EDIT 7460 Syllabus: Internship - UGA School Library Media

EDIT 7460: Internship in School Media Services
updated 1-24-09

Ratified SLM Faculty Sept. 2006

Course Description:
This course provides a practicum in selected school media centers under the supervision of university staff and a certified media specialist at the school site. It is required of students without school media center experience to meet initial certification requirements. Students with school media experience and/or those currently working as media specialists must complete the requirements of the course, but can incorporate past and current on-the-job experiences to satisfy the requirements.

Goal
To provide students with authentic experiences to serve as a basis for developing their professional vision, and to familiarize them with the responsibilities of a media specialist through hands-on experience.

The School Library Media Internship experience conforms to the University of Georgia's College of Education Diversity of Field Experiences Requirement:

University of Georgia's College of Education programs ensure that all professional education candidates have the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions to help all students learn. To accomplish this, programs ensure that all candidates are placed in a variety of field placements that provide experiences for working with P-12 students of color, students of diverse socioeconomic status, and students with exceptionalities.

This Internship and the entire School Library Media curriculum at UGA are based upon the Program Standards: School Library Media Specialist Preparation by the American Association of School Librarians, a division of the American Library Association. Hereafter, these Standards will be referred to as the "AASL Competencies."

EDIT 7460 is evaluated on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory basis; successful students earn 3 hours of semester credit.

Minimum Prerequisites
EDIT 6170: Instructional Design (concurrent is acceptable)
EDIT 6300: Administration of Media Programs
EDIT 6320: Information Technology
EDIT 6340: Information Services in School Media Programs
EDIT 6360: Information Literacy in School Media Programs

Objectives

The student will be able to define the central roles of the school media program.
The student will be able to describe the organizational structure and management of a media program.
The student will be able to plan and conduct a collaborative teaching experience with classroom teachers.
The student will be able to identify characteristics of an effective media program.
The student will be able to perform basic procedures and management processes that are required in a school media center setting.
The student will be able to evaluate his or her own performance in a professional media setting, and formulate long-term goals for self-improvement as a continuing development process.
The student will be able to design media program elements that enable students of diverse abilities and personal characteristics to learn and develop in an individually appropriate way.
The student will satisfy the following AASL Competencies at the "Acceptable" level:

Knowledge of learners and learning (2.1)
Effective and knowledgeable teacher (2.2)
Connection with the library community (3.1)

Requirements

The internship begins with a negotiation process between the student, supervising UGA staff, site mentor and, in certain school systems, a district-level representative during which a contract for the internship experience is established. The contract will include the elements described in this document, and any other components necessary to fill gaps in the individual student's experience and ability. More than 120 hours may be required if additional experience seems necessary. Please use the provided contract template. For a description of the approval process and instructions, see the Preliminary Contract.
Contact hours include a minimum of 100 hours of learning activities, which may span multiple semesters.
The student must spend a minimum of an additional 20 hours in reflection about the on-site experience. A maximum of 20 hours of documentation can be counted toward the 120-hour total for the Internship.
The student must spend time sharing experiences with peers, either during regular class meetings or by another method of personal communication.
In addition to the primary site, the student must spend at least one day each in two other media centers with grade levels different from the primary site.
The student must attend one or more professional school library, reading, or technology conferences (either state, regional, national, or international) during the last year of study.
The student should seek and document opportunities to work with a wide range of diversity in P-12 students. Diversity experience must be documented prior to internship completion; we consider your entire professional experience in this documentation.
The student must submit all required documentation (see below).
The student should remember that he/she is entering a profession with high standards of personal conduct and appearance as well as definitive legal standards. While on-site, the student must follow all locally accepted rules applying to language, dress, and deportment, including professional ethical standards, relevant school rules, system rules, state laws, and federal laws. It is the responsibility of the student to discover the rules and laws that govern the primary school site.
The student must obtain professional liability insurance.
Field visits by supervising faculty will be made as needed, primarily for students not already certified as teachers. Virtual observation is an option.
All requirements for EDIT 7460 are tracked in the WebCT Gradebook. Use this resource as a tool for communication and accountability.
Each student will have a private discussion board in WebCT / 7460. Use this discussion area for all internship related communication.
For more information about the specific elements of the Internship, click here.

Site selection
The student will work with the supervising faculty member in choosing a site, and sites must meet the approval of supervising faculty. District-level representatives may also play an important role in the site selection process. (To find out the rules regarding your specific system, look on the WebCT "System Notes" page, linked from the course homepage.) The student should plan to initiate and facilitate the process of internship placement to the degree allowable in that particular system. If necessary, the supervising faculty member will be ultimately responsible for contacting the supervising media specialist and requesting permission for internship placement with the school’s administration. If the student is presently employed as a teacher or paraprofessional, the student and faculty member are encouraged to place the student in an internship outside the student’s present building if possible. Placement in an unfamiliar setting benefits the student by providing new ideas and different perspectives. Once the internship contract is approved by the supervising faculty, it must be signed by the school’s Principal, by the mentoring media specialist, and by any other official required by the local school system.

Beginning in August 2008, Criminal Background Checks are required for legal placements in public schools. Instructions can be found here.

Documentation
The student will keep an online 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. However, it should not include personal names other than the student's. It may include:

Notes of conversations held with IT faculty, media specialists, and other media students about questions and problems encountered during the internship experience;
Questions about the media center program and the media specialist’s roles and responsibilities that the student might explore;
Discoveries about these questions resulting from personal investigation;
Personal reflections on these discoveries and how they apply to the student’s vision of a media program; and
Problems, concerns, and challenges for future exploration and reflection.

Create a Googledoc for your internship log as one of your very first documentation tasks. Share it with MAF (maryannfitzg@gmail.com), giving full editing access. Be aware that it will be reviewed periodically; you will be able to see when this happens. Other than you and MAF, the online log must be private.

More Notes about Documentation:

We do not recommend that you post your internship log onto your online portfolio. It may not be appropriate or within your host school's policy to post identities and/or pictures of children or staff online.
Use pseudonyms throughout for all individuals mentioned, including mentors, students, peers and administrators.
As of Fall 2008, documentation should be totally electronic. Dropboxes in WebCT will be provided.
Students will record their journal experience using two formats: a log and a table. The blog functions as a daily running log of experiences and reflections. The table is meant to be an organizer for all internship requirements. The table must be turned in at the end of the internship, and must have enough descriptive reflection to fulfull all requirements of the rubric. The blog will be checked periodically throughout the internship. You must provide the Googledoc URL to the instructor via WebCT discussion board when turning in your preliminary contract.
If you observe practices or policies that are not up to the ideals of our profession, be sure to note them and reflect on this in your documentation. Be careful to criticize practices, not people!
Other forms of documentation may be required by the College. An example of this is the Classroom Demographic Summary, required by the College for each semester of your placement. All such requirements will be listed in the EDIT 7460 WebCT Gradebook for tracking.

Minimum core experiences (Elements)

A project developed by the student in consultation with the supervising media specialist and faculty advisor. (Projects involving collaborative planning with teachers are particularly encouraged.) The student should conduct the project, and keep a record of its progress in the personal log. At the end of the experience, the student will submit a brief paper or other documentation describing the project to the supervising faculty member.
Engaging in collaborative planning activities with one or more teachers
Attendance at a media committee or technology committee session
Attendance at a grade-level or departmental meeting, preferably with the media specialist
Designing an information literacy component under supervision of the media specialist
Day-long visits to media centers of other grade levels
Assisting individual students in information tasks
Teaching at least one large-group session in collaboration with a classroom teacher
Documented experience with diverse students
Documented evidence of teaching ability
Attendance at a professional conference focused on school library media, reading, children's literature, educational technology, or some other relevant topic
Networking with peers for mutual learning and problem-solving
Read the Table of Internship Elements for more details on each requirement.

UGA Policies
All academic work must meet the standards contained in "A Culture of Honesty." Students are responsible for informing themselves about those standards before performing any academic work. More detailed information about academic honesty can be found at http://www.uga.edu/ovpi/honesty/acadhon.htm.
The course syllabus is a general plan for the course; deviations announced to the class by the instructor may be necessary.

General Deadlines
The following general deadlines have been established to ensure students have adequate time to complete all Internship elements. Specific dates will be announced each semester.

You should register for EDIT 7460 in the semester you plan to complete your Internship. The deadlines will be enforced in the semester the student is registered for 7460, intending to complete their Internship.

The final date for the successful approval of each element is listed below. Plan to submit documents for approval well in advance of these established deadlines.

Preparation and First Approval (Mentor and Site) - First Day of Session
Second Approval (Preliminary Contract) - End of Drop / Add
Third Approval (Final Contract) - 3+ days before midterm
Documentation - Standard due dates are Spring: May 1; Summer: July 20; Fall: December 1.

Instructions to the student (Resource: Checklist)

Communication: All dialog between student and Intern Supervisor (MAF) must take place via your private WebCT/7460 Discussion Board. This way, we can document and track all decisions and details.

Preparation: Carefully read the Syllabus, the Preliminary Contract, the Final Contract, and the Rubric before you begin any work on contracts. After reading these documents, you must pass the test in WebCT regarding the contract process. Do not attempt to submit any documents until you have passed this test successfully. You may use the contracts and documents to locate the answers. You may take the test multiple times, until a 100% score is achieved. Once that is completed, begin the contract process described below. Record the date the test was passed on the line given in the "prerequisites" section of the contract.

Step 1 (First Approval - Mentor and Site): Begin looking for an internship setting. In some school systems (including Gwinnett, Dekalb, Fulton and others), this step begins with contacting a system-level administrator for placement; see the WebCT/7460 "System Notes" page for details about your specific system. (Details are cataloged alphabetically by system name.) In most systems, however, you may begin by approaching a media specialist at a school of your choice. Ascertain that the media specialist is willing to take you on as an intern and mentee, but do not make any commitments at this stage. Naturally, you should ponder this choice of school carefully, taking into account the professional reputation of the media program along with logistics and grade level. Where possible, it is best that you not intern in your own school. (If you are an employed media specialist, see below.) Once you think you know the name of your proposed mentor media specialist, post the information below on your personal WebCT discussion board and wait for first approval of mentor and site. Do not skip this step, because we will not allow you to intern at a school we consider unsuitable. If you have difficulty in finding a placement, it is our ultimate responsibility to ensure a placement for you. At this stage, you should initiate Criminal Background Check process (or verify that this has been accomplished).

First Approval Request

Your employer (system and school; other): ____________________

Primary School Site requested and System ______________________

Potential Mentor's name ___________________________

Step 2 (Second Approval - Logistics): Fill in all parts of the Preliminary Contract and submit to M.Fitzgerald for Second Approval via your personal WebCT discussion board. I will review your proposal and either approve it or provide feedback for alteration along with instructions for next steps. At this stage, I will be looking for adequate diversity experience, liability insurance, and thorough details throughout the contract. If you have little or no experience with diversity in your own professional background, then you must be placed in a diverse school (broadly defined as including students of color, students of diverse socioeconomic status, and students with exceptionalities). You must have my approval before beginning internship hours for academic and legal reasons. Do not risk problems by beginning work before this approval is achieved. Allow at least two weeks for contract review before planning to begin work, and it may take longer if alterations are required. You will be notified via WebCT when your contract is approved. By this time, your Criminal Background Check must be complete. You may then gather the necessary signatures, make a copy of the signed original document for your records, and send the original to M. Fitzgerald. At this point you may begin your Internship hours.

Step 3 (Third Approval – Quality of Internship Experience): Negotiate your Final Contract; detailed instructions are included on that document. Descriptions of the elements on the contract are listed on the Table of Internship Elements. You may log work hours between approval of the Preliminary Contract and approval of the Final Contract, but limit your activities to observation or perhaps simple tasks like shelving, under close supervision by your Mentor. Any activities beyond these low-level tasks do not count until the Final Contract has been approved. Make Final Contract approval a high priority during this stage, to allow plenty of time to accomplish the professional components of the Internship. You should log no more than 20 hours of Internship site-based hours between the approval of the Preliminary Contract and approval of the Final Contract. When your Final Contract is ready for review, submit it via your personal WebCT discussion board. Amendments are often necessary at this stage so plan carefully, allowing at least two weeks for the process of review and negotiation. When all parties are in agreement to the contract, it will be approved. Gather required signatures, make a copy of the signed original document for your records, then send the original to M. Fitzgerald in Athens. Once this final level of approval is achieved, you are free to work on all components of your internship experience.

Step 4 (Work): Complete all tasks listed on your Final Contract. Document as you go, updating your online log approximately every 10 hours of work, or more often if practical. If you need to make a substantial change to any task on your list, post a message to your WebCT personal discussion board requesting a contract amendment.

Step 5 (Documentation): Submit documentation prior to the negotiated due date. Refer to the Rubric and Cover Sheet at this stage. It is your responsibility to provide evidence that you have completed all tasks and achieved the Competencies listed on the Rubric.

If you already work as a paid media specialist, your internship is easier to arrange but you must still complete all the requirements. Complete all tasks as a part of your own job. The chief difference is that you must identify a Mentor Media Specialist from another school (ideally, a school in the same system at the same grade level). Your Mentor has the same responsibilities described above, and should be consulted often throughout the Internship. Evidence of and reflection on these communications should be included in your documentation. On site observation by your Mentor is encouraged, if possible. The Mentor should also fill out the Mentor Evaluation form and submit it at the completion of the Internship. The Criminal Background Check may be waived with proof of employment.

If you are a paid professional employee in the school which is your primary internship site, it is doubly important that you obtain your principal’s permission. The internship should not interfere with your normal job responsibilities. If you use your preparation time to count toward internship hours, then you must make up for missed clock hours on the job during your own personal time. As a student at UGA, you are honor-bound to be scrupulously honest in all matters regarding coursework; that expectation fully applies to this internship experience in accounting for your time toward your employer. The Criminal Background Check may be waived with proof of employment, if you are employed in a student-contact capacity (paraprofessional, teacher, etc.).

An Important Final Note about your Internship: The vast majority of our interns have positive experiences at their sites. Occasionally, things happen that are not ideal, in terms of professional practice or personal preference. In most cases, these are minor and worthy of description and simple reflection in your documentation. If your Internship is not progressing on schedule, after reasonable attempts to correct this situation on your own, contact M.Fitzgerald for advice and strategies for remedying this situation.

If the following things occur, contact M.Fitzgerald immediately: if you observe any events / behaviors that are legally questionable, or if you are regularly left alone with students, in a supervisory or any other role. These situations have potential legal implications for you as well as our program. In order to adequately protect all parties, do not hesitate to call or send an email!

Readings
American Association of School Librarians/American Library Association. (2003). Program Standards: School Library Media Specialist Preparation. Available online at www.ala.org/aasl.

American Association of School Librarians/Association for Educational Communication and Technology. (1998). Information power. Chicago: American Library Association.

Johnson, D. (2005). A secret weapon -- niceness. Library Media Connection, 23 (7), p. 114.

Thelan, L. (2004). New library media specialists: How the experienced can help. Library Media Connection. August, p. 46. [Available fulltext in GALILEO/Academic Search Premier.]

Fitzgerald Home

Mary Ann Fitzgerald, Instructor

Update log: 1-3-09: produced preliminary version.
7/23/08: inserted Criminal Background Check process, created Checklist; 10-31-07: "old" option removed. 5-7-07: clarifications to directions, links to new elements page (bf) 10/9:link fix. 9/14: minor typos.
http://it.coe.uga.edu/~mfitzger/7460/syllabus.html

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