Frostburg State University

Intern: Katharine (Kate) Long

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.

Overall, I believe that this internship was effective as it has taught me to be a more
considerate and invested educator by attending to the needs of the whole faculty, student
body, and community at large. Through this experience, I have gained valuable skills and
knowledge that has assisted in my ability to serve as an academic leader.
Throughout the experience, I have worked with administrators, teachers, parents, and
students to overcome building challenges, advocate for students, and to persevere over
various challenges affecting the school or the larger school district. While I may have
benefited from a bit more time working with student discipline, I believe that the overall
experiences I have endeavored have made me a more comprehensive and thorough leader
enabled with the skills to meet academic, social, and community issues head on.

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?

Throughout this internship, I worked extensively to assist others in achieving their goals.
Whether students or, more commonly, teachers and administrators, I believe that my attention to
individual needs and my concentration on establishing strong working relationships allowed me
to succeed in this capacity throughout the internship experience.
I often worked directly with teachers and/or administrators to address concerns regarding
instruction, professionalism, and individual growth or development. Throughout the internship
experience, I have been required to have many courageous conversations and to take risks when
working with struggling teachers. I have provided support for initiatives, assistance to struggling
teachers, and encouragement for newfound ideas and school programs. On some occasions
individuals have been frustrated that I was not willing to push beyond my own beliefs about
individual accountability, but I believe that these feelings were associated with my views of
personal obligation and professionalism. I am proud of my accomplishments in this realm.
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?

This internship experience allowed me to have a hand in changing various important components
of the school operation and culture. In my role as an intern, I was able to work toward the
implementation of a Warrior Block period to for all students, to serve as an instructional coach to
new and veteran teachers, and to fund multiple Professional Development opportunities through
a Title II Grant from MSDE and WCPS.
My role as an intern also allowed me to work alongside the building administration in crafting
vision and policy for the current and upcoming school years. I assisted with the implementation
of the 2015-16 Master Schedule, with decisions regarding staffing, and with the implementation
of a Recovery plan for failing students. The provision of Professional Development to train staff
and the ability to offer continued supports as assistance with areas of challenge allowed me to
ensure that building initiatives and areas of growth were effectively implemented.

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.

While I am hopeful that initiatives implemented throughout this internship will eventually be
adopted at other sites within the district, at this point activities remain isolated to Boonsboro
High. Items that I believe have the ability to be adopted at other buildings are as follows:
1. Warrior Block Modeled after Clear Spring Highs program, this initiative features various
additional components that could be mimicked by schools currently implementing a similar
program. Specifically, our focus on club pull-outs and the integration of a software program
would assist in streamlining the Blazer Block initiative working at CSHS.
2. Tech Tidbit PD Session This PD series allows for teachers to regularly receive training on new
technology available to classroom teachers and also provides in-house training and support. This
series facilitates a culture of collegial learning that helps to increase efficacy with technology
and empowers teachers to reach students on a new and innovative level.
3. We the People Course Although not directly involved with every component of bringing this
unique course to BHS, I believe that other schools within the district will aspire to offer this
course as well. In the course of the next five years, I believe that at least two other schools will
implement this program provided that staffing and district funding permit.

Each of these endeavors hold the potential to expand their reach beyond the walls of Boonsboro
High School and into the larger school district. Were any of these initiatives implemented, they
would align with the districts desire to engage students in their learning, to engage technology,
and to provide students with applicable, realistic learning opportunities at their home school.

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?

Throughout the internship experience, I attempted to create opportunities for individuals to

provide feedback. While unreasonable to offer this during each aspect of the internship, I did
request input related to components that could be revised, refreshed, or removed based on staff
feedback.
At the conclusion of Professional Development sessions, Community Meetings, and events like
the schools Make It Happen program, I worked to seek feedback from students, staff, and
community members. This information, although not always entirely pertinent, assisted with my
ability to understand the effect of the work I had done and enabled me to have reflective
conversations with the building administration, staff, and other important stakeholders.

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

achieving similar goals and objectives.

One of the greatest challenges of an administrator is working to bring varying ideas together to
better the school and the organization. In my experience as an intern this year, I was able to
spearhead various efforts to facilitate collaborative goal attainment. Though diverse in nature, a
sampling of these types of efforts include:
1. Classroom Focused Improvement Process (CFIP) Meetings During these meetings, I worked to
bring teachers of various grade levels (and contents) together to review student work, lesson
plans, and student data as an attempt at improving performance.
2. School Improvement Team Through this year-long cooperative effort, I worked alongside staff
of all backgrounds to work toward school initiatives and to troubleshoot arising challenges. This
group represents perhaps the most diverse and holistic team within the entire building.
3. Warrior Block Committee As the co-chair of this committee, I worked to facilitate various
meeting times, dates, and agendas in order to achieve the needed outcomes as established by
the administrative team. This daunting task required consideration of vastly differing opinions.
4. Classroom Mentor & Host Coordinator: In my role as the building liaison between BHS and local
Colleges and Universities, I serve as a support to aspiring teachers and struggling educators.
5. Make It Happen Program Working with administrators, counselors, teachers, students, and
community members, this endeavor required extensive coordination in order to ensure success.

Other tasks throughout my internship experience certainly require the commitment and
collaboration of multiple individuals, yet the events highlighted above are the most relevant.

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.

Throughout my work to affect positive change within the school building, I was required to work
with individuals from multiple backgrounds. In coordinating these communications, I utilized a
variety of approaches to maintain effective relationships.
Dependent on the audience and task, my approach varied but was always considerate of the
message, the intended audience, and the value of the information presented. Throughout the year,
I utilized email, personal letters, AlertNow (mass phone communication system), the BHS
website or Social Media feeds, Google Technologies, and local media outlets to disseminate
information and garner support for school programs, initiatives, and messages. Often, I worked
to utilize many of these tools in conjunction with face-to-face or phone communication as an
effective method for involving needed constituents in the schools important work.

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

If anything, I am a planner and an individual guilty of loving the details in life. Throughout the
internship experience, I worked extensively to plan implementation of projects for the betterment
of the school.
In doing so, I utilized many technologies and communication tools to collaborate, share
information, and maintain transparency when necessary. A few tools or methods utilized are:
1. Google Technologies: Used to outline initiatives, share information, collect data, coordinate
meeting attendance, and store files. This all-around collaborative tool was essential to my work.
2. Collaborative Planning: When needed, I worked alongside other stakeholders to plan and
implement new initiatives. While topics varied, the need to communicate effectively remained.
3. Backwards Mapping: When working toward a large goal, understanding the END prior to the
onset of planning is essential. By utilizing Backwards Mapping, I was able to identify needed
components of the learning process before beginning with more elaborate planning phases.
4. Long-Term Planning & Time Management: Throughout various stages of the internship as well
as throughout project implementation, the management of time and the ability to plan over an
extended period of time has been essential to project success and the ability to achieve goals.

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.

This internship experience has taught me many things about the workings of a school system, the
local government agencies, and the state or national government. In this particular experience, I
encountered various barriers to change but I will outline only a few:
1. Funding Inequalities: Having previously worked at a Title I School, I was awestruck by the
differences in available monies within my current Blue Ribbon School. This vast difference
provides vast disparities between the programs, technologies, and initiatives implemented
within each school.
2. Technology Inequalities: My school was informed in October that our Wi-Fi would be updated
by November; when the completion finally occurred in March, we were ecstatic. However, I
later learned that our own installation was halted so another larger school could be completed.
3. Staffing Changes: This year my building experienced a great amount of staffing change; we
changed nurses three times and lost one teacher to an outside job, one to retirement, one to
maternity leave, and we will also lose another teaching position due to a Reduction in Force.