Frostburg State University Intern___________________________

Form 002
Educational Leadership
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 because it exposed me to situations and scenarios that I had not
been previously presented with an opportunity to participate in. The ability prior to
beginning the experience to determine the strengths and weaknesses that I had as a future
administrator helped me to determine how to best utilize this opportunity to better myself and
the school in which I participated in this experience. The opportunity to interact with
teachers, administrators, parents and students during this opportunity was vital. The
feedback that I received from coworkers after the large events that I coordinated helped me
to determine that my efforts were effective. The opportunity to discuss the extended day
program with parents after the experience enabled me to understand that my efforts were
beneficial to the experience. The pre and post data sheet from the extended day program
informed me that my efforts were effective for administrating a program as well.

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?

Each activity assigned throughout the practicum presented an opportunity to interact and work
with a variety of individuals. Some of the activities were designed for my individual growth, but
some of the activities involved interactions with parents, students, community members and
school staff. To establish an open line of communication with each of these participants, I
typically asked them for their input as well as briefed them on the information of the activity. To
ensure that I met the needs of each individual, I established the open line of communication via
email as well as providing some with my cell phone number for text and calls. I always made
sure to return contacts from all individuals as well as to follow up after all activities with key
individuals from each activity to ask for suggestions on how to improve the activity the next time
or improvements that could have been implemented.

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?

Two of the major projects that I was put in charge of were the Back to School Blitz and the Back
to School Barbecue. Both of these projects were handed to me in manila folders with writing in
the inside and a few pieces of paper. Each of the projects were major undertakings and required
immense amounts of planning to facilitate. The opportunity to make standardization within the
processes for each event to ensure future success was tasked to me. The opportunity to organize
all of the information and enhance each event helped to bring about meaningful change.
After organizing the beginning of the year events, the opportunity to organize every event that I
was involved in was apparent. The vision and mission statements of a school are not meant to be
written and fulfilled each school year. The opportunity to lay a foundation for the future so that
events can become tradition and establish pride in the constituents of the school. As the vision
statement for the school states, Salem Avenue students and staff aspire to be lifelong learners
with empowered minds. The opportunity to manage and organize information for years to come
is beneficial for all individuals involved in the process.

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.

My internship did not bring about meaningful change in the school district. The projects that I
administrated were solely implemented at Salem Avenue Elementary School. The organization
and management efforts that I used did serve to function that these projects could be
implemented at other schools with minimal changes required.
 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?

My internship did allow for an opportunity for staff, parents and students to provide meaningful
feedback in assessment of how the experience influenced the school. This was accomplished by
holding meetings with staff members, emails and phone calls with parents and class meetings
with students where they could provide their feedback for the activities. The feedback was not
dismissed without discovering merit within the suggestions. Students were the group that had
the most honest and effective feedback for the process. The students should have ownership
within the school and all activities should be designed for them. The feedback that was the most
effective was for the Math Night that we hosted. The students suggested that they should have
an opportunity to interact with other math teachers and not simply their grade level teacher. This
feedback was added to the organized materials to be implemented next year.

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

achieving similar goals and objectives.

The three projects that brought different groups together most were the Back to School
Barbecue, Extended Day and Math Committee. For school spirit, the Back to School Barbecue
required bringing the teachers, paraprofessionals and administrators of the school together to
accomplish a shared goal. In the end, all groups had to work together in order to produce the
final outcome. Extended day required me to bring together teachers from each grade level as
well as encore in order to create an academic experience for students from kindergarten to fifth
grade. This activity allowed for teachers to teach different grade levels than they teach daily as
well as to interact with other staff members that they do not always have the opportunity for.
The Math Night united all of the math teachers of the building to produce an instructional
evening focused on mathematics. This evening required the assistance of teachers from other
contents to make the evening a success and exposed them to math strategies that they do not
encounter on a daily basis.

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.

To engage parents and community members along with staff and students in shared projects
communication was vital. Open lines of communication with all groups helped because they all
served key roles in the shared outcome. In addition to open communication, allowing time for
fellowship before and after meetings where each member had the opportunity to socialize and
even share a snack was beneficial to the collaboration required.

8. Name or identify types of planning strategies utilized in your project work.

The main planning strategy that was implemented in my practicum was goal-based planning.
Under this model, a goal or objective was established and then all planning was designed to carry
out the overall goal. This ensured that all planning was focused and allowed for maximizing of
planning time and no time would be wasted on outcomes that were not desired.

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.

Not all issues that present barriers to change are local. Throughout my practicum I came to
realize that certain activities occur because of federal, state and local mandates. Most of the
technical aspects that seemed tedious were typically brought about because of federal funding
guidelines and not adhering to the guidelines affects funding. State and district policies are
typically very black and white but typically do not present rational as to why activities must
occur in given ways. Even with federal, state and local policies in place, the school based
administrator still has a lot of flexibility when making decisions. It is wise before making a
decision to consult policies and various offices at central office, but typically the administrator
has the opportunity to make a lot of instructional and managerial decisions.