Anna Moyer

Internship activities provide a practical way to evaluate skills that are often difficult to assess in an academic setting. Feedback for skills and behaviors, such as attitude, maturity, and judgement can further prepare a student for post education employment.

It is important to plan experiences that will give the student intern a good over-all picture of the organization's operation and culture. It is also important to evaluate these experiences so adjustments can be made to improve the experience.

Post-internship feedback is important to ensure that all objectives are met and the program has been effective from the student's point of view as well as the employer's.

Internships allow students to develop their professional behaviors and get to know a companies culture. For the company, internships give decision makers an opportunity to experience a student's skills and behaviors for the purposes of potential job offers or to see if someone will fit into a team.

Internships are a valuable tool to help students recognize how their training will be actionable in their future career.

Safety in lab environments serves to both protect students in the learning environment and condition the students to practice safely once they have joined their respective careers.

Evaluating student competency and progress is difficult in the lab environment. A rubric can be helpful in identifying learning strengths and deficits as well as help students prepare for lab by gaining a clear understanding of the objectives.

Engaging students in the lab connects the students to the reading materials as they recognize that to be successful in the lab they must be reading and participating in lecture.

Blooms taxonomy helps students connect classroom learning into real world outcomes.

Implementing active learning allows adult learners to approach problems in a familiar way. They are usually self directed and can approach learning from their respective learning styles. Properly implemented active learning gives adult learners clear expectations then allows them to critically and analytically think to make the required learning more permanent and relative to their specific career goals and life.