ORGANIZATION
Gazelle International is a young nonprofit based in Guilford, CT, USA near New Haven, home of Yale University. Our mission is to help colleges and universities provide high quality international education to more students, so all have the opportunity to create paths to successful careers and lives in our complex global world. Our virtual exchange approach provides a low-cost, on-ramp for creating sustainable campus internationalization strategies. Called "Click,"(Collaborative Learning for International Capabilities and Knowledge), we harness tools — faculty talent, technology and travel — to enable students to develop their international capabilities through cross-country teamwork in classroom settings. After 4 years with our first major project with the Connecticut Community College International Education Initiative, we have begun to grow “the business”, targeting institutional clients as well as individual teaching partners in the US, France, Holland, Mexico and other locations. Click HERE for a video of our vision. Also see our recent article on the first three years of the CT CLICK program co-authored with UVA PhD plus interns.
SPONSOR
Nancy L. Ruther, EdD, Principal and Founder
PURPOSE
This internship will give students the chance to contribute meaningfully to the evolving goals and practices of Gazelle International. Professional development areas include:
- Learning to work in a virtual environment in the US and internationally
- Communicating with teachers and clients across cultures and time zones
- Coaching teachers, leading and facilitating workshops in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary areas
- Learning about the community college system in the US and university systems overseas
- Targeting teachers’ learning needs with a mix of compelling, useful materials and a range of pedagogic tools and platforms
- Helping to incorporate the lessons from student and teacher assessments into our training
CAREER DEVELOPMENT
This internship will prepare interns for careers in any of the following:
- Faculty
- Industry and For-profit
- Non-profit
- Communication, Outreach, and Publishing
- Teaching
- Higher Education Services
SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
This internship will provide experiences to develop and polish the following skills:
- Communication to diverse audiences
- Interdisciplinary team collaboration
- Knowledge of sector and networking
- Problem-solving and analytical thinking
- Project management and leadership
- Thought leadership and innovation
- Teaching, mentoring, and training
- Working in a virtual environment internationally
RESPONSIBILITIES
The “virtual learning liaison” will be an integral part of the training, coaching and materials development activities at the core of our work. The intern will develop training materials and facilitate and run workshops for teachers who are new to Virtual Exchange. They will help put together conference presentations regarding the training and methods used by Gazelle International to prepare teachers for Virtual Exchange. They will communicate with faculty from colleges across the world that work with us. The intern will learn to use LinkrEducation, one of our classroom connection platforms, to share questions, concerns, lessons, tips and “best practices” across the Click network and with the larger VE professional community. They will share our work with potential college partners and teachers participating in recruitment and outreach by writing blog posts for Gazelle International’s website and fracturing them into social media streams using Hootsuite. The intern will coach teachers who are new to Virtual Exchange through their first CLICK projects.
MENTORING PLAN
The intern will receive direct mentoring and supervision by the sponsor, including initial training and orientation regarding the mission of the organization and standards for communication, with the expectation of increasing autonomy as the internship progresses. As relevant, the intern may be offered the opportunity to attend and present work at professional conferences on international higher education and virtual exchange. Another member of the Gazelle Intl staff, a teaching and learning coordinator will also help with on-boarding and guidance in the working details and systems. As a largely virtual work arrangement, the normal means of communication will be via Zoom, WhatsApp, phone, email and the ASANA project management system. Normally, the work will be conducted on a weekly basis with multi-week goals and weekly team meetings.
DESIRED QUALITIES
Prospective interns should have baseline experience in some of these areas and the motivation to develop professionally in each of them
- Good communication skills in writing and in person by phone or in virtual meetings.
- Cross-cultural and/or second language study-work experience helpful.
- French and/or Spanish skills are desirable
- An excellent eye for detail and ability to identify trends and/or flaws in data or logic
- Prior experience in managing data and data collections in a professional or research environment is preferred.
- Proficiency, experience (preferred) or interest in data analysis and evaluation methods and supporting tools, e.g. data visualization with Tableau, simple format reports with Excel , data cleaning moving from Survey Monkey to Excel for analysis, basic statistical analysis of survey data (stat packs vary),
- Familiarity with teaching and learning goals and assessment approaches and different higher education systems and cross-cultural differences around the world
- Prior experience in collegiate Institutional Research, corporate or government policy or strategy offices, or working with a Center for Teaching and Learning or Academic leadership office evaluating and supporting teachers would be useful.
- Interest and experience in techno-pedagogy and EdTech. On fields of study, we can accommodate different PhD fields with an eye to their ability to work across and integrate different perspectives. Education research, social science and institutional research or management and policy fields that use institutional and social analytic approaches and tools would likely fit well.
DURATION AND EFFORT
In order to meet the goals outlined above, this internship may span up to two consecutive terms based on the student's availability.
FUNDING
PhD+ interns will be paid up to $5000 per semester ($25 per hour for 200 hours per semester).