Internships for Credit: Linking Work Experience to Political Science Learning Objectives
By Kevin Edward Lucas, Capital University
Seeking to provide guidance to faculty members who supervise for-credit Internship courses, Lucas proposes adopting a broad definition of what qualifies as a Political Science internship and he emphasizes the importance of designing complementary writing assignments to ensure that students make progress towards achieving discipline-specific learning objectives, regardless of where they complete their internship. Assignments that require students to reflect on their internship experience, to analyze the performance of the organization where they intern, and to conduct research on some political issue related to that organization’s work all enhance the student learning that internship experiences provide.
The Journal of Political Science Education is an intellectually rigorous, path-breaking, agenda-setting journal that publishes the highest quality scholarship on teaching and pedagogical issues in political science. The journal aims to represent the full range of questions, issues and approaches regarding political science education, including teaching-related issues, methods and techniques, learning/teaching activities and devices, educational assessment in political science, graduate education, and curriculum development.