Challenges, Successes, Products…OH MY!
I can honestly say that I still have a hard time putting my internship into words. I mean it was such an exhilarating experience that it’s so hard to describe to others. When I walked through the doors of Jones Onslow, I felt like I was one of them. To think that they treat an outsider like they treated me? Like family!
The first week I got there, I knew that I had to produce a product from this experience, an educational resource. Learning about JOEMC was the easy part. I had enough foundational knowledge that the industry was not overwhelming. The challenge was translating my learning into a viable product that not only myself but others could use to teach their students. After the first week my mind was full of all these ideas! I pondered teaching electricity, the seven cooperative principles, etc. But as the days went by, I began to feel a little overwhelmed and began thinking, how do I put this magnificent internship into just one lesson plan? My first idea of course was to impact all the students within Northside High School’s Stem Academy of which I am the director. However that impact was not large enough to me. I wanted the impact of the product I produced to correlate with the magnitude of the JOEMC Internship experience.
I continued searching my brain and my mentor’s to figure out how to take this experience and transform it into an educational resource in which I can impact the most students? And then, “STEMulating the ENERGY of the Classroom” came to light. JOEMC already had a menu of presentations for the classroom. However, the demand was low for these presentations. After learning more about these presentations, my product began to evolve into lessons aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a three-dimensional approach to K-12 science instruction.
My upcoming challenge is going to be having the my students facilitate STEM nights throughout this next school year so that they can test the prototype of JOEMC’s community lessons. I am excited and nervous about it, but I have faith in the skills I have learned, the help I can call upon at JOEMC and my fellow Kenan Fellows, and my students who will really embrace the process once they see what they need to do.
