Winthrop’s College of Education is bracing for its most challenging semester yet, ensuring that, despite circumstances surrounding COVID-19, its future educators will still gain valuable teaching experience
Despite all of the challenges involved with making the public school classroom safe for in-person learning, local schools are still making room for Winthrop’s College of Education interns to gain valuable teaching experience this semester.
“We are so grateful our partnership schools are allowing interns this semester,” Bettie Parsons Barger, director of the Rex Institute for Education Renewal and Partnerships, said. “I’m excited for our interns to be in the field. They have worked hard, and they are prepared for the challenge and I think it will be a great year for them, even if it’s not exactly what they had originally anticipated.”
In anticipation for Winthrop interns entering the classroom this semester, the College of Education is working hard to make sure they are aware and prepared to follow any and every precaution that the local schools are taking.
“Each school has a health and safety protocol that I think their district mandated, but schools have their own spin on them and our interns have that information and they will follow all of the health and safety protocols that the schools put in place as they would if they were a full time faculty,” Barger said.
As of now, most local schools have open doors for future educators to gain field experience, but some Winthrop students will be learning to teach from afar through online instruction.
“We will have a lot of interns who are doing hybrid and virtual field experience,” Barger said. “All of our interns in every program take an educational technology course, so they will be equipped with the tools and the strategies, instructional strategies, to be able to teach in a virtual environment.”
With online instruction comes some anxiety for many students in the education program who feel they are just not cut out for it. Lucy Manley, a sophomore educational studies minor, is enrolled in two classes this semester that involve field experience.
“[Because of COVID-19], I’d probably rather do online, even though I absolutely detest online,” Manley said. “I know that online learning is hard enough for me as a student because it just lacks that structure. So I think that when it comes to online teaching, I’d be apprehensive that I wasn’t providing my students with enough structure, enough clarity, and I also think it presents challenges in the sense that it’s hard to monitor whether or not the children are actually learning.”
It is common for students to be doubtful that virtual teaching is effective, but many would rather struggle through the nuance of online learning than risk spreading COVID-19. Others are making the most of any outcome.
Megan Jensen, a Winthrop graduate school student pursuing a Master of Arts in Teaching, is optimistic about entering the classroom this semester, but still has her worries about spreading the coronavirus.
“I think COVID definitely makes it a little bit more nerve wracking just because what if I get sick and can’t come to internship? Or what if I’m exposed and don’t know it and somehow pass it on,” Jensen said.
Students such as Jensen attest that in the early clinical education classes, such as Education 200, Tammy Burnham often says, “One of the top characteristics of an effective teacher is flexibility.”
Flexibility will be vital for students this semester as there will be many unprecedented challenges in both in-person teaching and virtual teaching, but nothing that the College of Education is unprepared for.
“I think flexibility is huge,” Manley said.
“I was thinking the other day about how I feel this is going to change the course of education in general, she said. “I think it definitely speaks to the fact that teachers are superheroes and that they should be, at bare minimum, respected more, if not paid more. I also think during this time it’s going to be super important to be empathetic and compassionate with our students because you just never know what’s going on at home.”
Regardless of whether students in Winthrop’s education department gain field experience this semester through virtual or in-person teaching, the College of Education will be working hard to ensure each student is learning the importance of flexibility and that it will be a skill they implement in their future classrooms to become effective teachers.
Photo by Gabrielle Reid
