Medaille College

1. Medaille College Internship Orientation March 16, 2012

2. Presenters • Bridget Brace-McDonald, Director, Center for Community-based Learning • Carol Cullinan, Director of Career Services • Dr. Norman Muir, Dean of the Undergraduate College

3. Orientation Goals • Introduce online Medaille College Undergraduate Internship Guidelines and Resource Manualhttp://www.medaille.edu/academics/internships/ • Review the internship process • Stage 1 Preparation and Planning • Stage 2 Field Experience and reflection • Stage 3 Post-internship reflection and assessment • Prepare students to begin the pre-flection process, meet with their faculty internship supervisor, and engage in a successful field-based learning experience

4. A Few Key Messages • Ownership of learning and its design • Responsibility and Accountability for one’s learning through experience • Active engagement (initiative, curiosity, questioning, problem solving) • Meaning-making through reflection and integration (connected learning)

5. Internships Defined • Internships are structured, supervised opportunities for extended, in-depth, out-of-class, field-based discovery learning. • Internships involve the direct, hands-on application of classroom learning (concepts, theories, knowledge, skills) to situations in real-world contexts. • Internships are one form of experiential learning (others include service-learning, study abroad, undergraduate research)

6. Internship Benefits • Apply classroom learning to practical real-life problems in order to evaluate its validity • Foster capacity to integrate knowledge with experience to deepen learning • Enhance thinking, communication, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills • Gain knowledge of developing trends in one’s field • Explore and confirm (or not) career choices • Develop self understanding, confidence, and maturity • Develop network of professional relationships/contacts

7. Medaille College Internship Resources • Medaille College Undergraduate Internship Guidelines and Resource Manual • http://www.medaille.edu/academics/internships/ • This manual is your definitive information resource for internships. • It describes all the policies and procedures you need to know to prepare for and enjoy a successful internship. • Contact your program’s faculty internship coordinator if you have any questions or need help understanding the manual.

8. Medaille College Internship Outcome Statement • Students will: • Demonstrate effective written and oral communication and critical thinking skills • Demonstrate common professional workplace behaviors (listed on assessment forms in your packet) • Enhance professional networking skills • Demonstrate active engagement and intellectual initiative throughout the internship process • Demonstrate the ability to integrate theory

9. Student Roles and Responsibilities • See pages 15-18 in the internship manual for complete information. • Stage 1 – Pre-Internship Planning • Attend Internship Orientation • Complete Internship Concept Form http://www.medaille.edu/academics/internships/appendixA.pdf

10. Student Roles and ResponsibilitiesStage 1 Pre-Internship Planning • Research and select site. • Look for sites that will “fit” with your educational and career interests and needs • Consult with your faculty internship coordinator • Look for a site supervisor who is willing to help you to brainstorm learning objectives and to mentor you • Apply for internship • Complete a Student Internship Learning Plan in conjunction with your site supervisor and your faculty evaluator • http://www.medaille.edu/academics/internships/appendixA.pdf

11. Student Roles and ResponsibilitiesStage 1 Pre-Internship Planning • The Student Internship Learning Plan (SILP) represents your learning contract; it is your largely self-designed syllabus. • The SILP consists of three elements: • Learning objectives (knowledge, skills, values, behaviors, attitudes) What do you expect to learn? • Tasks/Strategies How will you achieve your objectives? • Evidence & Evaluation How will you know if have achieved them? And to what degree?

12. Writing Learning Objectives—Resources • See resources on internship page for writing learning objectives http://www.medaille.edu/academics/internships/ • Macalester College sample learning contracts • Wichita State U. Sample internship learning objectives • Buena Vista U. Guidelines and sample objectives

13. Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy Using your higher-order thinking abilities • Creating (generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things: designing, inventing, planning, constructing) • Evaluating (justifying a decision or course of action: hypothesizing, critiquing, judging) • Analyzing (breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships: comparing, organizing, interrogating) • Applying (using information in another situation) • (explaining ideas or concepts: summarizing) • Understanding (explaining, interpreting) • Remembering (recalling information: listening, describing)

14. Student Roles and Responsibilities Stage 1 Pre-Internship Planning • The SILP should be thoughtfully and carefully completed as early in the process as is reasonable once a site is determined. • A SILP is complete only after the faculty internship coordinator and the site supervisor have signed off on the contract and approved its content. • A signed SILP is required before you are authorized by the College to begin the internship. • Students who fail to submit their signed SILP to their faculty internship coordinator prior to the start of the fall or spring semester will automatically be administratively de-registered from their internship course.

15. Student Roles and Responsibilities • Stage 2 – The Internship • Contact site supervisor a few days before you begin • Notify your internship coordinator when you start your hours • Attend host site orientation (as required) • Maintain analytical field learning journal • Maintain regular contact with internship coordinator • Attend campus seminars (if required) • Arrange for internship coordinator to visit site • Have an exit strategy: bring your internship to a smooth conclusion: say goodbyes, give thanks; contact faculty coordinator about next steps

16. Student Roles and ResponsibilitiesStage 2 The Internship • Be a five year old: not literally but exhibit–in a professional manner-- the insatiable curiosity and inquiring nature of a young child trying to figure out the rules and behaviors of this strange new world into which he/she has been thrust. Ask the what, how, when, where, and why questions! • Be an anthropologist: keeps your mind and senses alert at all times, seek to learn as much as possible about the native inhabitants of the culture you’ve just entered as an outsider: observe phenomenon, take notes, ask questions. Try to analyze and decode the environment both intellectually and emotionally. Attempt to learn all you can about the beliefs, behaviors, values, attitudes, customs, rituals, and institutions of the natives.

17. Student Roles and Responsibilities • Stage 3 – Post-Internship Documentation • Submit site supervisor’s evaluation of your performance (Appendix B) http://www.medaille.edu/academics/internships/appendixB.pdf • Complete self evaluation form (Appendix B) http://surveys.medaille.edu/ • Continue to reflect on your field experience and integrate it with prior learning • Submit your requiredanalytical field learning journal (see resources on internship page) • Submit required summary and analysis essay to internship coordinator

18. Learning from Experience “Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (David Kolb 1984)

19. David Kolb’s Theory of Experiential Learning: A Lifelong Tool for Learning from Experience • In 1984, cognitive psychologist and educational theorist David Kolb published a cyclical model of learning consisting of four stages. • Kolb’s theory explain how human beings translate the raw data of experience into new learning or deeper understanding through reflection and analysis. • Kolb’s descriptive model remains a useful and commonly cited tool in higher education for explaining the learning process • The model can serve as a lifelong learning tool that helps us to construct meaning from our daily experiences.

20. Kolb Experiential Learning Cycle Four Principal Stages

21. Kolb Simplified • What? • concrete experience (CE) • So what? • reflective observation (RO) and abstract conceptualization (AC) • constructing meaning through reflection and analysis • apply classroom learning (theories, concepts, models) to field experiences See internship webpage for practical resources on generating reflective questions http://www.medaille.edu/academics/internships/ • Now what? • active experimentation (AE) • applying learning to new situations and experiences for observation and analysis

22. Example #1 Enhancing Nursing Techniques • An internship nurse trainee participates in a supervised teaching simulation on how to lift a patient. (CE) • The student might raise some probing questions about the process and her performance: “How did that feel?”or “What might I have done differently?” or “Was the patient comfortable?”(RO) • The student might review her lecture notes, textbook instructions or search the Internet for helpful ideas and tips. (AC) • At the next simulation, the nursing student might draw on yesterday’s lessons from experience and her research to modify her techniques and improve her effectiveness. (AE)

23. Example #2 Learning Coaching Style/Skills • Participate in a week-long clinic on coaching styles and skills. (CE) • Observe how other people coach and reflect on your coaching beliefs, values, and strategies in the context of what you learned at the clinic. (RO) • Read articles or books on coaching philosophies and techniques. Draw on knowledge from videos or ESPN analysis of coaches. (AC) • Apply your clinic experience, observations, and reading to test out components of your coaching style. (AE)

24. Example #3 Understanding Citizen Leadership • Tour a Buffalo neighborhood to observe a housing and economic renewal, to meet with recognized community leaders, and interview a citizen leader about his/her role in the neighborhood’s renaissance (CE); • Use leadership readings, workshops, and films as a basis for reflecting on what you have seen and heard and understanding that individual’s leadership traits, behaviors, and style. (RO) • Apply leadership theories from course textbook or other research sources to construct a case study of the person’s leadership approach (style, traits, behaviors). (AC) • Test out your new understanding of citizen leadership in your neighborhood or campus community. (AE)

25. Reflective Thinking and Meaning-Making Some Final Quotes • Experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you. --Aldous Huxley • We don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience. --John Dewey • The only kind of learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered or self-appropriated learning—truth that has been assimilated in experience. --Carl Rogers

26. Critical Reflection: The Key to Learning • Experience becomes educative when critical reflective thought creates new meaning and leads to growth and the ability to take informed actions. --Robert Bringle and Julie Hatcher

27. You Tube Videos on Importance of Reflection http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-KyI4jtvWc (Diane Burke, Keuka College) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9Lm4VN1K1c (Carole Lillis, Keuka College) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWk80rjgFNA (Reflective journaling, Kolb Model)

28. Analytical Field Journal: Reflective Tool • A weekly (or daily) field journal represents an opportunity to create meaning from internship experiences through systematic reflection and critical analysis (see journal resources in your orientation packet) • Four Cs of Reflection • Continuous • Connected to academic learning • Challenging to assumptions, knowledge, perspectives • Contextual (dependent on setting and learning design) Don’t forget the journal writing resources at http://www.medaille.edu/academics/internships/

29. Post Internship Assessment of Student Performance and Learning • Direct Measures • Field journal • Summary and analysis paper • Special documentation • Indirect Measures (Appendix B) • Site Supervisor Evaluation • Self Evaluation

30. Spring 2012 Journal Assessment Project • All spring interns will participate in a mandatory assessment project. • In addition to your standard daily or weekly journal writing, you will submit a 500-750 entry in response to a specific reflective prompt four times during your field experience. • Your faculty internship supervisor will collect these journal entries, evaluate them, and provide you with constructive feedback to improve your use of the journal as a thinking and learning tool.

31. Internship outcomes • Internships can help with: • Self discovery • Career exploration • Professional preparation Its all about competencies….do you know what you know? • “a written description of measurable work habits and personal skills used to achieve a work objective” or the skills, knowledge, and abilities to do the job. SKA’a

32. Common competencies employers seek • Communication skills • Strong work ethic • Team work skills • Initiative • Analytical skills • Interpersonal skills • Problem solving skills • Organization skills • Leadership skills

33. Journaling and Reflection can help • Identify SKA’s • Develop competency based resumes • Prepare competency based cover letters • Prepare for the job interview – behavioral based • Prepare you for job success

34. Ten Commandments for the Intern • Office politics and office gossip can complicate the simplest tasks • Walk lightly and think twice before making waves • Deadline are reality, and time is money • You can make one mistake – learn from it • Organizations no longer close their eyes to after hours activities • Do as you are told; do not allow the ego to get in the way • Determine a proper time balance between work and play • You must work well with associates you did not choose yourself • Patience is a workplace pre-requisite • Bosses are right; even when they are wrong

35. Off to a good start…. • Be positive • Ask for help • Don’t be a know-it-all • Have a good sense of humor • Find a buddy • Follow instructions • Read company policies • Wear the right clothes • Be punctual

36. Internship Forms Online • Word versions of the documents in Appendix and B are available on the internship website: • http://www.medaille.edu/academics/internships/ • Online versions of the forms are accessible using your student ID at • http://surveys.medaille.edu/

37. Internship Learning Contract Submission Deadline • Students who fail to submit their signed SILP to their faculty internship coordinator prior to the start of the fall or spring semester will automatically be administratively de-registered from their internship course.