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With their tasks set, supervisors should help interns make sense of their workplace and increase their responsibilities to allow for continuing development.
Workplace learning
Errors, mistakes, and known problems are all learning opportunities for the intern. The best learning happens when we have time
- to reflect on an experience, an observation, a problem
- to think how things could be improved, done differently
- to try again and to have opportunities to test new ideas or practice a skill
Every two weeks we start a new set of problems. Every two weeks the interns get an opportunity to understand from the user’s point of view what we want to achieve. What we want to build be the end of two weeks. It is up to the team to assign work to individuals or even self-assign work based on what they want to work on. That two-week cycle builds confidence.
Alex, supervisor
It is important that the intern has some regular quality reflection time. While the intern will do most reflecting privately, supervisors and team members can be involved in supporting interns’ reflective learning process.
Support can be informal, like a conversation. It could be a scheduled meeting time after completing a task/project, a team brainstorming session, or it could be spontaneous and happen when the intern asks an interesting question or comes to you with a problem.
It is tempting to ‘save time’ and quickly ‘tell’ the intern what the answer/the way is or what the solution is, but this may not really encourage independence, initiative, or foster deep learning. Take time to explain why something is done a particular way or needs a different focus, what the priorities are, and who is responsible for or has authority for resolving an issue.
The 5 question framework
The 5 questions framework (Jacobson & Ruddy, 2004) can be helpful to guide your conversation with the intern.
- Did you notice X?
- Why did that happen?
- Does that happen in life?
- Why does that happen?
- How can you use that?
After the conversation, the intern can then spend some private time thinking and writing about their experience, what they have learnt, what new understanding or ideas they have, and how they might think and act in a future similar situation.
Increase of responsibilities
Ideally the work you give your interns is authentic, real world and ‘hands on’. Provide them with choices so they can practise decision making skills and build their confidence.
Your intern may express a desire to work on a task independently or propose an alternative idea that they have about a task. If the intern has the skills/knowledge/motivation, then discuss how they would proceed, what resources they will use, and the time needed to complete the task. It is a good idea to try them out with tasks rather than assume they cannot do them as evidenced by this quote:
In terms of my performance capabilities, I did not have the physical strength to undertake some jobs but once my colleagues and supervisor saw me attempting to try I gained their respect.
Intern