind of put like give it to the students well you know we've got ten minutes left in class I already taught all my content what's a question activity what's a what's what's a question I can ask and I can keep it going keep it going and kind of have students build off of each other because it's so easy to get up there in your lesson and you have five questions that you know you're going to ask and you already know the content you've read over your presentation 20,000 times because you want to be able to have all this information in your mind when you're teaching and you just fly through it the second you start teaching it I've done it multiple times I've flown through my lessons and I just kind of sat back doing my lesson plan one day and I just doubled my questions instead of having five or ten essential questions I just doubled it and I tried to make 20 and then before I taught I wrote my questions down on two sticky notes and I sat them on my little little teaching stand in front of class and I just put them right there and when I was teaching I would just peek down at these these sticky notes and what it shows you well I have 20 questions and I only asked three of them so I need to speed up more I've got 20 questions and I've asked 12 of them and I got 20 minutes left to teach so I think when you're planning and you're preparing over preparing is never ever ever going to hurt you as a teacher that's one thing that I learned and to believe in and ask every student a question that was that I consider that a skill because it's so awkward when you can tell a kid doesn't want to be asked a question to go ahead and call them anyway because once a kid sees that you've asked them a question whether they're introverted or extroverted to me it's like well maybe he believes that I can answer maybe he knows I can answer it for some introverted kids that's all it takes for them to open up is I have somebody that believes in me now so I would say a skill that I learned in my internship is one ask every kid questions and tell them you care and that you believe in their ability to learn and two is always over prepare never ever ever go into a lesson and feel like you don't have enough because over preparing is never going to hurt you I would say that is the one skill that I learned and I'm going to appreciate the most as my teaching endeavors further and I become a new employee wherever wherever I get hired I think those are going to be two things that I really appreciate learning in my internship time great well I think we're getting close about time Carson we're hitting about 30 minutes well we kind of planned this beforehand we said we're just going to talk until we're going to talk and we thought we will finish about about 10 minutes but I think you probably heard as we were talking we got pretty excited talking about old memories what we hope all y'all listening kind of get that same vibe but kind of as a closure what are what's kind of next for you Carson and you go straight into the teaching well so I will say right now we've kind of talked about it that's kind of friends before and it's the answers we give might not be for everyone we're kind of I would say in that regard thinking about what's next is probably scary so as an intern if you listen to this in your internship appreciate every single minute of your internship because you got to be a professional and get hired eventually but so what's next for me is I've got I've got two choices right now and it's either to head up north out of the country and spend a few months in Canada kind of pursuing the football side of things a different aspect of the professional field and then the other the other side of that is applying for and interviewing for a job at Batesville High or Cedar Ridge or Lone Oak so I'm kind of in the interviewing process submitting resumes getting all this graduation stuff figured out all these certificates figured out and hopefully by August or next January I'll be a teacher and I'll have my own classroom to decorate and I'll be I'll be starting it all I'll be starting it all very soon the real world is kind of closing in on those four years of college flew by what about you what do you have next I think Carson said it best about like enjoying every moment of your internship if you could be paid like the annual rate to be a teacher to be an intern I'd be heavily considering it right I think Carson could say about the same thing but uh right now my kind of plan is meaning I need to talk with Dr. Crosby about the Lion Masters program and for you kind of interns coming up at least for those who are coming up kind of next year and then whoever's listening to this I would definitely have just at least conversation find out if you want to stay at Lion but if I do I would be the inaugural class there's some questions about it being finished but if not if it is I would kind of like to hope to continue my education at Lion but if not my probably gonna go to UCA which I think we kind of talked about they have a great program there too really Arkansas has a lot of great programs wherever you go but getting my master's done possibly my doctorate but wanting to get my master's and really all my education done before I start teaching but maybe my plan is to kind of find those substituting jobs which there is a lot of great opportunities for Carson's already done a few of them I've done a few of them Kramer our good buddy who was here earlier has done his internships gone through a few but kind of also they're getting our name out figuring out where do I really want to teach in the first place but the good thing about the line internship program is that the opportunities are almost endless what you can do and so I think I can speak for me and Carson both here we're really excited to see how like this road that Lion led us on like where it kind of leads us to at the end of the day but that's it from me and Carson I'm hope whoever if there is anyone listening to this they get some great advice or info about it if anyone's listening to this that we're good buddies with an internship progress I would love to hear how it goes make sure I definitely make sure to keep in touch with all my education buddies name mainly as a friend but also hey I'm going crazy what do you do in your classroom because it's always great to have as many friends you can have in the teaching program which this job field provides a lot more than others do some lifelong friends I think through this program but I think that's all about it from us Carson anything else so say reach out and ask questions if you have any and enjoy your internship and good luck with the line education program good luck that's a good thing to close on good luck to everyone you're not always going to need it but some days you just might we'll see all y'all down the road