Faculty supervisors work with each student to help them find the internship or field work experience to match each student’s interest. During the internship experience students meet regularly with faculty supervisors and other students to discuss the challenges they face and the progress they are making. It’s an exciting, dynamic opportunity grounded in both theory and pragmatic practice. If this sounds like the career you want to pursue, please contact one me so I can arrange a meeting with one of our undergraduate or graduate program directors. I look forward to meeting you.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Michael Ludwig

The three CAS SDL/SBL internships may involve as many as three different placements. Two of these internships will take place during the regular school year; the third is scheduled for summer. Many interns choose to complete the fall and spring internships in their own district. During the summer, we encourage students to complete an internship in a district other than their own. We feel that the opportunity to have an experience in a district that differs — in demographics, size, culture, or leadership style — is an invaluable learning experience that broadens perspective. School business interns may intern in their own district if they are currently working in a district or the internship coordinator makes arrangements for those currently working out of the education field.

Interns have been placed in a variety of settings, including New York City, Westchester, and in all 127 Long Island districts. While the majority of these placements are in public schools and districts, interns have also completed internships in a variety of alternative settings, including BOCES, infant-toddler, early childhood, and special education programs, and higher education. Each Hofstra learning community is paired with a partner district. In this arrangement an exemplary district agrees to cooperate with us in providing professional development support for a group of prospective administrators throughout the five semesters of the preparation program. As part of its support, the partner district is also willing to provide internship placements for members of that learning community.

The internship is designed to develop and nurture competencies that will prepare students for the principalship, superintendency, school business administrator or a variety of supervisory roles. Each placement should include clinical experiences and activities corresponding to the ISLLC standards for SDL/SBL interns or NYS program registration and assessment frameworks for the business interns. By the time students completes all internship placements, they should have completed tasks and activities that develop and demonstrate competency in each of these six areas for SDL/SBL students and the detailed competencies identified for SDBL students. I hope this letter has been insightful and please don't hesitate to contact me should you have any questions about internships in the Department of Foundations, Leadership and Policy Studies.

Sincerely,
Dr. Eustace Thompson

Placements for internships and student teaching for Special Education majors include, but are not limited to:

Counseling and Mental Health

All students who are matriculated in the Graduate Programs in Counseling (School Counseling, Mental Health Counseling, Community/Agency Counseling) are placed in a counseling internship during their last year of study to work under fully certified and licensed counseling personnel in various educational and human service settings across Long Island and the NY metropolitan area. These fieldwork internships serve as the required capstone component of their professional preparation program of studies. School Counseling interns work for one or two semesters in a k-12 school where they learn the functions and role responsibilities of a professional school counselor, while community/agency counseling interns are placed in community-based and/or university student affairs sites where they learn functions such as career counseling, youth development services, college advising and social gerontology.

Mental Health Counseling students serve for one academic year as interns in both inpatient and outpatient mental health services facilities such as South Oaks Hospital, Zucker-Hillside Hospital and Seafield Services, Inc., where competencies in counseling clients across the lifespan are developed in areas such as alcohol and substance abuse, grief and loss and behavioral health disorders. Placement sites and supervisors are carefully selected and vetted by the university program faculty as a means of assuring a high quality and comprehensive training experience for students; these internship placements satisfy the qualifying criteria of the required hours, functions and supervision to meet the professional certification and licensure regulations established by NYS Board of Regents.

Special Education

In response to state requirements and to provide students with the ability to connect theory to practice students in all the special education programs complete 100 hours of field experiences before student teaching. These field experiences are tied to different courses enabling students to become aware of the connection between coursework and practice in various education settings. The placements are across the range of disabilities, across developmental levels, and across the spectrum of educational placement available to students with disabilities. Some of the placements follow the traditional 10 month school year, while others following a 12 month calendar .

Public schools through Nassau and Suffolk County (e.g., Roslyn, Great Neck, Westbury, Amityville, Half Hollow Hills, etc.) and the New York City Schools including District 75, have served as field placements for students observing inclusive classes as well as resource rooms, and self-contained settings. Students also have had the opportunity to observe and student teach at BOCES (Nassau and Suffolk), United Cerebral Palsy, The Genesis School, Developmental Disabilities Institute, and Hagedorn Little Village.

Gerontology

The gerontology program offers varied field experiences that reflect the range and diversity of the needs of the field. For example governmental placements include Nassau County Department of Senior Citizen Affairs,Nassau County Department of Adult Protective Services, and Town of Hempstead Office of Senior Enrichment. Geriatric care management settings include:care managers, senior network solutions.

Students also have the opportunity to observe and work in nursing homes and assisted living facilities such as Sunrise Assisted Living, Atria and The Oaks. Senior centers that participate in offering placements include Glen Cove Senior Center,Sandal Senior Center (Rockville Centre) Mid-Island "Y" (Plainview).

As part of the continuing exploration of offering our students settings with the most current practice Gerontology Program also sponsors internships at Environmental Gerontology Unit at Cornell Medical Center and Green House Surgicare.

The first phase of student teaching begins with your assignment to a host school. Many factors are taken into consideration, such as selecting highly qualified cooperating teachers and providing a multicultural setting, to ensure that student teaching assignments promote professional growth.

The second phase of student teaching focuses on orientation procedures. This phase provides the student teacher with a general understanding of the school and the school’s surrounding community. This phase begins on site with the initial visits to the school. During this phase the student teacher meets school administrators, the cooperating teacher and the rest of the staff.

The third phase of student teaching, which can take between one and two weeks, involves the student teacher’s introduction to various classroom settings. The student teacher observes the cooperating teacher and other school staff, meets the students, and begins to become involved in school activities. Gradually, the student teacher becomes part of the educational team in the school.

The fourth phase is the gradual involvement of the student teacher as a classroom teacher. Generally during the second week of student teaching, the student teacher assumes teaching responsibility. During this phase, the student teacher, with the guidance of the cooperating teacher, is planning and implementing instruction.

During the fifth phase, the student teacher, with the guidance and support of the cooperating teacher, school supervisors, the Hofstra field supervisor, and the student teaching seminar leader, is the actual teacher in charge of an educational program. During this phase the student teacher assumes the full range of teaching responsibilities, including but not limited to, short term and long term planning, implementation, evaluation of student performance, administrative work, guidance, and reflective professional interaction with colleagues.

Evaluation goes on during the entire student teaching experience with an emphasis on self-evaluative skills which will serve as a basis for continuous growth as a reflective educator. The ability to evaluate one’s growth as a teacher develops through self-study, journaling, professional readings, and reciprocal relationships with professionals in the schools and in the university. Through these relationships, the student teacher learns to evaluate goals, teaching skills, and students’ learning. These professional relationships involve students in the schools with the cooperating teacher, school administrators and teaching colleagues and in the university with the field supervisor, the student teaching seminar leader and the faculty of the Hofstra School of Education, Health and Human Services.

Under supervision of a New York State certified literacy specialist, graduate students in the MSED in Literacy Studies, MSED in Literacy Studies and Special Education, CAS in Literacy Studies or MA in the Teaching of Writing engage in an intensive practicum internship at the Reading/ Writing Learning Clinic. The Reading/Writing Learning Clinic provides evaluation and instructional services to families in the communities that adjoin Hofstra University as well as in the larger metropolitan area. In this professional environment, graduate interns have opportunities to develop and implement data-based literacy support for small groups of students in reading and writing workshop settings, and to prepare evaluation reports for parents and school district personnel. Literacy Studies Interns also benefit from the RWL Clinics' school-based satellite programs and grant-funded special projects, such as the Young Women's and Young Men’s Writing Projects.

Debra Goodman, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Literacy Studies