Can Experiential Education Foster Essential Learning Outcomes

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Can Experiential Education Foster Essential
Learning Outcomes?

• Amanda Marsden
• Richard Porter
• Thomas Sherman
• Presented at the Association of American Colleges
  and Universities meeting on Integrative Designs
  for General Education and Assessment, February
  21-13, 2008, Boston, Massachusetts.

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About Us
Amanda Marsden

• Senior
• Major in Communications Studies, Minor in
  Business Administration
• Co-op, Study Abroad, Service-Learning
• Facilitator for peer mentoring group program

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About Us
Thomas Sherman

• Professor of Mathematics
• Member of Faculty Senate committees on curriculum
  (issue experiential ed as part of gen ed
  requirement) and on student and faculty
  assessment.
• Taught Applied Math Capstone.

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About Us
Richard Porter

• Professor of Mathematics
• Former Vice President of Cooperative Education
• Special Assistant to the Dean of Arts Sciences
  for Experiential Education
• Program Director, Marthas Vineyard Summer
  Institute on Experiential Education

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What are we going to do over the next 90 minutes?

• Share thoughts and ideas together about
  Experiential Education
• Identify joys/challenges/issues associated with
  Experiential Education
• Discuss ways to realize the potential for
  out-of-class experiences to promote AACU
  Essential Learning Outcomes

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About Northeastern University

• Ranked 4th in the country among private
  universities for total applications (30,000
  applications for Fall 2007 entering class of
  2,800 students)
• Consistently ranked by U.S. News World Report
  among the best programs in the Internships/Co-op
  list of Programs to Look for
• Requires for graduation an Integrated
  Experiential Learning component---co-op,
  internship, service-learning, study abroad,
  community service or research

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About the College of Arts Sciences

• More than 16,000 applications this year (up from
  15,000 last year) for 1,100 students
• Has required an experiential component for
  graduation since the entering class of 2000
• More than 2,000 Arts Sciences students will
  participate this year in co-op, study abroad,
  Service-Learning, Research, .

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What is Experiential Education?

• Internships/Co-op
• Service-Learning
• Study Abroad/International Experiences
• Community-Based Research Projects
• Undergraduate Research/Creative Projects

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What are the Important Issues?

• Transfer of Learning (taken for granted).
• Clustering (learned skills are grouped in
  key-accessed clusters. This is efficient but
  opposes transfer.)
• How do we gain access to relevant clusters?

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Transference Being Human

• What makes us special? Maybe it's a floodlight
  thing. Harvard evolutionary biologist Mark Hauser
  yesterday presented a new hypothesis of what he
  calls Humaniqueness, the qualities that set
  human thought apart from animal intelligence. The
  essence of that difference, he said, seems to be
  that animals' minds operate much like laser
  beams, focused on solving very specific problems
  while human minds work more broadly, something
  like floodlights, and can take knowledge acquired
  from one task or sphere and apply it elsewhere.

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Clustering

• A basic feature of acquired skills.
• Examples driving a car, playing an instrument,
  cooking, skiing. These skills may be hard to
  transfer.
• Writing well, thinking analytically, arguing
  persuasively we like to think these skills
  transfer well and justify liberal education. But
  do they transfer well?

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Components of Experiential Education

• Engagement
• Emotional level
• What drives the student sense of responsibility
  ownership of experience
• Experience leaves an imprint on a student
• Example Study Abroad in London
• Truly felt experience

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Components of Experiential Education

• Reflection
• Most important component
• Different forms
• Post-experience reflection
• Reflection-in-action
• Transforms the experience into learning
• Example Reflection-in-action with mentor
• Able to make in-the-moment changes to co-op,
  enhancing overall experience
• Change way of thinking and problem solving

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Components of Experiential Education

• Transformative
• Experiential Education opportunities transform
  students
• Both in- and out-of the classroom
• Change ways that students think, react and
  approach problems
• Develop skills that cannot be taught in the
  classroom will be valuable for life
• Example Better sense of post-graduation goals,
  community involvement responsibility

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Discuss Joys/Challenges/Issues

• Connect out-of-class learning to the AACU
  Essential Learning Outcomes
• Promote transfer of learning
• Deepen student learning and engagement through
  reflection
• Obtain resources
• Find the organizational structure that best
  serves students and the institution

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The Big Challenge

• There is a young, growing, increasingly
  sophisticated scholarship of education that seeks
  an answer to the kinds of questions we have been
  discussing see Bransford et al, How People
  Learn, NRC report. It is moving to inform how
  to workshops with a deep analysis. It is time
  to build a broader awareness of this development
  and get involved with this scholarship.

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