You are here: Guided Internships for MIE at NEC Students
About the MIE Guided Internship Program
The MIE Guided Internship program is unique in that it allows NEC students a multitude of opportunities in the field of education. As the centerpiece of the MIE Concentration Program, Guided Internships are customized to tailor-fit the needs and goals of each student. There are three key components to any internship:
- Students identify needs (i.e. gain teaching experience or work in action-research), goals, guiding questions, and potential avenues (i.e. teach private lessons or classroom music theory) for their internship.
- Students work hand-in-hand with a mentor (often a classroom teacher, arts organization administrator, or MIE Faculty/Staff member) and receive on-the-job guidance and training.
- Students document their internship experience extensively through the use of process-based portfolios and other techniques of action-research.
Students are given a minimum of 15 hours (per semester) to work in the classroom or alternate teaching setting of their choice, and are paired with a Mentor whom in most cases is also a Teaching-Artist. Students are responsible for proposing their own internship plans, strategizing on the collection of data/documentation, and self-evaluation through the creation of a processfolio (Internship Portfolio). Students involved in the MIE Internship Program are most often concurrently enrolled in a MIE seminar/course at NEC, which helps to further scaffold the student's internship experience. Internships are non-paid and can range from teaching private lessons to classroom teaching, research work, or performance outreach. Because all Internships are supported by the Research Center, students who wish to pursue research-focused internships in the MIE Research Center, or for the MIE National Consortium, are encouraged to inquire with MIE Program Advisor Randy Wong.
2006-2007 Internship Opportunities
- NEW: MIE Research Center Internships
MIE Research Internships have inherent value because they help to contribute to the ecosystem of the MIE program. Research Interns help to shape the way that the Concentration program works by providing services to their peers. These services are outlined below, and each can be the basis of an MIE research internship. Sample inquiry questions (which would guide one's research internship) are provided.
- MIE Portfolio Archivist-Analysts. As MIE Portfolio Archivist-Analysts, research interns are involved with the scanning and digitizing of MIE students' class and internship portfolios into the MIERCat Portfolio Database, an archive of past portfolio work. (We return original hard-copy portfolios to their creators).
- Sample Inquiry Questions:
- To what extent can a digital repository of MIE students' portfolios help to provide model portfolio work for future students?
- What attributes attained in the digitization process lend themselves towards more efficient portfolio work?
- How can the portfolio processs be streamlined to work with digitization, yet still remain flexible and creative?
- Sample Inquiry Questions:
- MIE Documentation Specialists. Research interns who work as MIE Documentation Specialists are first trained to collect rich documentation and are then assigned to various MIE classrooms and/or internships to take photos, observation notes, and movies of MIE work in action. Documentation collected by MIE Documentation Specialists gets added to the MIE Media Library, whose collections are open for all MIE students, faculty, and staff to use in their own portfolio work. MIE Documentation Specialists' work becomes particularly important as the CMIE prepares its Journal for Music-in-Education for print; the photos that are collected by MIE Documentation Specialists are those that are looked at first when deciding what images are used for publication. Because the centerpiece of portfolio work is its documentation, MIE Documentation Specialists can also serve as mentors for their peers who are making portfolios of their own.
- Sample Inquiry Questions:
- What scaffolding does CMIE need to provide so that it can collect the documentation needed to support the dissemination of research culled from our Concentration program?
- What trends will become visible once we start collecting and analyzing documentation of the MIE Concentration and Guided Internship programs?
- To what extent should we disseminate ths collected forms of documentation to the larger NEC (and/or MIENC) community?
- Sample Documentation Pathways:
- Any MIE Class
- Other MIE Guided Internships
- Patrick Keppel's Drama Workshop
- Sample Inquiry Questions:
- MIE NewsBloggers. The MIE NewsBlog is a new feature of the CMIE; its main purpose is to disseminate to the community news on our projects, internships, and programs. MIE NewsBloggers invited to write for the MIE NewsBlog can include: any student conducting an MIE Guided Internship (not limited to Research Center internships); any student enrolled in an MIE course; MIE alums; MIE Faculty members; MIE staff members; and invited topical guests. Bloggers are encouraged to share stories from their MIE experiences, invite the community to any public performance outreach, and post commentary/opinions from an MIE perspective on current events in the fields of music and education.
- Boston Arts Academy
- Our partnership continues, with the Boston Arts Academy (near Fenway Park). More details to come. Past internships have allowed MIE students to teach group keyboard, music theory, and Solfege classrooms; as well as private lessons in voice and piano.
- From The Top
- This nationally-acclaimed radio show is looking for MIE interns interested in helping them get re-acquainted with alums who have appeared on the program. Research opportunities involve surveying past performers, creating an alumni network and designing professional development opportunities. Field opportunities include doing performance outreach in local Boston schools with "From The Top" performers.
- Learn more about From The Top at its website: www.fromthetop.org
- This nationally-acclaimed radio show is looking for MIE interns interested in helping them get re-acquainted with alums who have appeared on the program. Research opportunities involve surveying past performers, creating an alumni network and designing professional development opportunities. Field opportunities include doing performance outreach in local Boston schools with "From The Top" performers.
- Create-Your-Own Internship
- Already have a part-time job teaching music? Or your own private students? Or have an idea for something else? Meet with Randy Wong in the MIE office to see if you can kill two birds with one stone, and create your own internship.
Past Internships
- Spring 2006
- NEC students were involved in teaching internships at Boston Arts Academy, a public pilot high school located near Fenway Stadium. MIE Interns Andrew Bisset, Linda Kim, Cicilia Yudha, Laura Colgate and Brigid McCarthy taught courses in music technology, chamber music, group keyboard, and music theory respectively. Monica Soto-Gil is continued her work at the Hattie B. Cooper Community Center in Roxbury, MA. Additionally, Fred Sienkiewicz, Andy Stetson, Haruka Horii, and Andrew Bisset were each on their second (or more!) semester of research work at the MIE Research Center.
- Fall 2005
- Donald Johnston and Chelsea Basler taught young children at the Blackstone Community Center.
- Previous Semesters' Internships
- Boston Arts Academy teaching opportunities have included: Solfege workshops, voice lessons, group piano and private piano lessons
- Bailiss Assisted Living Community - Class internship with Paul Burdick's MIE courses
- From The Top (NPR radio program)
- Peabody Elementary School (Cambridge, MA) - Improvisation workshops with students in grades K-3
- Conservatory Lab Charter School
- Creating Original Opera (workshops with Metropolitan Opera Guild)
- Digital Playgrounds - Class internship with Michael Cain's course of same name; teaches students about rhythms & music technology, making hip-hop beats, and producing their own records
- Performance Outreach
MIE Internship Portfolio Documents
... Can be found at: Resources for Current MIE at NEC Students.
For further assistance with MIE Internships, please contact MIE Program Advisor Randy Wong: 617-585-1363 or e-mail: <randy [at] mieatnec.org>. You can also visit our offices in Jordan Hall: rooms 309-311 and 313.
290 Huntington Avenue, Boston MA, 02115 | tel: 617.585.1363 | Funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts