Semester update

Officially in the ninth week of the semester, I find an update is needed.
Both of my internships are going incredibly well. In my school media internship, I have completed a variety of projects. I set up a reading incentive program/contest. I created the reading logs and collaborated with my librarian on coming up with a name, benchmarks, and prizes (posters, bookmarks, books, a combo mp3/ DVD player, team pizza party, and "pie throwing privileges). I thought this was a nice combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. While I know and agree that intrinsic motivation rules and works best, these are teenagers so they need some extrinsic motivation as well. I am excited to see the results of data collection for the first month's minute tallies. Some students are very excited. We are also introducing conferences with students to discuss their reading progress and address the accountability issue. Students have to conference with library staff six times (at least once a month) to qualify for prizes.
I have also taught library skills lessons. Last week, I collaborated with the social studies teachers to discuss valuable research strategies for students to use while exploring immigration trends of the 20th century from a specific immigrant group. We also showcased a Microsoft Word citation tool for inputting students' works cited. Next week, I will be working with an art teacher in supporting artist research. We'll be discussing the elements of a citation and again creating citations using the Microsoft Word tool.
In my college library internship, I have been learning many valuable skills as well. I have vastly improved my reference interview skills with more room for improvement. The students find me easily approachable and I enjoy hoping students over hat reference as well.
I recently finished weeding the Teacher Resource Center, a collection made of textbooks, guides, and more for educators. I weeded all materials pre-dating 2000 and there were quite a few! Now, I will be evaluating new materials for the collection. The library recently hired a new education librarian who I am excited to work with.
Needless to say, I am enjoying both of my internships immensely!



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