This was taken on the first day I was at Mountain Ridge Middle school. MRMS is where I worked for the first week of externship. The art teacher at MRMS, Shelly, had students take chairs that were going to be thrown away, and re-purpose them. This was from the night of the symposium. The students were exhibiting their iLab projects. One team of teachers did a STEM project about ecology. Students broke off into groups and designed different environments. At Mountain Vista High School, there are plans to turn this room and an adjacent one into a fabrication lab. It will be used to implement Project Based Learning. This is an engineering class at MVHS. The group of students presenting here built a robotic arm and hand for a fellow student that does not have use of their hand. | This is a school assembly that happened during the first day of externship. The whole school gathered. This is iLab. It's a class that was designed from the HTH model. One day we worked with a sixth grade class, whose teacher decided to try PBL. At Castle View High School a group of four teachers designed a program called MOSAIC. They recruited 100 students to participate in the PBL program. This is a first grade class at Mammoth Heights Elementary School. The class used exercise balls in place of chairs. Second grade teacher Mary Lisa B. at Mammoth Heights Elementary School received a grant to transform her classroom. Here, you can see students doing a "Mystery Skype" call with someone living in Mozambique. This way of learning geography is just one example of how innovative this classroom is. |
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How did your view of life beyond high school change or developed during your time as an intern?
It changed more than I originally thought. Like I talked about in previous blog posts, education is not currently something I am officially studying in college, but I can easily see that changing. Ever since last year when I went to England and did an internship not unlike this one, education has been sitting in the back of my head. Then, during our inquiry projects this year in Will's class, I furthered my interest in education by researching it for my project. Before this internship, I knew that I was interested in education, had solutions in my head, and knew good practices, but hadn't realized the legitimacy of them until now. After working with countless of teachers and students, I now realize that the knowledge I have and have shared, is beyond valuable to these teachers. Now, looking ahead, I can easily see myself going into education, and making positive changes in the world. What new questions has your externship inspired you to ask about our world? What has it made you wonder about? What are you motivated to go out and do or learn about on your own time? Today I was having a conversation with a teacher and about eight students. The students were asking me questions about PBL when the teacher brought up freedom in the classroom. I described how at HTH we are given a lot of trust and with that comes respect. Then, one student said something along the lines of, "Well, I think if we give sixth graders that much freedom, that they will just goof off and do nothing." Then I had a sort of epiphany. We, as a country, have created the notion that when students are given trust, that they will abuse it. It was the strangest thing to me. This student, who was responsible, hard-working, and who seemed trustworthy, was just assuming that he and his classmates would not respect the trust their teacher gave them. And I said that to them, and if kind of left everyone thinking. That situation right there has made me exteremly curious about culture in education. Why do we have a preconceived notion that when students are given freedom, that they will abuse it? Why do students believe that notion? How can we change it? I am motivated to go out into the world and help change those notions and school cultures. How did interpersonal relationships and/or collaboration at work influence your understanding of life outside of high school? I think that most people, including myself, think that life outside of high school and even college is going to be more of just "going through the motions." But really, everything is pretty random. Sure, people have schedules, but the people I have been working with are not unhappy. In fact, I have met some of the most passionate and innovative people here in Colorado. A lot of the time, too, people don't necessarily know what they're doing-- and that's okay! People are okay with failing, and that's a good thing, because that is where so much learning happens. After this internship, I can say that I feel more prepared, and more excited, for life outside of high school. |