Deepening the Internship Experience

Big Picture Education Australia (BPEA) recently hosted a two-day workshop at the Newcastle Cooks Hill Campus called “Leaving to Learn”. The workshop facilitated instruction on strengthening a “Learning through Internship” (LTI) culture in participating schools across Australia. Viv White, Co-Founder of BPEA, led an expansive discussion among educators about the importance of meaningful internships. Together, workshop participants highlighted ways for internships to provide a multi-faceted learning experience for students while transcending the traditions of a mainstream classroom.

The Learning Through Internship program allows students to work two days a week in an internship of their choosing, guided by a mentor with whom the advisory teacher maintains meaningful contact. The mentor assists the student in developing a real-world project throughout their internship. Students design projects not only so they have a tangible display of all they have learned, but also to enrich and expand upon academic subjects they often have struggled to find interest in.

The workshop provided teachers with insights into deepening the internship experience for the student. The two-day course included an in-depth explanation of the LTI mission, complete with a distinction between the LTI program and traditional internship programs. The LTI workshop functioned not only as an educating resource for BPEA teachers, but also as a networking tool in which participants shared ideas and experiences with each other. They worked together on how to: ensure proper internship placement; choose effective and appropriate mentors and; develop a comprehensive learning plan complete with real-world experience and academic knowledge.

Day 2 of the workshop stressed that the success of the LTI program depends on careful attention to each student's individual interests and projects, appropriate internship placement and goal development.  Michelle of Hunter Sports High School explained her deepened understanding of the value in appropriate selection of a student’s mentor and the importance of  “making sure that the intern - the student - has got a meaningful mentor who is pushing the student as much as they can.”

Justine, of Halls Head Community College, agrees that the workshop helped her understand the role that mentors play in developing a project for the student to better facilitate his or her growth. Justine also emphasised the importance of networking. One activity that had a small group of teachers focussing on a particular student she said "was very useful in mapping from interest through to project design".

Educators left the workshop with fresh ideas and were eager to share their excitement after the completion of the two-day program. “It’s nice to also get away from the school environment to have time to think and reflect,” Justine continued, “because you don’t often get time to do that at work. So ... really great opportunity! And I’ll go home with a lot of things to think about.”

Big Picture Education Australia hosts a variety of education workshops throughout the country. For more information, please visit http://www.bigpicture.org.au/cc_events or contact BPEA at +61 2 9590 5341.