The Practical Practicum

By Holly B. Smith

Cluster Specialist

Business Management Administration and Finance 

Have any of you taught your practicum in the last year?  Will you be teaching it next year?  If so, pull up a chair because I think your life is going to get easier very soon. 

For 18+ months, we, on the UNT Educational Excellence grants, have been working on an entire year’s worth of practicum lessons.  They are all alike and all unique, sharing many of the same attributes you’ve come to know and love with UNT lessons while differentiating themselves within each cluster’s specific content requirements.  

If you are in Health Sciences, then you already have a practicum that easily laps most others, including the Practicum in Business Management.  I know it’s been sorely lacking for a long time, and that makes me even more excited and eager to share the new practicum with you.  In fact, Kristin Firmery Petrunin (Marketing) and I are going to present the socks off the practicum project this summer at our July conference.  Go to this link to learn more about the TCEC Summer Conference:  http://tcecconference.com/summer.   

The layout of practicum looks like this:

1.  Introduction 
2. Prep (classroom tips, useful websites, a general practicum, house keeping details, training station orientation) 
3. Curriculum

Each cluster’s curriculum will look different from this point.  For instance, Business will cover the History of Office Administrators; then, our lessons will lay out according to the scope & sequence document.  This is traditionally how our lessons flow and that will continue through the Practicum lessons.  We have worked in some presentation opportunities, some projects for both individuals and groups and both Leadership and Advanced Leadership lessons. 

Additionally, you will find useful supplemental lessons.  We used an “above-and-beyond” approach to rounding out practicums.  Our Business practicum doesn’t have any TEKS that specifically talk about a digital portfolio, how to search for scholarships, how to understand and work in a global marketplace or understanding general project management, time management and personal management.  

YET, we know that these are vital skill sets for out students.  For that reason, we included them.  We spent a lot of time, on this project, putting down the basics and then asking “what else?” What else do practicum students need to know, need to practice, need to understand?

 

I, too, kept asking myself, “What else? What else is there to offer students during practicum?”  I suggest reading some of Jeff Haden’s submissions, as Contributing Editor, to Inc.  He has written insightful articles that fall in the “soft skills” arena.  My particular favorites are:  “7 Traits of Exceptionally Charming People” and “Habits of Remarkably Giving People”.  

www.inc.com is full of useful articles written from a young and fresh perspective about the trials of the workplace.  Any practicum teacher can use one of these articles on a weekly basis to preface an upcoming unit of study.  (Please preview any articles or videos prior to using them in your classroom.) 

Here’s to a practical, “above-and-beyond” practicum for us all!