4.1 Online internships: a successful model

Ncpea publications

Editors

• Janet Tareilo, Stephen F. Austin State University
• Brad Bizzell, Virginia Tech

Associate Editors

• Beverly Irby, Sam Houston State University
• Rosemary Papa, Northern Arizona University
• Thomas Valesky, Florida Gulf Coast University
• Theodore Creighton, Virginia Tech

About the Autthors

• Douglas M. DeWitt serves as Program Director for the M.E. in Educational Leadership at Salisbury University in Maryland.
• Carolyn B. H. Rogers is the faculty chair of Curriculum&Instruction, Leadership in Educational Administration and Special Education Leadership at Capella University out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Through online distance education she uses her experiences in K-12 and higher education to works with educators across the United States and abroad. She has written a number of articles on online teaching and the internship.

Introduction

The administrative internship has long been a vital and integral component of principal and superintendent preparation (Fry, Bottoms,&O'Neill, 2005); preparation that is necessary because it provides an opportunity for exposure to real life experiences and situations that leaders face in today’s schools and districts. As a result of the focus on accountability for educational leaders, now, more than ever, it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract and train quality candidates in school administration (Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, Meyerson, Orr,&Cohen, 2007; Sutton, Jobe, McCord, T. Jordon,&K. F. Jordon, 2008). As such, it is critical to provide a variety of delivery methods for certification.

Online education has come of age (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2009; Walling, 2003; Marx, 2006; Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia,&Jones, 2009). More and more postsecondary institutions are providing distance learning options as a regular choice in their offerings (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics). Many candidates are attracted to the flexibility that online education offers. According to Ko and Rossen (2003), online learning offers more freedom…The convenience of learning online applies…to adult candidates, students from educationally underserved areas, those pursuing specialized or advanced degrees…No longer must they drive to school, find a parking space, sit in a lecture hall at a specific time, and take final exams in a stuffy room (p. 3).

Along with the advent of online education, there have been numerous calls for improvement in administrator preparation programs (Darling-Hammond et al., 2007; Davis, Darling-Hammond, LaPointe,&Meyerson, 2005; Fry et al., 2005; Orr, 2006; Wilmore&Bratlien, 2005). “At a time when educational leadership is a primary focus of education reform, schools of education have come under considerable scrutiny” (Orr, 2006, p. 492). As a result, many administrative preparation programs have revised and reshaped their programs to address this concern (Darling-Hammond et al., 2007; Davis et al., 2005; Fry&O'Neill, 2006; Orr, 2006).