internship-elements

The following table is intended to provide guidance in negotiating and completing your Final Contract. Please read all the descriptions carefully. These descriptions cover the majority of activities students generally complete during the Internship,
although they are by no means exhaustive.

A thorough understanding of these elements will make the contract negotiation process much smoother for all parties!
Be sure to read the additional notes after the table.

Please note: Hours and requirements for some elements may overlap. (For example, your "collaborative planning" may naturally lead to the implemented "teaching large group in collaboration" element.) This is expected, and even encouraged! If one particular activity will count for several of the required elements, for the purposes of the contract separate activities as much as possible, dividing parts of each element into the appropriate rows.

Describe your activities as completely as you can at this planning stage.

The total hours spent engaged in learning and site-based activities must equal or exceed 100 hours.

Ultimately, the contract is a plan for what you will accomplish during the Internship. While you are encouraged to adhere to the contract as much as possible during the Internship experience, this is not always practical. For example, circumstances or priorities at your Internship site may change. Often, opportunities arise that could not be foreseen during the contract negotiation process. If an opportunity arises that will change the proportions or parameters of your contract, or if you find that your Internship experience is otherwise significantly different than your contract, post a message to your WebCT discussion board seeking an amendment.

*The number of hours listed for each requirement is a suggested range. Each internship is unique, and some variation is anticipated. This will be negotiated individually, upon receipt of your final contract for review.

http://it.coe.uga.edu/~mfitzger/7460/internship-elements.html

Internship Requirement	How to Fulfill this Requirement	Number of Hours*
Project	This requirement is very loosely defined, by design. It can be any related set of actions that make a contribution to your hosting media program. It is not necessary that you are in on the beginning, or that you complete it, because some are ongoing and will take more time than you have. It should be something that you can work on when you come to the media center and the mentor is tied up or has nothing else for you to do. Many interns choose to do collaborative units as projects because they potentially include several internship requirements. Other examples: a cataloging or organizational project; a reading promotion program; coordinating an author visit; preparing for a renovation or move; preparing a technology product for use in the media center.	10-20
Collaborative Planning	Plan a lesson in collaboration with a classroom teacher. The hours listed here include planning, preparation, compiling and creating materials, etc.	4-8
Media / Technology Meeting	Attend a building-level media / technology meeting. Reflect on what you observe in your documentation. System-level meetings do NOT count toward fulfillment of this requirement. (See "Miscellaneous" section below). If your site does not have a meeting that you can attend, seek out a meeting at one of your other sites.	1-3
Grade Level / Department Meeting	Attend a building-level grade or department meeting. As you watch the meeting, think like a Media Specialist. If you were the Media Specialist at this school, what role(s) could you play in this meeting? How would attendance at meetings such as this benefit you as well as the teachers? Be specific. Reflect on this in your documentation.	1-3
Information Literacy Component	Plan and implement an information literacy lesson during your internship. While you will engage in information literacy instruction on a small scale throughout your internship (and should reflect on those in your journal as well), you should plan and conduct a lesson during your Internship at least once. This can be a segment of a larger unit and should represent a focused attempt at integrating information literacy into the curriculum.	1+
Assist Individual Students	Include a broad range of activities in your internship, from teaching individual students how to locate and access information, providing reader's advisory services, etc.	10+
Teaching Large Group Session in Collaboration	Teach a lesson in collaboration with another educator. Ideally, this is a lesson planned collaboratively with a classroom teacher, and may be the result of the "collaborative planning" requirement listed above. It could also be a professional development session taught in collaboration with your mentor. Try to do this multiple times! Be sure that you are thinking, acting and reflecting as the Media Specialist during this process, focusing on integrating information literacy into the curriculum and learning community at large.	1+
Peer Sharing	Conference and share thoughts and experiences from your Internship with colleagues in your cohort. This can be achieved by attending the "official" meetings of EDIT 7460, usually held in the Spring. (As an intern, you are welcome and encouraged to attend these meetings even if you are not currently enrolled in the class.)	4-8
Professional Conference	Attend one or more professional school library, reading, or technology conferences (either state, regional, national, or international) during the last year of study. Especially relevant perennial favorites include: COMO's Annual Conference, Children's Literature Conference at UGA, and GaETC.	8-12
Other Site Visits	Spend at least one day each in two other media centers with grade levels different from the primary site.	12-18
Documentation	Keep a log of individual experiences reflecting an understanding of tasks undertaken and observed during the internship. The log will be a personal record of the student’s experiences with adequate detail to describe those experiences. For more details, see the Syllabus.	20 (always!)
Clerical Assistance / Observation	Shelving, circulation tasks, and other clerical duties fall under this description. The hours you spend in the Media Center between the approval of your Preliminary Contract and the approval of your Final Contract are counted in this category, in addition to time throughout the internship devoted to these duties. It is very important that your Mentor understand that these kinds of activities represent a small portion of your Internship experience.	20 max. (less than 10 is preferred)
Miscellaneous	Many internships have unique elements that don't seem to fit into any of the above categories. These may include attendance at a county-level meeting of Media Specialists, or other various activities. Be sure to have special events approved before counting them, especially if they are not included on the signed version of your final contract.	varies
Totals		120+, with at least 100 hours engaged in site-based activities