Evan Ericksen

Internship #3 Daily Journal

Day 1: 11/28/18

7:15 – 10:12

Today was awesome. Within the first 10 minutes of being there I already remembered why I loved Mr.
Brown so much. He’s funny, very approachable, and very relatable. He remembered me immediately,
remembered me in his class, and exactly when I went through his class, which was amazing whether or
not he did his research. When the kids started to arrive, I stood in the room and started talking to some
to get to know them. When the whole class was there and class began, I got to give my all about me
presentation. It went pretty well, and then I opened it up for questions and I got MANY questions, which
felt great. I also learned that Mr. Brown only allows one debate question each time, and it is always
saved foe last. The question I got was “Soft shell or Hard shell Tacos?” After that class ended, I walked
with Mr. Brown across the school to Mr. Wilson since Mr. Brown had a plan period. Surprisingly enough
I saw a lot of people I knew. He tried to walk me around to see all of my old teachers, which he also
remembered. I got to see my old science teacher, and we walked past my old social studies and English
teachers, but they were MIA and we didn’t want to be late. I also saw a few kids I recognized from
various things and even a teacher that helps lead Young Life for the high school. In Mr. Wilson’s class,
they actually had a presentation because it was career day, so I got to sit in the library with the kids and
listen to 3 parents come and tell about their careers. After that I went back to Mr. Brown’s room, where
I got to listen to how he starts his class before I had to leave. I am excited, this internship is going to be
very fun, and I can’t wait to relive my tiger days with Mr. Brown.

Day 2: 11/29/18

7:30 – 10:00

Today went pretty well. I started off with Mr. Brown and watched the announcements with them. Then
we went over to Mr. Wilson’s room for Tiger Time. Mr. Brown and I took a bunch of kids into the
hallway to review for test retakes while other students played a review game with Mr. Wilson. We did a
lot of models and white board review. They were studying different types of division using fractions,
improper fractions, and mixed numbers. After that was over, I stayed with Mr. Wilson and helped him
after his lesson. He started his class by having them summarize what their last lesson was about, since it
had been 13 days ago. They had learned about order of operations and numerical expressions. Today,
they were learning about algebraic expressions. What’s funny is how Mr. Wilson described the lesson.
He told them today was going to be like learning a foreign language. They were learning new math
terms, and it was obvious some students were confused, as if they were learning a new language. Before
they could start their homework, Mr. Wilson has a homework ticket they need to complete. He asks a
question, and the students have to come up and get it signed off as correct. After getting three
questions right, they can start their homework. We agreed that it was a great way to ensure that
students were paying attention during the lesson and that they were actually ready for the homework.
After that I went back to Mr. Brown’s room and watched him lead a warm-up. He gave me a digits book
and is letting me do the warm ups for the rest of the time I’m here. I get to start their class by doing a 10
 minute warmup. I’m happy that I’ll be getting teaching experience and I can’t wait to continue my
internship.

Day 3: 11/30/18

7:18 – 10:35

Fridays are always exciting for middle school. The announcements were very interesting, and I got to
talk to more of the kids. After morning time, Mr. Brown and I walked over to Mr. Wilson’s room for tiger
time. The students were allowed to play math games if they were caught up on their homework. I sat
with a kid studying for a retake by helping him through some of his assignments. Mr. Wilson assigned
him a decimal activity for us to work through. After that, I went to Mrs. Weiderholt’s classroom since
Mr. Brown had plan and Mr. Wilson had Life Ed. Her classroom was very different. First off, she was in a
different place in the curriculum. She was working on GCF and LCM. She also lets her students write on
the tables with expo markers and then uses erasers. It’s an interesting way to use “whiteboards.” She
had the students do a quick warm-up, and then they took a quiz. After that, they summarized the notes
from yesterday and continued their notes on LCM. They are using prime factorization to find the GCF,
and then use that to find the LCM. The kids in that classroom were also a huge variety. There were kids
that basically knew everything that she was teaching, and there were other kids that consistently used
their calculator for simple multiplication, like 2x2. Seeing how she taught was very different from Mr.
Brown and Mr. Wilson because she is much older and has been teaching for much longer. After her
class, I went back to Mr. Brown’s class, where I actually led the warm-up. We were practicing
substituting values for variables in Algebraic Expressions, such as 3x. To my surprise, there were a lot of
kids that understood it, even though Mr. Brown was just starting the unit today. I get to continue to plan
and do the warmups all of next week.

Day 4: 12/3/18

7:20 – 10:09

Today was a Monday, so naturally it went by pretty slow. I started in Mr. Brown’s room with a class
meeting. They spent most of the time asking each other about their weekends, which was pretty fun to
listen to. They had to do a greeting, which today they did super high five on their tip-toes. At the end,
Mr. Brown gave a short lesson about words. The overview of the lesson was to make sure kids
understood that words can hurts, even if your intentions were joking. He brought up the classical phrase
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” He asked them whether or not
they believed that to be true. A big thing for me was when he gave them a minute to write down
anything they’ve been called or heard someone else been called that is considered negative. They had to
crush up the paper, roll it up, and basically ruin it. Then they unwrapped it and flattened it out. The
words were still there, no matter what happens on the outside. This was a metaphor to explain how
your words will stick with someone and travel with them. Calling them something mean once is all it
takes for them to remember. Even if you were joking, they may take it seriously and be hurt. After that, I
went to Mr. Wilson’s room to observe some math. He was teaching the writing portion of algebraic
expressions. Students were given a phrase and had to write the expression with the given info. It’s weird
to be on the teacher side of the class and see how some kids excel and get bored during class, while
other kids struggle the entire time, and even that one student that starts to fall asleep. It made me see
the classroom a little differently. We did the homework ticket for the end of class, and today they had to
 get 5 questions right before they could start their homework. It made me smile when a few of the kids
who had been struggling and even got the first few wrong finally got them right. This one kid was having
problems, but as soon as they got it, they were on a roll. They understood it and got them all right. After
class, I went back to Mr. Brown’s and taught the same warmup I did on Friday since today was a
different class. I feel like I did a little better of a job today, and I wasn’t as nervous. We got through the
questions fairly easily until the challenge, where I had to give them most of the answers. I’m glad to see
that students are listening to me and how I’m able to teach them a little bit.

Day 5: 12/4/18

7:19 – 10:30

Today was very interesting. After the morning announcements, we went to tiger time at Mr. Wilson’s. I
sat in the hall with a student the entire time and worked through problems for his test retake or
something. We used a whiteboard and dry erase markers to work through them. For the first half of the
problems, he did alright in. He was telling me about how every time he attempts it, he gets an F, which
made me confused after I watched him get the first 5 correct on his own. As we worked through the
next couple of problems, he was using a weird way of long division to find each part. He would add and
multiply the divisor until he found the right one, then he put it into the problem, rather than educated
guessing and checking like I was taught. Every once in a while he would make a small mistake in is
addition or subtraction, which would throw him off. As the teacher in the scenario, I stopped him just
before the bell rang and told him how he knows everything that he is doing, so he should be able to get
an A on this quiz easy. His problem is that he rushes through the easy math and only focuses on the big
picture things. He needs to take his time and make sure that all of the little things are correct, like his
addition, subtraction, and simple multiplication and division. Tiger time was over after that, so I actually
don’t know what he got on it, but hopefully he passed. After that, I went to a special education
classroom since Mr. Wilson had Life Ed. That was a completely different experience. The teacher was
very nice, and she had to talk in a calm voice and a happy tone the entire time, whether that was on
accident or on purpose. They started the class by turning in yesterday’s homework and filling out a
sticky note with their name that told her what group they were in today. There are four groups, happy,
sad, angry, and one other one I can’t remember. This is apparently how SPED teachers communicate
with students about their general feeling of the day, which I thought was genius. The weird thing was
how a simple task that would take my grade a minute took those 7 students probably six minutes. It was
a learning experience for me to see this side of SPED. The teacher wanted me to do one thing the entire
class, which kept me occupied. I was to sit with one of the students, who had been in ISS for a few days,
and make sure that he was doing his work and writing down the notes. I figured it was going to be a
simple task. When I was sitting with him, I realized why she was so thankful I was there. He seemed to
not want to do anything. He claimed he was tired and hungry the whole time, which I can understand.
To combat this, I tried to make connections with him by talking to him about our likes and dislikes. By
doing this, he was able to respect me and listened to me when I asked him to write something down.
We were about a problem behind the class the entire time, but he was consistent. He kept writing down
the problems and solving them as I kept asking him to. He finished the notes, and the homework for
tonight. We were about to start one of his missing assignments, but we ran out of time in class. I talked
to the teacher afterwards and she thanked me because that was some of the most work he had done all
year. She could do what I did easily, but she is unable to do that, and run the class for the other 6 at the
same time. I am most likely going back again on Thursday, so we will see how that goes. Finally, I went
 back to Mr. Brown’s classroom and observed him doing a warmup that included order of operations
with numerical expressions. Then we played a game called “I have, who has?” Each person had a paper
that said I have _. Who has _? The first blank was a number, the second one was the written out
numerical expression for someone else’s paper. Students had to listen to their peer and evaluate the
expression in their head. It was fun, and I got to see how fast they could do simple math in their heads.

Day 6: 12/5/18

7:25 – 10:15

So today both Mr. Brown and Mr. Wilson had sick children, so they couldn’t come and they both had
substitutes. I helped Mr. Brown’s substitute, Mr. Dozar, get all of the stuff pulled up for the day so he
could look at it during his plan period. For tiger time, Mr. Brown told us to have the kids do Hour of
Code, since that is this week. They spent their time learning to use coding on a worldwide website for
students. It was pretty cool to watch them use code, which I didn’t learn to use until 7th or 8th grade.
Following that, I stayed in Mr. Wilson’s room with his sub, Mr. T, who is actually the cousin of one of my
friends. I explained to him how Mr. Wilson has been running his class since the sub plans weren’t very
detailed for him. We kind of tag teamed most of the class, except the notes, he did those by himself. It
was good for me to see form the teacher’s standpoint how students act when there is a substitute. I was
also given more opportunities today to “discipline” students and keep them on task, which is something
I feel I struggle at. After first block was over, I went back to help Mr. Dozar start the class since I was
there when Mr. Brown did it yesterday. The students were good at the order of operations starter, but
when we tried to play the game, they seemed to be crazy. There was a group of boys that kept talking,
and a group of girls that weren’t really focused the whole time. It took us nearly 10 minutes to go
through it the first time because people were being loud and couldn’t hear the problem. We had to keep
students quiet, which is apparently rally hard as a sub. I had to leave before they did it the second time
and time it to compete against the other classes, but sadly I’m sure they were still off task and didn’t get
a faster time. Today gave me a great insight for what a classroom will look like if students aren’t always
respectful and if the teacher doesn’t have control.

Day 7: 12/6/18

7:24 – 10:00

Mr. Brown and Mr. Wilson were both back today, which was good. We started out the day in tiger time,
where I helped three boys go through their assignment. One of them hadn’t been there in a while and
the other two were just confused. I moved around between the three of them in order to help them. I
got of a lot of teaching experience from that, since Mr. Brown and Mr. Wilson were doing other things.
After tiger time, Mr. Wilson had life ed, so I went back to Mrs. Jarding’s room with the special education
kids. She wasn’t actually here today, so the sub, Mr. Rosnew, was in charge, and I helped out my buddy
again who I helped with on Tuesday. Today went better for us actually. I think since he remembered me
and I was there, he worked better. We were given worksheets to complete, and after completing each
one the kids got an incentive, like a piece of candy, or after finishing three, they got to play math games
on their laptops. My buddy and I completed the first one after a while, and I had to keep him focused a
little bit. The second worksheet was easy for him, so he finished that in probably 2 minutes. We started
the third one, which was ordering decimals from greatest to least and least to greatest. Instead of
writing them all out in order, he just wanted to number them from 1-10, which I said was fine. That took
 him a long time since some of the kids had made it to the math games part. They kept talking and
distracting him, so I had to keep him on track. He finally finished, but didn’t have any time to play games
before the bell rang. After that, I went back to Mr. Brown’s room and walked around as the kids played a
quizziz for their starter. After that I had to leave, but I was able to watch some kids, and that class
seemed to be pretty smart.

Day 8: 12/7/18

7:23 – 10:30

Today was my last day, so it was pretty upsetting, especially since it was my last internship. I had a lot
more fun that I thought I would at Plaza. I forgot how much I loved Mr. Brown and how ridiculous and
funny Mr. Wilson was. I also had been told by many people that middle school is hard because kids are
rowdy and don’t listen. To my surprise, this wasn’t the case. There’s always that one kid that doesn’t
listen, but overall the students actually respect the teacher. After the morning announcements, I went
into a different teacher’s classroom since she was gone and there wasn’t a sub, so I filled in with the
help of another teacher. After home base, I went back to Mr. Brown’s room a little early because the
other teacher said she had it under control. In his room, we played a game of password, which is where
there are two teams of 2 people that trade off telling their partner one word and they have to guess the
“password” which is up on the board. After the students played a few rounds, Mr. Brown and I hopped
in on a team and totally dominated, it was fun. When the kids left for explos, we did the interview. The
main thing I took away from him is that when you first start out as a teacher, you should plan out your
lessons to make sure you don’t forget to teach something. But after a few years of experience, you can
get away with a little less planning. Mr. Brown, now that he’s been teaching for more than 15 years, will
have a general guideline for the unit, but won’t know his exact plan until he gets there the morning of.
The other thing he told me that I hadn’t thought about was to get into substitute teaching as soon as
possible until I get a job offer at a nice school. After that I went back to Wilson’s room one last time and
helped him finish his class. Then I came to Mr. Brown’s and assisted him in the warm up. Finally, I had a
short talk with him as I was leaving and he told me good luck with the rest of my high school year and
on. I really enjoyed this internship and I’m glad I chose to look at middle school.