Internship Program Reacts, Adjusts to COVID

As preparations were made for the students who would be taking part in their internships in fall 2020, Associate Dean for Professional Education Aiyana Henry knew this would be a semester unlike any other. Some districts were planning to have in-person classes; others had made the decision to go 100% remote. Some students were eager to be in the classroom; others felt more comfortable completing their internship in a remote setting.

 

“In our JRCoE Field Experience Task Force meetings this summer, we were looking at what our partner schools were doing and how we could meet the needs of both our students and the schools,” Henry said.

 

Meeting the needs of everyone, from the schools to the cooperating teachers and Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education students, was a complicated dance. And it took a lot of people, time and creativity to make it all work.

“What we found was (the school districts) were still debating on whether they were going to start school,” Henry said. “So that is how this plan came to fruition.”

 

The students were given two options for their internship placement. Option one was an in-person/blended experience where they were placed and assigned to a cooperating teacher with the intent of starting the school year in a face-to-face setting. The interns would be required to follow all OU masking policies, even if their particular school did not have a mask mandate in place.

 

Option two was a virtual internship experience where the student is placed and assigned to a cooperating teacher with the intent of starting the school year in a virtual setting or learning environment. This virtual space would be dependent upon the established guidelines set by the host district.

 

The committee also had to deal with issues in the timeline of the internship. Internships are usually 16 weeks long (state of Oklahoma requires 12 weeks), but with many districts delaying their starting dates due to COVID, it would not be possible for everyone to follow the same 16-week schedule. This is where the idea of pre-placement seminars came into play.

 

“Let’s address some of the needs that we saw in the spring, that we always address but don’t necessarily have the time to do until we are in the middle of the internship,” Henry said.

 

Every semester the students do a day-long internship orientation on the first day of week one, although this fall that would take place through Zoom. Now, in addition to that orientation, there would be a week of online workshops covering key issues to prepare the students for the classroom, as well as what would help them be successful. The committee also looked at the climate of what was going on around the country surrounding topics such as racial injustice.

 

Oklahoma Teacher of the Year Jeana Nelson kicked off the week with a keynote speech titled “Public Education Saves Lives: Offering a Career Pathway out of Trauma.” This was one of the sessions that all students were required to attend, along with “The Internship: Professional and Legal Issues” from Heather Hendricks of the OU Office of Legal Counsel, and “Microaggressions in the Classroom” from Monique Ramirez Lemus of the OU Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

 

The students were required to attend five sessions in total and had several from which to choose over the next four days. Topics covered included mental health; teaching English language learners; using Canvas and Google Classroom; building positive relationships with students, administrators and parents both in-person and via distance learning?; and applying culturally relevant pedagogy in the classroom. JRCoE faculty and the intern supervisors also were invited to attend the sessions.

 

“The students wrote their thoughts about these sessions in their weekly reflections, and it was very powerful and dynamic to see their responses,” Henry said. “It’s neat to see how they actually connect the things that they learned to their teaching process.”

 

Because of the success, the pre-placement seminars will again take place for spring semester interns. One cooperating teacher reached out to Henry to praise her intern, who is taking part in the virtual internship. The teacher said the intern brought a new energy to her teaching and the intern’s ability to work with technology allowed the teacher to pick up new skills.

 

“We want (the internship) to be a learning experience for both parties,” Henry said. “We want both parties to grow professionally, and we are seeing that. I don’t know if it is more apparent because of COVID, but the cooperating teachers and interns are spending a lot of time doing one-on-one planning and seem to be growing from each other. I think this is a testament to our internship program and how it has been designed.”

 

Students also are now beginning to focus on skills that have always been part of their learning experience in the college but are now more important than ever. Things like recording their lessons with a Zoom link or in Google Classroom and putting that up as a resources so students or parents can go back to review it or go through it with them step by step.

 

“We’ve always had the capability to do those things, but now it is needed more than ever,” Henry said. “We are recognizing the importance of some of the skills our students have been learning, and they are tapping into those more in the virtual environment.

 

“I like to say that when our students leave us, they develop into an educator with a toolbox filled with tools they picked up along the way. You may not have experienced while here what you are experiencing now in the classroom, but we have given you the tools to be able to navigate whatever comes your way.”