Consuelo Johnson's Blog

The question is how do I see my internship experience benefitting my mentor’s organization?

The ways I see my internship benefitting the hospital are through the feedback I can give them about my observations from a personal standpoint and from creating a connection between community service members, school system and students.

What I have noticed about the staff is the grand amount of knowledge possessed by managers and directors of departments, enthusiasm of many employees and the caring spirit from many of the nurses. I have witnessed many new and improved changes that make the local hospital a much better establishment than what is was before. Many residents refuse or are unwilling to go to the hospital in Kenansville because of past negative experiences. Word of mouth is the best way to voice the improvements and changes and start to bring the community back to local services.

Bringing hospital staff members into the schools is one way to get the community involved with the schools. Building lasting relationships is a goal for all to reach. This is step one.

The goals I have for this internship is as follows:

1) Connect math to the lives of my students via healthcare experiences and opportunities

2) Build a connection and relationship between the school and community

3) Obtain new ideas and new approaches for teaching math to make it more interesting  and meaningful for students

4) Relate math to the life experiences of students that center around healthcare

5) Help other educators understand the purpose and benefit of participating in educational growth programs such as Kenan Fellows.

As a math educator, it is disheartening to hear individuals say that they do not like math or math is their worst subject because they just “don’t get it”. I aim to make math more relevant and meaningful for students with hopes of igniting the curiosity within many and converting the minds of those who dislike math to at least being comfortable working with math because they can understand the math and its purpose.

Encouraging other teachers to be continuous learners and engage in programs that will help grow them is something  else I hope to achieve. Quite a few teachers dismiss opportunities that could help them grow to become better educators. Like the students, if they do not know much about it or do not understand it, teachers tend to ignore. We have to learn how to help students at their level many times in order to be able actually help the child.

Lastly is the building of community relationships. Our school can grow and increase in parental involvement if we can build the relationship. Nothing makes a school stronger than having community support. It also helps everyone to work in unity as a team.

 

I have reached the completion of the first week of my internship. It has been awesome thus far. Monday was ICU day. Tuesday was Radiology day. Wednesday Respiratory day, Thursday- the Women’s Center (including nursery) and Friday I spent my time in ED (Emergency Department). I must say that I have a new respect for the many jobs endured at the hospital. Thursday was an emotional day because there were so many reminders of my own difficult labor experience. Outside of that, everything has been great.

All the nurses and doctors I have communicated with have been very helpful and informative. One of the nurses was actually the mother of one of my students. Good thing her daughter did very well!  🙂 There is so much that I can take back to incorporate into my math lessons. I am excited about getting my students involved. We will see what next week will bring.

It is hard for me to pinpoint one particular session or event during NCCAT as being most useful or interesting. I found everything very insightful, helpful and useful. However, if I have to choose something, it would be learning more about the available tools in Google and how to use them. I have wanted to use Google tools but was unsure of how to utilize them. using Google forms can help to eliminate the use of paper and I can keep up with the information in a folder.

One of he highlights to my week at NCCAT was my learning how to access Twitter and how to tweet. This brings me one step closer to being techno-literate. My assistant principal wanted me to get a Twitter account so I can connect with other educational professionals. I can inform her of my success.

There a a few things learned that I plan to use within my classroom. Google forms, classroom and docs for sure. I want to use Google forms to conduct beginning and end of the year surveys and also as a form of assessment. I want to use Google docs as a place to store all my evidences for teacher evaluations. Mr. Rowls had quite a few interesting ideas to capture the attention of many of my students. i will surely implement some of these strategies. The games he introduced can be used as ice breakers and break points for students.

Not that it was not a good presentation, but the “Why is Culture Important?” was probably next to the bottom. I just feel that the presentation was too long to not have information that directly connected the teachers to students in the classroom. In other words, a topic like “How Culture Affects the Classroom Environment” would have probably been more interesting among the fellows.

Compared to other PD opportunities I have experienced, I must say that the week at NCCAT has been one of the most interacting and engaging. Most of the information presented was done by a variety of current teachers who actually have students or many different backgrounds. The presenters could relate to how we felt about certain situations and could offer suggestions and strategies that they presently use.

 

 

 

Certificates obtained and modules complete. Shots! Shots! Shots! Who knew you needed to get a whole series of shots in order to work (or volunteer) in a hospital. Good thing I already had the chicken pox. I am immune to it. I would have had to receive that immunization as well. It’s all over and now today (June 15th) I met with my mentor. We went through the departments at the hospital we thought would compliment the subject area of math. We decided that we will explore approximately 18 departments beginning June 27. Afterwards, we toured the hospital. Amazing, the many times I have been in and out of this hospital, I did not realize the many departments within it. It is relatively a small hospital but it has been remodeled and updated. It was a very enlightening first meeting. I have great expectations.

May 30th I met my mentor, Krista Horne. First impressions- she is very knowledgeable and focused. We met in her office at the hospital (Vidant Duplin) to go over the logistics and overview of what will be done at the hospital.  I am sure the time I will spend with Mrs. Krista will be well worth it.

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