Internship Guidelines for Faculty
The purpose of these guidelines is to assist faculty in designing, implementing, and administering meaningful internships for their doctoral students.
The doctoral level internships ELED/SCED 7350 (Internship in Curriculum Development) and ELED/SCED 7330 (Supervision Internship) should be designed to broaden the doctoral student’s experiences by exposing him or her to additional settings and providing the opportunity to apply relevant ideas learned in course work. These experiences, if designed carefully, can add to the student’s repertoire of skills in ways that can enhance professional placement after graduation. Internships benefit the student by providing opportunities to take on new responsibilities while working as part of a team in a new setting. Internships also enable cooperating agencies and organizations to benefit from the students special talents and background thus enhancing the reputation of the student and the university.
The major responsibility for developing an internship plan belongs to the student. Each doctoral student should meet with his or her major professor well in advance of the actual internship dates in order to discuss his or her plan. This discussion should include specifics such as who will serve as the mentor/professional, what activities will comprise the internship, goals and expected outcomes, and the amount of time to be spent in the internship. A three-credit internship course constitutes a minimum of 150 hours of internship. A formal plan (see sample syllabus) should be completed once an informal agreement has been reached with the faculty member overseeing the internship and a mentor/professional has been contacted and indicated a willingness to assist.
Ideally the intern is part of a team with whom he or she can share and discuss emerging ideas. When a doctoral student is the only person working on the project, it is particularly important that the mentor/professional colleague is available to define and clarify the task and provide formative feedback.
Current Employment and Internship Hours:
A student cannot receive internship credit for a job he or she is already doing. The internship experience should be designed to allow the student to develop new skills and expertise. It may be possible, however, to receive internship credit if a student can modify his or her current position so that it includes performing curriculum or supervision activities that are significantly different from and that are more challenging than what his or her current job requires. For example, if the doctoral student spoke with his or her current supervisor and the supervisor was willing to allow the student to take on a new and more challenging professional activity as part of his or her current position, the hours spent fulfilling this new role could be used for internship credit. Under these circumstances, a mentor must still be designated. While such an arrangement does have advantages, it is also important to consider the value of working with colleagues, parents and families, organizational structures, and communities away from one’s normal setting. Such experiences provide professional breadth and may enhance the student’s future employment options.
Curriculum Development Internship:
Curriculum development involves a complex range of decisions and activities related to both what is taught and how it is taught. It includes such tasks as an analysis of needs, designing learning experiences, developing resources, and evaluating outcomes. Some examples of curriculum development internships are listed below:
- Working with an educational agency or school on the development, implementation, or evaluation of a curriculum program.
- Developing and implementing an inservice training program for an educational agency.
- Evaluating the implementation of a particular curriculum.
- Researching the merits of different course designs.
- Creating or evaluating online courses and resources.
- Collecting and analyzing data on the impact of a recent curriculum change.
- Assisting teachers in developing classroom activities that integrate technology resources in instruction
Supervision Internship:
The purpose of a supervision internship is to provide doctoral students opportunities to put theories of supervision into practice. Supervision internships should be focused on developing skills for promoting and sustaining learning environments conducive to student learning and staff professional growth. Sample ideas are listed below:
- Working with other educational leaders to determine how best to improve the learning environment at your school.
- Working with the Utah Mentor Teacher Academy to improve teaching.
- Implementing a cognitive coaching program.
- Working with the leaders of a professional organization to help it become more responsive to its members.
- Using focus groups to assess parental expectations of your school.
- Developing and implementing a study to assess whether or not there is any racial disparity in school discipline practices at your site.
- Assist teachers in applying effective methods and strategies for using educational technology in a variety of authentic educational settings.
- Creating and heading an advisory board to address the achievement gap as it relates to diverse populations.
- Working to help develop and implement a school improvement plan.