Frostburg State University

Form 002

Intern Zelie Mae Collison_

Administration and Supervision

Self-Assessment of Final Practicum
Your internship has been a total experience that included not only yourself, but also all of
the staff, administration, students, parents, and community members who participated in
some way in projects of your implementation. Also, you might consider all of the individuals
you were required to deal with as you conducted the internship duties and responsibilities.
For example, discipline problems would normally involve students, teachers, and parents at
a minimum. As you attended to such discipline problems, you would be engaged in trying
to facilitate among the needs of all individuals. Given this back-drop, provide answers to
the following questions regarding your internship practicum experience.
1. Was your internship effective? Did it meet all of the goals and objectives as stated in
your Planning Guide?
In answering this question fully, consider the use of such instrumentation as:
a. Pre- and post-surveys to determine outcomes of staff development training
b. Observation checklists to determine if students were behaving in the ways
expected by the school and the community
c. Interview schedules to determine parent and community opinions about the
need for a change or the impact of a change
d. Data from standardized tests and measures to determine how well students
have learned over a given period of time in given subject areas.
My internship was effective to say the least. I was so fortunate to have two
experiences where my mentors allowed me to dive right into their work and get
the most out of my practicums. I was able to assume their roles on many
occasions and experience first-hand their daily demands and goals. I was able
to participate in multiple professional development opportunities, work with
teachers, faculty, and staff at the building level and district level, and most
importantly students. I was able to work on projects that directly impacted
student outcomes.

2. Did your internship projects meet the specific needs of all of the individuals who
participated? Where Question #1 focuses on the project goals and objectives of your
internship, this question focuses on the needs of individual participants. How well do
you believe individual participants needs were met throughout your internship?
Yes, I believe that the projects that I completed through my experiences
meet the needs of all individuals involved. I was able to work on building level
professional development directly with teachers and students through
collaboration with the principal and reading specialist. I also worked with
reading specialists and the elementary supervisor on multiple occasions for large
professional development plans and trainings. I feel as though all participants
were able to use my skill set and resources to help them with the professional
development days and trainings as well as many miscellaneous tasks along the
way.

3. Did your internship help to bring about meaningful organizational change in your
school building? Many times internship projects are designed to facilitate the
development and implementation of new programs either for the delivery of
instructional services to students of to help in the management of the organization.
Did your internship facilitate such conditions at the building level? One important way
to determine the answer to this question is to investigate whether or not your
internship projects had an impact on the buildings mission and /or vision statements
regarding schooling. Was learning positively affected by your work?
Through my Practicum I, I was able to provide teachers with new
instructional strategies from the 6+1 traits of writing. I was also able to help
create the 3-hour delay schedule which directly effects the master calendar, in
turn effecting students time on task as well as teacher efficiency. During my
Practicum II, I helped with system wide professional development days which
directly affect teachers and students. I believe that learning was positively
affected by my work and my collaborative efforts with my mentors and other
faculty and staff.
4. Did your internship help to bring about meaningful organizational change in the school
district? There have been times when an internship project has been piloted at a
building site with the intention that, if judged to be effective, the district or the division
would have considered adapting it at other sites. In this way a pilot project could have
an impact on the organizational change of an entire district or division. How close did
your internship come to enjoying such an impact on the district or division? In refining
your answer to this question with an interest of establishing a broader base t it,
consider reviewing the districts or the divisions mission statement or board of
education annual reports on their goals to the community.
I was fortunate enough to have my Practicum II in central office with the
elementary supervisor. Although I was not involved in a pilot project, I was able
to experience all the new trends and movements that are occurring in our district.
I worked hard to gain knowledge of these trends and movements, such as
technology, new standards, KRA, 6+1 Traits, PARCC, Common Core, Next
Generation, etc., so that when I move into an educator position, I can be a change
agent and help impact the system to move towards such changes.
5. Did your internship experience provide project participants an opportunity to have
input on the overall assessment of the experience? Did you give staff members,
parents, students, and community members an opportunity to let you know how they
think your internship affected the district or the division, the building, and the
instructional programs?
I am in constant reflection, and to be able to reflect and make a change, you
need to have input and even constructive criticism to improve. In order to do this
I made sure that I followed reflective decision making practices, referring to my
mentors and others I worked with for support and guidance to make sure that I
was being competent and continuously improving upon my best practices while
gaining new knowledge and adding new skills to my repertoire.

6. Identify your efforts to bring members of different groups together to work on

achieving similar goals and objectives.
I worked with many different groups to achieve similar goals and objectives.
I brought teachers together for 6+1 traits of writing training. I was also able to
bring specialists and teachers together for professional development planning and
working on presentation organization and preparation. Though I may not have
initiated it, through both of my experiences, I was able to experience collaborative
work sessions on almost every occasion.
7. Identify strategies used to engage members from different constituents in the project
work. Examples of such constituents include but are not limited to these: parents,
senior citizens, and local government figures.
It is always important to involve all community stakeholders in certain
project work so that as an administrator you have support from multiple domains.
It all goes back to the children. Parents, guardians, and other constituents that
engage in the schools can promote positive health behaviors among children and
adolescents. They can help in improving the students learning and wellbeing
when they support the school. Strategies include working with Martins to bring in
extra funding, volunteer breakfast to help boost volunteer morale, and getting
other support from the community all throughout the year.
8. Name or identify types of planning strategies utilized in your project work.
Personal planning techniques range from writing a hundred scribbled notes
on a legal pad to typing up an extensive graphic organizer. I tend to use charts
and tables in most of my planning and organization. Collaborative planning
usually consists of planning sessions with open dialog and notes and delegation of
tasks. When working with others there is a plan to follow: identify specific issues
and choices the process should address, articulate the end game, gather
information, agree on priorities, organize the plan, and hold people accountable.
9. Name or identify ways by which your internship experience might have made it clear to
you that local issues can confront us with barriers to change.
Humans innately do not like change, and in most cases they will put up
barriers to try and keep things the same. When an administrator wants to bring
about change in the system, at the building level or district level, you have to
consider the relationships that you have with the people and the impact that the
change will have on all parties involved. When working with parents, guardians,
the community, board members, and others at the building level and district level,
there are so many factors that play into creating barriers to change. They have to
do with relationships, fiscal motives, and management of the organization. As an
administrator, all of these factors need to be considered when creating a change
agent in the school system.