Elle Hallquist – Secondary Education Internship

During the current fall semester of the 2019-2020 school year, I have been given the privilege to do an internship in the educational field. I work directly with one of the teachers at the Eastern Lancaster County School District (Garden Spot). My mentor is Ms. Rachel Stern, a science teacher who presently teaches Forensics, Advanced Placement Biology, and numerous online science courses. Each school day, throughout Ms. Stern’s First Block Forensics class (7:45 A.M. – 9:05 A.M.), I assist her with a variety of tasks as her intern. Along with helping Ms. Stern run her classroom, I had the ability to teach a few lessons under her guidance in her Forensics class. Though it is only around halfway through the fall semester, I have had the opportunity to flourish in my internship.

In my educational internship, my mentor, Ms. Stern, allocates multiple jobs and responsibilities to me to help her in the classroom. One of the most common tasks that I am faced with is grading. Close to every day, I grade at least one group of papers for any of Ms. Stern’s classes, varying from the Forensics class I observe to Advanced Placement Biology. On some occasions, I have to make the key in order to grade the assignments. Other times, the key is already created, and I just have to mark what is incorrect on each work.  In addition to grading, I am also responsible for helping the students in the classroom when they need it. This can involve answering questions, teaching some concepts in different ways, and aiding with worksheets, labs, and other work the students are given. Moreover, in the classroom, I also help Ms. Stern prepare for future lessons. I do this by either setting up equipment for foreseeable labs, researching topics, or making copies of worksheets for the students to do later in the unit.

Additionally, under the direction of Ms. Stern, I also was allowed to teach a few lessons of Forensics. The unit I taught was the 3^rd of the class, which involved glass examination. In this unit, I had to explain numerous different topics to the Forensics class. Some of these ideas included density, light, basic chemistry, glass evidence, and glass collection. To teach the class, I used a variety of instructional strategies. To begin the unit, I taught many notes on the topics that were involved in the study of the unit. As the students began to learn what I was explaining, I then continued by implementing hands-on labs for the students to complete about the material being described in the unit. These labs gave the students a real-life example of some of the ideas in the unit, which was immensely helpful to their learning. Along with the notes and labs, we assigned several worksheets for the students to finish to help solidify the information we were teaching. For the week of this unit, I applied these teaching strategies to aid the students in their learning process.

In the end, this internship through education has been an immeasurably positive experience for me thus far. I have been able to witness educational careers first-hand, which is something I may have never had the opportunity to do ever again in my lifetime. This involvement has helped me to learn the diverse career paths in the educational and forensic fields, which ultimately aided me in determining what I plan to do in my future. In my near future, I decided I want to become a Forensic Accountant, which I never would have discovered without this internship. So, I am grateful for my mentor, Ms. Stern, and the internship she and Ms. Hackman have provided for me. I encourage every student to get involved in an internship. It helped me find who I am and who I want to be.