This document sets out the expectations and criteria for evaluating COM internships.

The faculty sponsor of your internship will monitor your progress in the internship and help you integrate practical and academic perspectives on your internship. Both you and your field placement supervisor will evaluate the quality of your internship but the faculty sponsor will make the final evaluation and determination of grade for the internship experience.

Procedural Matters

• Pick up the official Alma College "Practicum Approval Form" from the Registrar's Office. This is a three-part form asking for a range of information, including your field supervisor's expectations and the COM department's academic requirements for COM 385. Academic requirements are discussed in "E" below.

• Write to your faculty sponsor a brief letter or memorandum that describes your interest and preparation for taking COM 385, the semester in which you want to enroll, and the kind of organization and position you are seeking. This letter should also explain, in general terms, how the placement would fit your personal and academic interests and describe your general learning objectives for the internship. In addition, prepare a personal resume. Next, make an appointment to see your faculty sponsor and bring the letter, the resume, and the Registrar's form to that meeting. In this meeting you will explain your goals and objectives and, if the faculty sponsor approves your internship, the appropriate forms from the Registrar will be signed. You will then set about the business of securing an internship placement.

• In most cases, students are responsible for securing their own internship placements. The best sources for finding a meaningful placement are (1) word of mouth--talk to other students who have completed internships, find out about their placements, talk to their sponsors; (2) the Center for Student Development--they regularly post internship opportunities and maintain files of potential sponsors; (3) publications listing internships throughout the nation--you can find these in the Center, the library, and in many bookstores; (4) your own initiative--call employers in the fields you are interested in, actively seek out connections.

• When you have secured an internship placement, you and your field placement supervisor must create a formal description of your duties, the hours you will work, compensations (if any), and any other detail relevant to what is expected of you during the period of the internship. One part of the Registrar's official form is for the purpose of recording these formal expectations. You and your supervisor will fill out and sign this part of the form. This form must be filled out before the final part of the form can be completed.

• The final part of the Registrar's form records the title of your internship, the number of credits you will receive, and specifies the academic requirements for the COM 385 course for which you register. The academic requirements for COM 385 are attached. You may either rewrite them on the Registrar's form or simply staple a copy of the requirements to the form.

• NO LATER THAN THE END OF THE FIRST WEEK of your internship placement, you must write and turn in to your faculty supervisor 5 -10 formally stated Learning Objectives. Examples of these objectives will be made available to you during our initial meeting. Learning objectives may include cognitive objectives (i.e., intellectual "content" -- ideas -- you want to learn more about), practical skill objectives (i.e., specific technical abilities you want to acquire or develop) and personal objectives (i.e., individually relevant experiences you want to have). These objectives constitute a learning plan for the term and serve as the basis for assessing the quality and value of your internship at the end of the term. Each Objective should be specific and indicate (1) specific learning goals--e.g., what you want to know, the skill you want to master, personal goals you want to accomplish; (2) means by which you will accomplish these aims--work experiences, readings, projects, activities; and (3) indicators by which you, your field supervisor, and faculty supervisor will be able to assess the achievement of your goals. You should share and discuss these objectives with your field supervisor as well.

• During the term, you will be responsible to your internship supervisor for day-to-day work. You are essentially an employee who should be able to work independently and meet the demands of the workplace. Your faculty supervisor will also consult with your field supervisor during the term about your progress toward your learning goals. You are responsible for scheduling conferences with your faculty supervisor to discuss your internship.

• Final grades for the internship will be determined based on the following factors:
  

  1. Faculty evaluation of your total internship project. This includes the quality of your objectives, bibliography, journal, and especially the quality of your final academic paper;
  2. Your self-evaluation report; the basis of this self-evaluation will be the submission of final evaluations and comments addressed to the specific Learning Objectives; and
  3. The report of your internship supervisor regarding effectiveness, independence, and professionalism.

• Please see the attached "COM 385 Evaluation" information sheet for further details on the evaluation of all Communication internships.

• Final grades for all COM 385/386 courses will be assigned by the supervising faculty member in the Department of Communication at Alma College. Grades reported from an off-campus internship program (e.g., Urban Life Center, Philadelphia Center, New York Arts Program, etc.) are not final grades. All work completed through an off-campus internship program must be submitted to the supervising Alma College faculty member for evaluation and assignment of final grade. All off-campus internships must meet the Department's academic requirements for COM 385 credit.

Academic Requirements

Each of the following items is required in order for a final grade in COM 385 to be assigned. Please note that students who take COM 385 credits while attending an off-campus program may do work in that program that will satisfy one or more of the requirements below. These must be discussed and approved beforehand with the supervising faculty member.

• A daily journal. You must document your work experience (record for each day the hours worked and activities pursued) and keep a running record of your impressions of the workplace, personal challenges, accomplishments, changing perceptions and expectations, etc. NOTE: You should use the journal to note and speculate on the connections you begin to see between your work experiences, the readings you are doing for COM 385, and other academic courses/content you have encountered.

• Weekly readings from a self-constructed and approved bibliography. Readings should directly pertain to both the practical and intellectual aspects of your internship experience. Readings might include scholarly critiques of the field in which you are working, general textbooks in the field, professional and trade journals, practical ("how to") works, etc. For example, as a newspaper intern you might read a variety of newspapers, practical textbooks about the development and structure of newspapers, and critical analyses and commentaries on the issues, practices, and social relevance of journalism. These readings should help you understand your work experience and more firmly connect it to your academic coursework. Reading should be self-directed and amply discussed in your daily journal.

• A final academic paper. This paper will describe and analyze what you have learned about important communication questions, issues, and/or practices during the internship. This final paper should not be a rehash of your personal journal but a thoughtful academic treatment of one or more communication issues/practices/problems, etc. The paper should use your work experiences, the readings that you did, and even your previous studies to illustrate, demonstrate, etc., the problems or ideas your paper addresses. An interesting and well developed paper should be approximately 12-20 pages long, excluding bibliography. It should contain a clearly stated thesis about human communication. The paper should clearly demonstrate the relationship that you see (or fail to see) between your practical internship experience and your academic readings. NOTE:The paper MUST make it clear what you have learned about communication issues, processes, practices, etc., as a result of your COM 385 experiences. Citation and scholarly use of relevant academic and trade (i.e., professional) resources is expected in the paper.

• A brief written self-evaluation. At the conclusion of your internship placement, you will write a 2-3 page evaluation that directly assesses the degree to which the internship did and did not satisfy your initial learning objectives . You may also want to comment on how well your academic training prepared you for the internship and on how the internship experience may affect your subsequent academic and professional decisions. You must schedule a session to discuss this self evaluation with your field supervisor and your academic supervisor.

• A portfolio (if appropriate). Depending on the internship you do, it may be appropriate to turn in any written, visual, auditory, or other work you have created, performed, or published during the internship. These materials should be organized, labeled, and attractively presented.

Evaluation Guidelines

COM 385 is taken for academic credit. The subject of the course is communication. The materials submitted for evaluation of the internship should demonstrate not only what the student did in the internship but what they learned about communication problems, issues, and practices.

The value of the internship is to be considered in light of the three major kinds of goals all internships should work toward: personal goals, professional goals, and intellectual goals. Each of these goals corresponds to the different levels at which learning through internships takes place: experiential learning (e.g., increased knowledge and understanding of the self and the social aspects of professional life), pragmatic learning (e.g., increased knowledge and understanding of the tools, skills, and abilities needed in a professional discipline), and cognitive learning (e.g., increased ability to describe, interpret, and explain the processes of human communication that relate to important questions, issues, problems, and possibilities that face individuals, organizations, professions, cultures, etc.).

The means of evaluating an internship include the quality of the personal journal, the formal feedback from field supervisors, the self-evaluation by the student of the relationship of the actual experience to the formally stated Learning Plan for the internship, and, most importantly, the quality of the final academic paper. It is not reasonable to think that the learning objectives of a high quality internship can be met without substantial reading (both academic and professional) to support the students learning while the internship is ongoing.

Grading

Final grades for COM 385 are determined on the basis of the following categories of assessment:

• Quality and value of the academic experience.
  To what extent did the internships satisfy the intellectual goals of the internship and facilitate increased cognitive understanding of significant communication problems, issues, and practices? The principle indicator of this is the final academic paper. The quality and actual use of the bibliography to ground the paper is critical. The content of the personal journal, feedback from field supervisors, and the student's self-evaluation of their Learning Plan are also relevant indicators.

• Quality and value of the practical experience.
  To what extent did the internship satisfy the personal goals of the student in terms of acquiring skills and attitudes relevant to the profession or practice? The principle indicators of this include the quality (i.e., consistency, substantive content, etc.) of the personal journal, the formal feedback of field supervisors, and the student's self-evaluation.