D E V E L O P I N G IN T E RN S HI P L E A R NI NG G O A L S
SO, YOU’RE DOING AN INTERNSHIP FOR CREDIT. WHY?
Different students have different reasons. One student may be looking for a resume builder, another
wants specific job and skill experience and yet another is trying to break into a particular occupation.
Perhaps an internship is required for your major. Maybe you need one more elective credit and you
would prefer not to take another class. Perhaps you already have a job, why not get credit for it?
These are all understandable reasons for doing an internship, but if you want academic credit for an
internship, you do need to look at things differently.
When getting academic credit for an internship, you need to consider,
what am I getting credit for?
An internship experience can offer you the important benefit of career exploration and be an
excellent resume builder, but it is important to remember that academic credit is awarded for the
learning achieved, not for the work experience alone. The primary purpose of doing an academic
internship is to better understand the theories, ideas, and practices of your discipline or major by
actively engaging in a "hands-on," work-based, learning experience. In addition, an internship can be
a very exciting way to learn. Your internship can provide you with an opportunity to question and
examine the tension between theory and practice. In other words, how does what you read and talk
about in your classes compare to what you observe and experience outside the classroom? An
internship is also a time of inquiry. Inquiry is seeking to learn by asking and observing. Students can
discover new knowledge and understanding for themselves by being curious explorers and
investigators during an internship.
An internship can be a very exciting way to learn.
However, a word of caution, you cannot expect the internship setting, the work supervisor or even
your faculty supervisor to make an internship a meaningful learning experience for you. The quality
of the experience is dramatically affected by your attitude and efforts. Most organizations and
internship sites are looking for student interns who are enthusiastic, quick learners, personable,
reliable, and capable of working on their own. They will provide job related tasks and responsibilities
and offer you an opportunity and environment in which to learn; but do not assume that your work
supervisor knows what you want to learn or knows your skills. It is your responsibility to negotiate
activities related to your educational goals. Part of the process a student goes through when
negotiating and developing an internship is learning how to learn from experience. This is not always
easy and often is a new way to learn for many people.
Typically, in a classroom situation, the instructor develops the course content, hands out the
syllabus, and assigns readings, projects and tests. In contrast, during your internship, you will need
to move from being dependent on the faculty supervisor “telling” you what to learn to being self-
directed and finding your own resources for learning. During an internship, you are being asked to
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design your own course of learning, in essence, to develop your own syllabus for what you want to
learn. Therefore, the more you plan what you want to learn, the more likely it will come about.
PLANNING FOR YOUR LEARNING
Planning for your learning can be done effectively through the construction of your internship
learning goals. The learning goals form serves several purposes:
It provides a framework or structure for the internship, describing the roles and
responsibilities of all parties involved.
It serves as a guide and reminder to the student, work supervisor and faculty supervisor of
the academic purpose and activities of the internship, regarding both the learning and skills
fostered by the work experience.
It provides the basis for evaluation and validation of the learning gained from the experience.
Before you write your learning goals, a good place to start is with the widely accepted educational
goals for learning that are important to incorporate into any academic internship. The three
categories for common learning goals are:
1. Cognitive Development Goals
To apply knowledge and skills related to the concepts, principles, and methodologies of
one’s major or discipline and liberal arts education (i.e., connecting theory to practice).
To acquire new knowledge in a new setting to enhance classroom education.
To integrate or synthesize knowledge from diverse disciplines, courses and areas of
experience.
To apply higher order thinking skills (critical thinking, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, complex
problem solving) to “real world” situations.
2. General Skill Development Goals
To develop skill competencies specific to an occupation or profession.
To expand oral and written communication skills.
To increase skills for understanding and working with people of diverse backgrounds and
cultures and to work effectively within diverse environments.
To acquire additional interpersonal communication and interaction skills.
To develop skills to work effectively within formal and informal networks and work cultures.
To further develop observation, recording and interpretation skills.
To develop skills needed for effective citizenship.
To acquire skills in leadership.
3. Personal Development Goals
To develop self-awareness.
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To clarify one's own values.
To develop self-reliance and self-confidence.
To develop and use an ethical perspective.
To develop career awareness, direction and exploration of vocation
If you develop goals that clearly incorporate learning opportunities from these categories, your
internship should be acceptable to a faculty supervisor and worthy of academic credit.
WRITING LEARNING GOALS
At Augsburg, we use the Internship Learning Goals form to structure the academic focus of your
internship. It is designed to help you address the following three questions:
What do I want to learn and/or what do I think I might learn?
How will this learning be acquired or accomplished?
How will I reflect on what I learned and demonstrate to others what I learned?
There are two parts to your learning goals form: the work component and the academic component.
The Work Component describes your on-the-job tasks, responsibilities and projects. The work
component should include a written job description from your on-site work supervisor. This is
important for clarification of the expectations of the work supervisor and to make sure that your on-
the-job tasks include challenging and meaningful work. This also gives your faculty supervisor an
overview of what the learning opportunities are.
The Academic Component outlines, in detail, how you will use the work experience and expand
upon it to make connections to the concepts, theories and practices of your major and your liberal
arts general education. The academic component should include a combination of cognitive
development, general skill development, and personal and professional development that were
outlined earlier. The overall plan is completed at the beginning of the internship experience and its
purpose is to provide the direction and the process for what you will know, be able to do, and how
you will show what you learned by the end of the internship. The academic component is broken
down into three main categories for you to develop, plus a timeline.
CATEGORIES OF YOUR ACADEMIC COMPONENT
1. Learning Objectives
Your learning objectives are your learning targets or what you want to learn or be able to do by the
end of the internship. After deciding upon the general areas you want to focus on, write your specific
learning objectives as clearly and succinctly as you can. Use action verbs to develop your
objectives. Some action verbs are: apply, solve, design, develop, present, describe, compile,
identify, determine, become familiar with, evaluate, understand, know, produce, implement, explain,
analyze, critique, compare.
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Following are some general examples of learning objectives in each of the three categories for
learning during an internship.
Examples:
Cognitive Development (By the end of the internship, I want……)
To be able to explain various treatment methods for autism spectrum disorders in preschool
children.
To develop a working knowledge of the methods of cost accounting used by this firm.
To understand the role of the public relations department at the art museum.
To analyze how public policy at the state level is influenced by interest groups.
General Skill Development (By the end of the internship, I want……)
To enhance my counseling and group facilitation skills when leading support groups for
teenagers.
To apply effective writing skills to grant writing.
To develop and improve my speaking and presentation skills in front of professional groups.
To apply research skills to the environmental impact study project.
To understand and incorporate “coaching” sales techniques.
Personal Growth and Development (By the end of the internship, I want……)
To identify and compare three entry-level positions I would be qualified for in the field of
_________.
To evaluate my vocation and career goals and plans.
To set priorities and manage my time efficiently.
To build my self-confidence in professional settings.
2. Learning Activities & Strategies
After identifying your specific learning objectives, you need to determine how you will accomplish or
make progress toward achieving your objectives. Ask yourself: What tasks, projects, or assignments
will I do? Who are the people I will consult and what resources (written, verbal, etc.) will I utilize?
Many of your learning strategies will come from your job tasks, but go beyond your job description.
What will you do on your own to enhance your learning and understanding: Read related journals,
books, or articles? Interview professionals in the field? Attend business/staff meetings, or a
community or board meeting? For each of your learning objectives, “assign” yourself 3-4 learning
activities that relate directly to achieving that learning objective. Students, who are creative, stretch
themselves, and go beyond the minimal expectations, tend to gain the most from their internship.
3. Evaluation
After you have determined your learning objectives and strategies, you will need to decide how your
learning will be documented, assessed and evaluated? The methods you choose for showing what
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you learned will supply the evidence to your faculty supervisor that you have achieved or made
progress toward what you set out to learn, and provide a basis for grading your internship. Your
faculty supervisor and you are free to negotiate how you will show what you have achieved during
your internship. You will want to use more than one evaluation method to fully describe what you
have learned.
The following methods of evaluation are often used during an academic internship:
Paper on a specific topic related to your internship.
Overall, reflective, analytical summary paper.
Learning journal -- a daily or weekly record of your observations, activities, reflections and
analyses, i.e., making connections to your learning objectives.
Examples of projects or work produced on the job.
Oral presentation in class, seminar or colloquial.
Periodic “check-in” meetings with faculty sponsor/supervisor.
Participation in a concurrent internship seminar.
Site visit with self, faculty supervisor and work supervisor.
Intern final self-evaluation (required).
Work supervisor final evaluation (required).
Final oral presentation/meeting with faculty supervisor.
For more information or questions, contact: Emily Reinert, Assistant
Director, Career & Internship Services, Christenson Center, Suite 100,
612-330-1167, reinert@[Link]
One last thought, since learning is never "final," neither will your Learning Goals Form be
"completed" in terms of your learning goals and objectives and growing interests and questions.
Your learning goals form is a fluid document and can be amended during your internship if new
opportunities present themselves or you find that your original learning goals need to be changed.
During your internship, you will probably discover many more opportunities for learning than you
ever initially planned. We hope, that by being a self-directed learner throughout the internship
experience, you will develop learning skills that can equip you for life-long learning and keep you
asking, "What more can I learn?"
One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it; you
have no certainty until you try. -Sophocles