Speaker 1: Welcome back to another 10 with Ken. In the past couple of weeks, we've looked at the way in which passive lecture is being displaced more and more by active learning pedagogies in the classroom. But increasingly, careerist students are looking for work experiences in particular as part of their college or university programs. This week, we look at experiential learning in higher ed. Let's take 10 and take a look. Colleges and polytechnics have always focused on career-oriented programs and real-world workplace experience. Here's how SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary describes the benefits of experiential learning.

Speaker 2: We really applied end-zone learning, so the students are doing a bunch of different things, not only concept, notion, and theory, but they know how to apply them. We are in constant contact with industry members. They give us a lot of feedback on what we're teaching the students, also the technology that we're using. Yeah, I would never go anywhere else. This is, in my opinion, probably one of the best places to learn.

Speaker 1: Students at Sioux College definitely prefer learning in the great outdoors.

Speaker 3: Field camp is awesome. You get to hang outside, learn new things in the bush, and you get to learn a whole bunch of different techniques. Yeah, you need some in-class stuff too, but it's also a lot better to get out and actually

Speaker 2: get your hands on what you're talking about in class than actually doing it.

Speaker 1: Overall, I've had just an amazing time. Algonquin College boils it down to a concise mantra.

Speaker 3: This is our classroom. This is where we learn. This is my classroom.

Speaker 1: Experiential learning doesn't just take the form of field trips and work placements. In the past few years, the maker movement has taken hold on more and more college and university campuses. At the University of Southern California, the Iovine and Young Academy is a makerspace that allows for problem-based learning, 3D printing, rapid prototyping, and more. Many institutions have recognized this maker movement. In the lower mainland of B.C., Douglas College opened a demonstration maker lab in a glass fishbowl in the River Market. It features 3D printers and scanners, drones, and virtual reality hardware. Just over a month ago, Ryerson University unveiled a YouTube makerspace. It offers training, networking, and production assistance to would-be entertainers, artists, and musicians. If you've got more than a thousand subscribers on your YouTube channel, you can attend workshops. We're about a third of the way there. If you haven't subscribed yet, please click that red button. At least in theory, optimal learning outcomes ought to be achieved by moving a student from concrete experiential learning through reflection, abstraction, back to experimentation, and more concrete experience. A few decades ago, the most common form of experiential learning for a university student might be foreign exchange. But still, just one or two percent of undergraduates go abroad in any given year. Now Universities Canada reports that more than 50 percent of undergraduates get some form of experiential learning in their programs, whether simply lab work or community service learning, internships, or co-ops. A 2012 survey of graduating students from Canadian colleges and universities asked them what they felt were the most important academic activities for their personal growth and development. The only three answers selected by more than half of the respondents were internships, co-ops, and work experience. So from the perspective of new graduates, the most important academic activity appears to be work-integrated learning. Colleges in particular excel at creating experiential work opportunities for their students. Lakeland College in Vermilion, Alberta is home to the world's oldest and largest student-managed farm. Students care for thousands of acres of crops, hundreds of head of livestock, and make six-figure financial decisions. Rhodes College in Central Alberta partnered with Pomeroy Inn & Suites to create a hotel and convention center on campus. Students get work experience in hotel restaurant operations, there's a teaching brewery, and a teaching smokehouse. I think the North American leader in on-campus learning enterprises is Niagara College. A college subsidiary manages campus businesses including a culinary institute, a teaching winery, commercial greenhouses, a teaching brewery, an aesthetic salon, and a gourmet restaurant. These learning enterprises not only give hundreds of students work experience, but they generate a surplus for the college, sometimes as much as a million dollars a year. Admittedly, most of the profit is coming from two businesses in particular, the brewery and the winery. Many colleges create on-campus ad agencies to give their marketing students hands-on experience. At St. Lawrence College, the Spark Production House has a unique focus on creating apps, videos, and learning resources for faculty members. In a tough labor market, students and parents are focused on career outcomes, and work-integrated learning has become an irresistible draw for most. But in a lot of ways, the trend is moving too far downstream. A variety of charter high schools offer students the opportunity to stream into career pathways in grade 9. Since 1935, Raisbeck Aviation High School, just outside Seattle, has offered students an aviation-focused curriculum. In 2014, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology announced that it would be partnering with the local Edmonton school boards to create a high school just adjacent to its campus. The Alberta Collegiate for Science, Technology, and Trades will offer high school students the opportunity to access NAIT labs and researchers, and to earn dual credits from the Polytechnic. West Island College, a private high school in Calgary, opened its Business Institute program in 2011. Students work on team projects, get mentorship from business executives, access faculty at some leading university business schools, and can earn a certificate in addition to their high school diploma. West Island College also has health and engineering streams. So with students focused on career outcome, above all else, it's not surprising that work-integrated learning experience is critical. Maybe it's also not that surprising that many students would opt to take a gap year in order to gain work experience and skip classrooms altogether. The UnCollege movement has spawned a new company you'll find at uncollege.org. Thiel Fellow Dale Stephens offers students a self-directed 12-month gap year experience, including mentors, internships, and travel. The price tag for this experiential learning year without classrooms is $16,000. Thanks again for taking 10 with me. Next time, we'll take a detailed look at a specific kind of experiential learning opportunity – campus incubators and accelerators. So you don't miss it, take a moment now to subscribe on iTunes, YouTube, or by email. But speaking of experiential learning, Nova Scotia Community College launched a fascinating series of STRIVE videos last March. For my horse-crazy daughter, here are some excerpts from the one featuring Stephanie Clark from the Therapeutic Recreation program. Just in case you missed it.

Speaker 3: From the moment I was born, my mother, she'd bring me down to the barn and I had my own pony that I would ride around on. I took two years of a business degree. I realized that it was not for me, that I couldn't see myself sitting at a desk. I heard about the Therapeutic Recreation program at NSCC Marconi Campus. While at NSCC, we had the opportunity to do a work placement. I did mine at a local guest home working with people who have disabilities. Where I am right now in life, I would never have dreamt that I would be able to have this job, to be able to spend numerous hours here at the barn, but also help people. That's something that I really, really love to do and the more I do it, the more I love it. My education enabled me to have a career with horses. It was something that I always wanted to do and now I'm able to do it.