I interned for the K-12 Summer Institute Outreach Program. As an assisting intern I gained a deeper understanding of education. During the 10-week long internship I assisted with two two-week institutes, from July 11th to July 22nd and from July 25th to August 5th, respectively. My tasks was in helping the participating teachers with curriculum projects and the professors with coordinating the program.

What lead me to be interested in this internship was from my experience of tutoring students in mathematics and sciences in the States as well as in Korea during my high school years. I realized that I had to apply different teaching approaches to people from different backgrounds, because they were not taught in similar ways. I began to think about how I could help them understand the material better. I then extended my questions to a research on the pedagogy of mathematics as my senior year project. I engaged in conversations with my teachers on effective ways of teaching, tried to apply that to my tutees, and made suggestions to the teachers.

I took then the experience I already had and combined it with the Internship experience and found once again by providing constructive feedback from the student’s views and sharing my experiences with the K-12 Summer Institute Outreach Program, that I was able to effectively contribute to the ongoing endevour of improving science and mathematics education.