Description of Internship

My internship was completed at Forts Pond Elementary School. This elementary school is located in Pelion, SC. My supervisor was Casey Davis who is the head principal, although I worked with Kasci Padgett, the parent liaison, and Jonathan Looney, the vice principal, as well. I was tasked with creating presentations and flyers for Mallard Mingles which are parent workshops hosted at the school. I also worked on a LinkTree to house all presentations and resources. 

During my internship, I first met with most members of the team to decide on a plan of action. I created a survey for parents to fill out about Mallard Mingles so we could be sure to plan meaningful presentations. The survey was originally intended to be completed online but ended up being sent home physically. After analyzing the data from the surveys, I came up with topics for the presentations. The topics included ways to advocate for your child, math and literacy, ways to help at home, testing and standards, and parenting and community highlights. I created four presentations on Advocacy, Math and Literacy, Ways to Help at Home and What Your Child is Learning. In each presentation, there was information regarding each topic as well as a parenting highlight and a community highlight. There were also flyers that corresponded with each topic. I created a LinkTree website that housed the presentations, flyers and any resources in case families wanted to access these after the workshops were over. 

Reflection on Internship 

The goal of this internship was to create meaningful presentations that the families would want to attend and could also learn from. The scope of my work changed as I started the internship. I predicted I would be creating flyers for each presentation that were specific to each grade level and they would be provided for the families at the workshops. After looking at the data from the surveys, I decided to change how the flyers would be accessed and have digital flyers linked on the website I created. From the survey results, I was informed about how important the website would be. The majority of respondents, 67%, requested access to a website, and 70% requested videos and resources to look at and watch at home. As far as if my time estimates were accurate, there was room for improvement in that area. I vastly underestimated how long a full project of that size would take to complete. The research, the creation of multiple products- I had much more work than I anticipated.  

My client was understanding and easy to talk to, although they weren’t always the easiest to get in touch with. I was working with faculty members at a school who were very busy with their own daily tasks. There was a learning curve to creating the product that was asked for and not needing feedback about every little part.  

Learning to meet the needs of others for others was a great experience. Not only did I have to work with the client, but we were also creating these presentations for the families of the school. I also really enjoyed some of the research I conducted. I ended up reading the SC State Standards and found out a lot about the new standards that have been released. Overall, the experience was very eye opening and instilled a lot of confidence in me.