Delta Internship Program

Graduate students and postdocs from any discipline are welcome. Faculty and instructional staff may participate as intern partners, potentially offering a guest teaching opportunity, input on the teaching and learning challenge addressed by the project, and/or feedback and guidance during the development of the teaching plan and assessments.

The internship experience is mostly encapsulated within the semester-long Internship Seminar during the fall semester. This weekly seminar is scaffolded to support Interns through project planning, implementation, and data analysis and reflection. Prior to the fall semester, Interns are encouraged to explore potential learning environments (e.g., a course, outreach project, etc.) within which they would like to develop their project. 

When asked to estimate the weekly time commitment for their Internship project, prior cohorts have typically reported an average of 5 hours or less per week (inclusive of the weekly seminar), with occasional more complex projects taking 5-10 hours/week. You choose the scale and scope of your project. Some Interns may choose to reiterate their project in subsequent semesters, especially if publication or a dissertation chapter is a goal, but that is beyond the expectations of the Internship Program.

Intern cohorts are held each fall semester, within the Internship Seminar. To register, visit our current courses and submit the online form.

Internships are a rich “choose your own adventure” cohort experience across disciplines and teaching contexts. You get to determine the right fit for you.

Consider: What experience do you want to be able to talk about in your job interview? What would you want a final poster to show that you can do?

While every project is different, some examples include (but are not limited to):

• integrating an active learning method into a course or module of a course (inclusive collaborative learning projects, problem-based learning, case-based learning, and much more)
• transforming a “cookbook” laboratory module to inquiry-based instruction
• incorporating a technology to improve student learning
• designing student-centered formative assessments

Typical intern projects involve designing, teaching, and assessing between one class period up to one week of instruction during weeks six through 10 of the semester, with flexibility for those who are interested in broader questions, different timing, or full-semester projects (contact info@delta.wisc.edu to discuss your ideas).

The instructional role is also flexible. Often the intern guest teaches their plan, but some take behind-the-scenes roles while others are instructors of record for the semester.

There are three primary ways that Interns find a project.

The most common is to connect with a course or faculty/staff partner you want to work with – this might be a course you’ve taught as a TA, a faculty member who leads an outreach program that interests you, or a guest teaching opportunity (including at a neighboring institution such as Madison College or Edgewood University).

Another option is to explore a posted opportunity for potential options and inspiration.

Finally, you can email Delta staff to meet and chat about your particular goals and interests and see how we might help you find a great fit.

An intern’s role with a course is usually to develop and guest teach up to one week of instruction, then summarize and report on student learning. Some may have other roles within the course, as mutually agreed to in conversation with the faculty partner. This might include teaching for a longer period, course development, assessment grading, syllabus design, etc. Determining the intern’s role is part of the kickoff conversation with your faculty partner, guided by the project agreement prompts.

We offer flexibility for those who are interested in broader questions; contact info@delta.wisc.edu to discuss.

Absolutely. You would shape a project around an aspect of the course that you are TA’ing. It often works best to pick an area that students have historically found challenging (for example, a tricky concept, or an area within a course where test scores historically have been low). The internship seminar and experience will be in addition to your TA responsibilities.

That depends. In some cases, it can be a great fit for your research advisor or PI to be a faculty partner, and we’ve had many interns complete very successful, rewarding projects with their research PIs. Other times, though, we find that people work with their advisors primarily just because it’s someone they already know — so consider the ideas in “How do I find an internship project” and we’re happy to help you find a good fit.

For those who don’t know many faculty on campus or have strong mentoring networks, this can be a rare opportunity to develop mentor relationships and make connections. Faculty or academic staff intern partners might offer you a different perspective or insight into a position they hold that is more aligned with your career goals (and future letters of recommendation). Some Interns work with faculty partners at Edgewood University or Madison College, in part to learn more about working at primary-undergraduate institutions and to build their networks.

The Internship Seminar is a learning community that supports the development of your teaching-as-research (TAR) project. It is a project-based learning experience that is driven by participant goals and preferences, so each semester is a little different. There are weekly readings and supplementary materials to complete prior to each meeting to advance your emerging project. In the seminar, we work as a cohort and in small groups to integrate the content, share ideas, troubleshoot challenges, and offer feedback to each other.

In broad strokes, we walk through the TAR cycle:

• Weeks 1-5: Write your project proposal and observe your project context. Identify a challenge in student learning; consider your students’ characteristics and other situational factors. Use the literature and existing knowledge to draft an aligned teaching plan with measurable learning outcomes aligned with assessments that promote student learning and engaging activities. Pose a TAR question and hypothesis.
• Weeks 6-10: Teach at some point in this period, usually just up to one week of instruction. In the seminar, you’ll plan your data analysis, reflect on the project development process, and learn approaches to draw evidence-based conclusions.
• Weeks 11-15: Analyze the data to draw evidence-based conclusions. Revisit your TAR question. Reflect on your teaching and on the internship semester. Revise the teaching plan. Summarize your work in a poster, final report, or another preferred format.

The Internship Seminar may also be used to partially fulfill the elective requirements for the Certificate in Higher Education Teaching and Learning.