Get Your Students Hired
This is a general discussion forum for the following learning topic:
Outside the Classroom: Experiential Learning --> Creating Useful Forms and Processes
Post what you've learned about this topic and how you intend to apply it. Feel free to post questions and comments too.
Internship supervisors play a significant role for the intern; they should clearly understand the supervisor's and the intern's responsibilities. Most importantly, they should identify professional-level duties and tasks of significant quality and quantity and clearly delineate the relationship of the internship to the educational program.
Documentation from beginning to end help the intern connect the learning objectives laid out to them by the academic institution as well as the potential hiring spot. Reflection and evaluation is at the heart of this as the intern concludes their experience. Hopefully, this will lead to a possible position within the company.
Comment on Georgiana Bougher's post: As the students emerge and exit the internship there should be adequate follow up and feed back to assure the sites are giving the student the utmost learning opportunities.
Students should sign a contract that includes their responsibilities. It's important for students to keep a journal of their learning experience and reflections. Students should be evaluated at the end of the internship and provided with feedback.
It is important to have the intern fill out a contract agreement that reflects the policies of the program and go over job respsonbilities before they begin to intern. During their intertership, it would be helpful for the student/intern to keep a weekly journal and keep good communication with their teacher and inter supervisor. After their internship is complete, the intern should write a paper regarding their experiences.
I learned that before a student can start their internship proper documents and forms must be signed.
I've learned that structured internship agreements and clear communication are essential for a successful internship program. As a teacher, I plan to apply this by helping students to create detailed internship contracts and by encouraging regular reflection through journals. This will help students combine classroom knowledge with real-world skills and enhance their career readiness.
Understanding the rewards from the process and how it lends itself to a fuller and happier work environment.
The reflection aspect is something that I already do with my interns, but the question of how could internship improve would be interesting to propose.
I have managed nurse intern and externships for over 20 years. It is important to outline the requirements, limitations, and expectations with the student, precpetor and organization with each and every profram start. Internship contracts should specify on-site job responsibilities and learning objectives of students. A special session to address these should take place before beginning the internship and it should serve as a clear starting-point for both the intern site and the interns.
It's very important to have students and business partners sign contracts and agreements so that students can feel like they are being held accountable to engaged in the process.
It is important for the institution to know what the student is gaining from their internship and to follow up as necessary.
Post-internship feedback is important to ensure that all objectives are met and the program has been effective from the student's point of view as well as the employer's.
Ensure that the "intern" is exposed to and able to perform specific and relatable tasks during their time on site.
To ensure that an internship is an academic experience and provides valuable learning opportunities for students, educators can establish learning objectives, have regular check-ins, assign academic projects, facilitate peer discussions and evaluate learning outcomes.
Documentation is one of the important component of learning. One can review what was done and be able to go through it to practice and be proficient until it becomes the norm for his/her activities.
Internships are opportunities that are very important and should be taken advantage of. However, it must be stressed to the person doing the internship how the prospect can help them get hired with the company but it's not a guarantee.
Comment on Karen Vaickus's post:
This should be a building time for the employer and intern/employee to establish trust and respect. Address the expectations for ER/EE with expected outcomes. It could very well be a great opportunity for the student to begin a career path when the ER can approve recognized contributions that are mutual and that the student is a good fit for the company or establishment.