For both my didactic teaching internship and my administrative internship, the courses that we completed during the first year of the program helped to prepare me for both of these internships. During my didactic teaching internship, the concepts we had learned such as lecture techniques, utilizing rubrics, and grading all helped to reinforce the experiences I had in teaching with Michele Carr for her Research and Methods course. For example, in our teaching courses we reviewed techniques for improving the presentation of an oral lecture; during my internship I applied some of these techniques such as involving the students in open discussion, using humor, and asking questions. During our Leadership and Administration in Dental Hygiene Education course we learned the CODA Dental Hygiene Standards and what is required for a dental hygiene program to be accredited. During my administrative internship, I had to opportunity to help Mrs. Carr with a site visit for another dental hygiene program. It was helpful to have learned the accreditation standards beforehand in order to understand what was needed to complete the site visit project. Surprisingly, our research courses were also very helpful for my administrative internship! I was able to utilize some of the skills we had learned from those courses in helping Mrs. Carr with a couple of research studies she was conducting with other faculty. The preparatory coursework was reinforced for both of these internship experiences overall.
During my didactic teaching internship, what surprised me the most was the time spent behind the scenes to prepare everything! I didn’t realize before how many hours it takes to prepare a lecture and the time spent grading assignments. Another thing that surprised me during this internship were my interactions with the students and the leadership role I took on. Prior to starting the internship, I was afraid that I wouldn’t know how to answer students’ questions or that I wouldn’t portray the confidence necessary to successfully teach the course. However, to my surprise I was able to quickly come up with responses to their questions and take the lead in classroom discussions. All of these are skills that I hope to continue to refine, but it was a good to know that I was capable of doing what I wanted to accomplish.
For my administrative internship, what surprised me the most was the wide variety of tasks that are required for the position of a Program Director. I completed an array of tasks, including organizing a meet and greet for the dental and dental hygiene students, writing a cover letter for a survey, assisting with a site visit, and also assisting with research. There was never a set schedule, which made things fun and interesting!
I think from both internships I learned how to manage my time well. For the didactic course, I needed to learn to manage my time in preparing for classroom lectures, which to my surprise takes much longer than I had ever expected. During my administrative internship, deadlines were always sooner than anticipated and projects needed to be done quickly; I learned how to prepare documents and presentations quickly!
I also think that both internships helped me to develop my creativity skills and to learn how to think outside the box. In preparing for lectures, I had to think of ways to explain concepts easily but thoroughly and how to make the lectures more interesting. During my administrative internship, a majority of the tasks required creativity skills that I had not been required to use before in my educational training but this allowed me to explore those creative abilities.
Although I am unsure what my exact career goals include, I imagine myself teaching both in a didactic course and in a clinical setting at a dental hygiene program. I think both of these internships have helped me to cultivate the skills needed to accomplish these goals, and I hope to one day apply them in my career!