Suzanne Fikrat-Wevers

During my Master’s studies in Educational Sciences, I was an intern at CED-group, which is an educational consultancy firm based in Rotterdam. Throughout the whole school year, I worked as an intern for the department of Nieuwsbegrip (Newswise). Nieuwsbegrip is a teaching method which weekly publishes lessons about subjects such as reading comprehension and mathematics. The lessons are interactive and based on the actual news. Every week, I worked on the development of the vocabulary lessons, as well as the writing lessons of Nieuwsbegrip. Moreover, I assisted in the design and the evaluation of a new type of vocabulary lessons. For this project, I performed tasks such as conducting a short literature study on evidence-based approaches to vocabulary teaching, and analysing the evaluation forms of participating teachers. Besides these fixed activities, I had the opportunity to follow assignments of professionals in other fields of education. For instance, I attended a few training sessions for teachers about communicating with immigrant parents who cannot speak Dutch.

Due to the great variety in activities, I have learned a lot during my internship. Moreover, from the beginning of my internship, I was viewed as a young professional and my contribution was highly valued. Therefore, I look back on this period with a positive feeling. I am content that I have had the chance to gain practical experience during my Master’s studies. Thanks to my internship, I have a better idea of the educational practice, I know better where my interests lie and my chances on the labour market have  increased.