Balancing student learning and commercial outcomes in the workplace

Abstract

Community engagement is growing across higher education. Cooperative education and other internships are well established in the literature as pedagogies with links to experiential and connected learning. Cooperative programs combine business, industry, educational providers and students paid on-the-job. Most studies of work-based learning focus on individual or small group-based models. This paper reports on a large and complex work-integrated project involving 35 students from seven disciplines in an Australian higher education context. The students took 10 weeks to research, design and implement an online financial skills training program for small business owners. Students worked in teams to create an online content management system, design the website, develop and edit content and produce audio visual material. Feedback from industry partners and students identified that greater attention to planning, student selection and overall project management could have increased the overall benefits. Findings suggest specific ways to improve large group work-based programs.

A Systematic Review of Project Allocation Methods in Undergraduate Transnational Engineering Education

“…Mason O'Connor et al, for example, note that the literature on community engagement through the curriculum suggests it enhances the quality of academic work, employability and lifelong learning [44]. Moreover, Lee et al claim that external engagement with real issues has been shown to increase students' confidence through placing them in positions of responsibility and exposing them to a greater diversity of learning experiences [45]. There are other benefits of engaging in community and work-based learning for students, such as the development of critical thinking, gaining insight into the complex nature of knowledge, showing enthusiasm for a subject and greater subject-related understanding [46,47].…”

How to Design Empowering Work-based Learning Settings to Foster Students’ Competence Development

“…That can be fostered in higher education through a preparation of the WBL setting by training or case studies, hence problem-based learning, where students make enactive mastery experience they can draw on afterwards. Students learn, thereby, selfdirected learning, to structure knowledge in order to use it in the vocational world, decision-making and problem-solving processes, as well as relevant reasoning and, at the same time, their motivation to learn and their social skills are enhanced [46]. Cooperative internships are one particular form of doing this.…”

“…Internships are a co-operative education experience, where universities become an involved party in the internship through mentoring, preparing and accompanying, thus, the mostly informal learning experience in the vocational world is supported and accompanied by the formal setting und supervision of the university. The classroombased education is then combined and mutually agreed with the internships, which means that students work alone or in groups in a given timeframe for an organisation on a particular and complex project or problem that aims at a concrete outcome for the organisation [46]. Thereby, students have a high impact on the work results.…”

Linking Theory To Practice: Experiential Learning In An Employee Wellness Practicum

“…Hoover and Whitehead (1975) expand this definition stating, "Experiential learning exists when a personally responsible participant cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally processes knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes in a learning situation characterized by a high level of active involvement" (as cited in Gentry, 1990, p. 10). Experiential learning involves many formats including internships, practicum, field experiences, cooperative education, apprenticeships, or service learning (Kolb, 1984;Cantor, 1995;Linn, 1999;Lee, McGuiggan, & Holland, 2010).…”