Cadet Teacher Academy: Job Shadowing 3

JOB SHADOWING ALLOWS CADET TEACHER INTERNS THE OPPORTUNITY TO FURTHER EXPLORE OTHER
GRADES AND SUBJECT AREAS THEY MAY BE INTERESTED IN PURSUING FOR A TEACHING CAREER.
PLEASE DO THE JOB SHADOWING FOR THE TIME NORMALLY REQUIRED WITH YOUR MENTOR TEACHER.
CLEAR THIS WITH YOUR MENTOR TEACHER AND INFORM THE HIGH SCHOOL OFFICE AND CADET
INSTRUCTOR/COORDINATOR OF YOUR CHANGE IN SCHEDULE FOR THAT TIME PERIOD.

PRIOR TO THE JOB SHADOW YOU WILL NEED TO TURN IN AN INTAKE FORM, AND AFTER THE EVENT,
AN ATTENDANCE FORM AND AN EMPLOYER EVALUATION FORM ALONG WITH THE CRITIQUE. ALL
FORMS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON THE CADET G-MAIL SITE. PLEASE RETURN COMPLETED PAPERWORK
TO YOUR (JOB PLACEMENT COORDINATOR) AT THE TECHNOLOGY CENTER.

APPROPRIATE PAPERWORK
WITH APPROPRIATE

(JOB SHADOW REQUEST FORM MUST BE TURNED IN

The Job Shadow intake form will be used to generate a job

shadow agreement that will need to be signed by a
parent/guardian and the Job Shadow teacher/supervisor.

BE

DETAILED IN YOUR OBSERVATION. COMPARE THE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT,

DIFFERENCES IN THE AGE LEVEL ABILITIES COMPARED WITH YOUR CURRENT
PLACEMENT, WHAT ACTIVITIES YOU OBSERVED THE TEACHER AND STUDENTS
DOING, AND YOUR CONCLUSIONS FROM THE EXPERIENCE. THIS ASSIGNMENT
SHOULD BE TYPED AND FOLLOW THIS EXACT FORMAT.SIGNATURES TO MRS.

LINDERMAN IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE).

CADET TEACHER INTERNS NAME: Hailie Wadley

SCHOOL DISTRICT: BLOOMINGDALE
JOB SHADOWING OBSERVATION:
DATE

OF JOB

SHADOWING: 2/17/16

TIME: 8 A.M.-11 A.M.

GRADE LEVEL: 12
SCHOOL BUILDING: SOUTH WALNUT ELEMENTARY
NAME

OF

TEACHER

YOU ARE

SHADOWING: JILL PRIEBE

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do after high school. First I wanted to
become an architect then an artist so on and so. The only thing I did know was I knew I wanted
to do something with special needs children but I knew that I wasn't going to be a teacher.
Throughout high school I searched and searched for the perfect career then finally one popped
up, Occupational Therapy. This career had everything I wanted to do and more wrapped in one
but still I did not know much about it. The only way I was going to find out exactly what
occupational therapists do was to go in the workplace with one. That's how I met Jill Priebe.She
offered me to job shadow her at Bangor Elementary.
I finally got into the elementary office around 8:10 after multiple trips around the parking
lot trying to figure out where I was supposed to enter at. I stood in the office for a few seconds
while the secretary was talking to two young boys but when it was finally my turn to talk I turned
around to see a curly haired woman waving at me through the window. I figured this was Jill. Jill
immediately greeted me and made me feel like I was part of the staff there.
The first thing she did was show me into her office which was a tiny room in the back of
the main office where she could bring in her students. She explained to me that she moves
around through the county and goes to many schools to meet with kids. I loved this part of it
because it gives some variety in her job but she also told that with all the moving around she
does it means she has to stay organized and has to be flexible. Which I knew partially about
because how much we've talked about it in my cadet class.
After we had gotten settled and Jill had laid down the rules it was time to go get the first
group of kids. This group were all first graders who had trouble with writing. That was the first
thing that surprised me. I didn't know that occupational therapist worked with kids who had
trouble writing and I asked her why. She told me that it's about how they held their pencils some
used all their fingers to hold it, some just used two but didn't lay it on their hand so their writing
was messy and most did not press hard enough on the paper. I thought this was very interesting
because I would have never thought about how important those things are.
The kids first warmed up what Jill called their pinchers, which is your pointer finger and
your thumb, with some theputical putty. They had little plastic dog bones that they had to bury
with it. To me it looked very hard because the putty was stiff and did not mold well but it must
had not been because these kids did great. After they had warmed up their pinchers Jill got out
their writing books. They read a sentence together then they were asked to write a sentence
about it. I was told that these kids had great ideas but had a hard time putting them on paper so
what Jill did to help them was she asked what words they could use in their sentence and wrote
them on the board for them to use as a guideline.
When they were all done with their sentence it was time to send them back and get the
second group of students. These kids were all kindergarteners but were in special education.
They were still learning how to hold their pencils so the game they played to teach them that
was called The Gumball Drop. In this game there is a bowl full of different colored gumballs in
the center of everyone then and everyone had their own gumball machine in front of them.
They then had to take turns and draw a card. A card would have how many gumballs they could
grab from the circle and what color but here was the trick, they could not grab them with their
hands they had to grab them with a tool that looked like chopsticks. Jill told them to hold these
chopsticks a certain way. Little did they know she was actually teaching them how they should
hold their pencil.

At the end of the day Jill pulled out paperwork to show me what she has to do or that
teachers send her and explained what some words meant and some of the OT vocabulary. She
even sent some of it home with me along with some homework. I was really glad I got the
chance to job shadow her because it made me realize even more that I want to be an
Occupational Therapist.