Make Education More Meaningful with Experiential Learning

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 In this final episode of our first season, we're discussing experiential learning, which

spk_0 is gaining significant recognition in higher ed for its ability to play students in immersive

spk_0 learning experiences.

spk_0 Today and in the future, these experiences will be increasingly sought out among students

spk_0 and faculty across the country.

spk_0 To dive into this change-making topic I'm speaking with Connie Yowell, Senior Vice Chancellor

spk_0 of Education Innovation at Northeastern University.

spk_0 And Ken O'Donnell, Vice Provost at Cal State University Dominguez Hills, and the Editor-in-Chief

spk_0 of the Journal, Experiential Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

spk_0 Both Connie and Ken lead multiple initiatives that promote experiential learning.

spk_0 Connie spearheads the Northeastern University Global Experience Office, which offers a range

spk_0 of experiential learning, including an international co-op for students to work abroad.

spk_0 Ken runs a myriad of initiatives that connect CSU Dominguez Hills students with real-world

spk_0 opportunities.

spk_0 For example, their internship program facilitates partnerships between students and local businesses,

spk_0 organizations, and government agencies, and both of them are big proponents of bringing

spk_0 experiential learning into the classroom.

spk_0 Experiential learning is the next step in higher education, as it offers students opportunities

spk_0 to develop practical skills, build professional networks, make an impact on their communities,

spk_0 and most importantly, feel prepared for the real world and real-life work once they graduate.

spk_0 Tune into this episode as I learn about experiential learning from these two wise and experienced

spk_0 change makers.

spk_0 So Ken, I'm going to start with you and ask you what brought you into what created your

spk_0 interest in experiential and high-impact learning and how do you get into this?

spk_0 I wonder that all the time because I'm certainly into it a lot by now.

spk_0 I really swear by this stuff.

spk_0 And I think it's because I came late in my career to higher education generally.

spk_0 I had a whole other life working in industry, different ends of the entertainment industry,

spk_0 screenwriting, and then I got into teaching when a friend of mine had a college class that

spk_0 was over enrolled and they needed someone else to teach it.

spk_0 And then the more I got in, the more I realized that what I had learned making independent

spk_0 movies was something that education could benefit from.

spk_0 This very hands-on learned by doing a lot of the things that I've taught as a faculty

spk_0 member just don't make sense in the abstract.

spk_0 You have to do them.

spk_0 You have to have that wraparound experiential kind of pedagogy to get anywhere really with

spk_0 student learning that matters.

spk_0 Interesting.

spk_0 This is awesome.

spk_0 Connie, you have had quite a few jobs that have stepped you and all of them have learned

spk_0 it with this in recent years.

spk_0 So what about you?

spk_0 How did you get drawn?

spk_0 Yeah, thank you for that.

spk_0 And maybe in another life I'll be a Gen Zier and be a generation that changes jobs every

spk_0 five years.

spk_0 I've had a wonderful set of opportunities that have been great.

spk_0 And I think similar to Ken, I think what we end up really focusing on often comes out

spk_0 of at least a portion of it our own experiences.

spk_0 And so similar to Ken, I've had where my learning has been most robust.

spk_0 I like to think of myself as a former athlete, my time in my youth trying to get good at

spk_0 something and really the only way to become an even in athletics to become a for just

spk_0 to do it and to be deeply grounded at it.

spk_0 I grew up on a farm.

spk_0 All the learning that happens in a rural and agricultural community is out in the world

spk_0 doing it.

spk_0 And so I think that became an intuition for me.

spk_0 Then when I went to grad school, it became a scholar and an academic really drawn and driven

spk_0 by the theories of Vagatsky and Dewey, which are all grounded in and really make great

spk_0 sense of why we should all be engaged in experiential learning from a pedagogical

spk_0 perspective.

spk_0 And then when the digital turn came and really started going deep with game designers,

spk_0 user design and really understanding the relationship between how we can build online

spk_0 experiences and learning, it all just keeps coming back to experiential learning.

spk_0 There's a through line through all of it, even though the world has gone through such

spk_0 dramatic changes over the last 20 or 30 years.

spk_0 For me, experiential learning has been the through line.

spk_0 That's really great.

spk_0 And this is going to be a fun conversation because we're all really aligned.

spk_0 We call it in our company.

spk_0 We call it learn while doing.

spk_0 We think you learn best while you're doing as opposed to passive learning, which has

spk_0 been such a, I call it the big info dump, right?

spk_0 That has been such a two prevalent.

spk_0 How do you define experiential learning in the context of higher education?

spk_0 And it kind of I'll start with you on that.

spk_0 That's a great question.

spk_0 And I'm at Northeastern and the reason I'm at Northeastern is because I think it's really

spk_0 one of the world's leaders in experiential learning.

spk_0 And so we can get very complicated in our definitions and I'm not going to go there.

spk_0 That's the simplest way to talk about it for us has been the twofold.

spk_0 One is at its most simplest.

spk_0 It is for us when a learner comes in contact with the world and transformation happens.

spk_0 And for the student or the learner, that transformation we call learning.

spk_0 For the world, we call it impact.

spk_0 And so at Northeastern, we hold ourselves accountable because this requires a student

spk_0 coming in contact with the world that we feel accountable and responsible both to student

spk_0 learning and to impact in the world.

spk_0 So part of our mission at Northeastern is to have impact in the world, period.

spk_0 And in that part of that mission is because we also know that is the best learning experience for our students.

spk_0 What I'll then also say is that for us, there's always a cycle that has to happen,

spk_0 which is there's the doing, there's reflection, there's iteration, and then there's doing again.

spk_0 And so whether it's in a course, whether it's in our co-op program or any of the kinds of experiential learning opportunities,

spk_0 we offer our students, they're always going through that loop, that cycle of, I'm going to go do, I'm going to reflect and learn

spk_0 and figure out how to iterate on what I just did, and then I'm going to go do again.

spk_0 That's awesome.

spk_0 I don't know that I have to ask this question, but what is driving the trend to incorporate this?

spk_0 You see, you're Northeastern is in like the King Queen and whatever for ages, but now you're seeing it really come really.

spk_0 And Ken's book will have to get to that a little bit about scaling, experiential and high impact learning is really key.

spk_0 So what do you think are driving these trends?

spk_0 Yeah, so it's really interesting.

spk_0 For Northeastern, it's not a trend. It's what we've been doing for a hundred years.

spk_0 We feel like the broader public though is really catching up and demanding it in a way that we haven't seen it demanded and before.

spk_0 And I think it, you know, the last five years have been fascinating for us as a globe.

spk_0 And I think there are two things coming out of it as we see our students post COVID talking to parents and students.

spk_0 And we really see two things happening that are coming together.

spk_0 One is coming out of COVID experiencing in many respects and economic downturn and recession.

spk_0 There's no question that parents and students want their education to be relevant.

spk_0 They want to know in a world that is constantly changing now that we all understand is constantly changing.

spk_0 There's got to be some security that I know that when I'm making this commitment, there's going to be something at the end of the rainbow that is going to allow me to have some security.

spk_0 And that's job security. We see that across the board.

spk_0 The second thing though is that we have had a pandemic. We have had climate change. We have had Black Lives Matter all happen at the same time to really become public and in conversation.

spk_0 And so we see our students saying over and over again, I want to be, I want to have a job.

spk_0 I want to have job security and I want to make an impact in the world.

spk_0 I expect college and I expect this experience in college to lead me to know how to make a change and be a part of solving these problems in the world.

spk_0 We've not seen 18 and 19 year olds articulate that in the way that they're articulating it now.

spk_0 And so I think that's driving the experiential learning that's part of is this higher ed experience going to give me those two things and those skill sets that I know I'm going to need and create opportunity for me to do both.

spk_0 And that is so beautiful. It's funny. We hear a lot of faculty will say, oh, complain about the students. Students are they cheat. They do this or that or whatever because and embracing the students of today and why they're there and how they want to learn.

spk_0 And experiential learning can replace some of the rather artificial summative assessment that we've had isn't as a high red world.

spk_0 But so Ken, what do you have anything to add about what you feel are the trends driving it because you're seeing experiential learning uptick in lots of institutions.

spk_0 We really are a lot that are much, much newer to the game than northeastern.

spk_0 And I think carry what you were just saying about experiential learning and the capacity to use it really for assessment as well as for education as a replacement for fairly artificial summative assessments is part of what's driving it.

spk_0 And a lot of us in higher ed are frankly back on our heels. We have a pretty bad reputation for increased cost, increased student indebtedness declining relevance, lots of headlines about how maybe colleges, what you need maybe a short term technical credential will get you just as far along in your life.

spk_0 One of the values of experiential learning is that it lets us get at the difference between college ways of learning and other ways of learning so that we can illuminate that flexibility that comes with a with baccalaureate attainment that nimbleness around critical thinking and effective communication and teamwork that's really

spk_0 portable that's transferable across domains settings technologies that's going to be what makes our graduates resilient and experiential education does a better job of illustrating that than other kinds of education.

spk_0 And they say deep learning really comes when you're able to transfer that learning to new context new settings when that's what this does.

spk_0 But it also engages students students aren't engaged information is so ubiquitous right they're not engaged with transfer information they're engaged with doing so can when we met to discuss this episode you said you believe that experiential learning makes learning more meaningful.

spk_0 Sure and it's funny because I was thinking of that just now when Connie was talking about what the students there come in saying they want we've seen the same thing even for students that I characterized earlier as a little skeptical a little unsure they even wanted college in the first place.

spk_0 There is no doubt no equivocation at all is why they came to us and increasingly it they're not motivated by salaries maybe when they get older they will be but for now they just see the world as a hot mess the things that Connie just rattled off the black lives matter the global pandemic climate change food insecurity social justice everywhere it's they really feel like someone needs to step up and it's got to be us.

spk_0 And I want the skills that I'm going to need to apply that and so an argument that experiential education makes learning more meaningful is especially timely because this population is looking above all for meaning.

spk_0 Yeah that's awesome.

spk_0 One of the challenges of integrating experiential learning into the college experience and I know you are front and center on this one Connie and we'll also talk later we'll talk about scaling but right now we'll just talk about integrating it into the experience and I say the experience I don't like to use that word curriculum because it's not just in the classroom.

spk_0 That's right.

spk_0 So I'll give you a little bit of an overview of how the offerings at Northeastern and what the integration looks like so because we are particularly well known for our co-op experience which is just an extraordinary experience and just so folks know what co-op is our students go out six months at a time out to work in industry.

spk_0 So they completely leave the university and become fully employed in a company for six months and the idea here is it's separate from the three month internship that most students most students may do in college during the summer.

spk_0 We run them generally from July to December or from January to June and the idea is that it is not a special project that a company has created for a cohort of students coming for the summer.

spk_0 They're hiring them as employees and so our students are having a full time employment experience.

spk_0 All of our students we have 10,000 students right now out on co-op.

spk_0 All of our students go out on co-op everyone who graduates has had at least one co-op most of them have two to three.

spk_0 So that means that our students are leaving Northeastern when they graduate with anywhere from six to 18 months of experience working in companies many of them end up being employed by that the last company that they are working on.

spk_0 So that means that they did their co-op with now in addition to co-op some folks may not know this but because we think the entire campus and student life is part of experiential learning and to Ken's point and your point carry about far transfer.

spk_0 So what we are trying to ensure through experiential learning is that our students are taking the skills and knowledge that they're learning and having lots of opportunities to apply those knowledge and skills in different contexts.

spk_0 That's the agility that's going to lead to resilience that's going to enable them to solve problems whether it's they've changed jobs five times or they're in different kinds of social movements are working and startups whatever they're doing.

spk_0 So we have 14 campuses around the world. So we've and we've just merged with Mills we have an Oakland campus we have a London campus we have a Vancouver and Toronto campus and an Arlington campus and we just opened a Miami campus.

spk_0 So we have very strong mobility programs we expect our students to not only go out on co-op which is having opportunities across different work experiences.

spk_0 We think they are global citizens and that they've got to apply their skills in global context as well.

spk_0 So we are building an offering extraordinary experiences for them across these 14 campuses.

spk_0 So it's a combination of work, global citizenship and then we're in our one institution. So we also have research labs as well as community engaged and social impact work we do a lot of partnerships and across these 14 cities and embossed in with government agencies.

spk_0 Because we want our students doing public service as also part of what's going to be where they're going to get their experience.

spk_0 So we take all of those offerings and then also integrate them into our curriculum and what it has occasioned on the curricular side is that northeastern has become quite well known for its combined majors.

spk_0 Because I think we've all gotten to the point of really understanding that our disciplines are not actually organized in a way that they're going to enable our students to solve problems right you have a major problem in the world.

spk_0 You don't always ask for a historian to come and solve that problem.

spk_0 But yet you want people to have the historical knowledge that's needed to solve the problem.

spk_0 So we've built that we have a huge we have over 150 combined majors. So whether a student wants to do this is one of my favorites theater and computer science.

spk_0 That's one of our combined majors.

spk_0 So because we really want our students to have the core disciplinary skills they're going to need to be leaders in their field.

spk_0 But to have it sit at the intersection and be interdisciplinary and how they bring those disciplines and the knowledge together in the context of an experience.

spk_0 So that's really we've got them out in the world and we've been really adapting and adjusting and transforming our curriculum to be more the combined integrative curriculum.

spk_0 So that we've got the intersections of the disciplines sitting in the heart of the problems that they're grappling with in the world.

spk_0 Can you're sitting at Cal State University in the system of Cal State University where it's a tree a very large octopus of 23 institutions that have different personalities that are all part of a very integrated system that has a lot of personality characteristics across the system even though you can't really say that to Mingus Hills and Fullerton while nearby are very similar.

spk_0 And I think though you have seen front and center the challenges of integrating experience experiential learning in a system where you don't have the complete leadership commitment and resources of northeastern.

spk_0 So how have you seen it? What are the challenges you've seen in the Cal State system, for example?

spk_0 Yeah, great question. Before I worked at the Dominguez Hills campus, I worked in the California State University system office and carry that's how you want to come in.

spk_0 So yeah, so I knew that was the high end your question. So I had a pretty good bird's eye view for many years across the 23 campuses and you're right it's interesting they have differences.

spk_0 But because the California master plan for higher education segmented higher ed into research intensive in one field at another end the very access oriented open admission community colleges and then the Cal State system where I work sits in the middle of those.

spk_0 And so even though there's differences, we're all regional comprehensive.

spk_0 We're all committed to affordability access equity attainment closing gaps.

spk_0 The challenges that we find as you said, we don't come into it with quite the resources or the explicit public commitment that northeastern benefits from we just we don't have that reputation that automatically draws educators and students alike who are looking for that kind of education.

spk_0 We have to work on it within our status quo approach to higher education.

spk_0 And so that does create some challenges. I think a lot of faculty in the CSU and especially on my campus have found work around to a model of credit our funding, a traditional looking transcript, the assumption that learning happens exclusively in courses you said a minute ago you want to.

spk_0 And so we will curriculum because we know learning.

spk_0 It's interesting at the ground level. A lot of our faculty and students have fully understood that.

spk_0 But when we go to operationalize it and build it into administrative structures that work for transferred articulation that work for admission to graduate school we find we then have to retranslate back 50 to 100 years of higher education history and present everything is nothing has changed.

spk_0 Because otherwise the pieces don't fit together properly. That's a challenge right there is that constant active interpretation and I would say the other one that's probably even more that one that like I say we found work around the one that's a little harder for us.

spk_0 Is that too often we find a trade off between the very best educational experiences we have to offer.

spk_0 And the availability of the students who most stand to benefit.

spk_0 They may have family obligations they're working often full time they may be commuting for many of them the shift to online was a godsend.

spk_0 But it made it harder for us to have confidence that what they were learning was really deep transferable useful experiential.

spk_0 We have to find more ways to let students earn money as they're doing this kind of learning with us so that they don't constantly have to decide between their own education and their other obligations.

spk_0 What can we do to ensure I remember Ken when he first published the book and we ran into each other I think I went to your session at the AC new conference and we're talking about scaling and and you were saying.

spk_0 The experience learning tends to be more accessible to affluent students right because they can afford to do these experiences you know what what's being done what do you see at institutions maybe conical start with you and I know you worked you can talk a little bit about the work you did at snoo before you went to northeastern.

spk_0 But what's being done to really improve the access to experiential outside the classroom or every learner.

spk_0 Yeah so I think that's a great question in it and I think that's one of the big differentiators in the equity conversations who has access to these opportunities and how do we make them more accessible.

spk_0 And I think it's also at to Ken's point it has to be integrated into the world of work in order for particularly low income folks we don't want them making the choice of do I go to school or do I work.

spk_0 And do I take on more debt that just can't be the question that folks are trying to decide between the other thing though that we find amongst students that's just really critical to constantly be aware of is that in addition to the economic opportunities the opportunities to build social capital.

spk_0 And to build your networks and your procedural knowledge about how to work in those worlds is also something that low income communities often don't have access to.

spk_0 And so there's an enormous amount of work that needs to get done both at the level of open access for colleges whether we're talking about SNHU or WGU or some of the colleges that have really taken on the equity issue which I deeply admire and respect.

spk_0 And working with corporate partners to enable that to happen and being able to target the cost of education close to the availability of a Pell grant.

spk_0 Can we actually that's where I think it can can talk to speak to the question of scale.

spk_0 We can't do that in small universities we have to also have we have to think about this from the perspective of scale in order to be able to lower the cost of college to make it a possibility for folks to be able to integrate it in with their work and so I do admire the work of guild and some of the other groups that are working to really think about how do we do work integrated learning.

spk_0 How do we ensure that learning is happening as an opportunity while also being employed and so there are just a large number of companies that have stepped to the plate to participate with higher ed and I think it's those employer partnerships that will be a part of really transforming the relationship between higher ed and the world of work and doing it through the process of experiential learning.

spk_0 So the more that we can add and really start that what that's going to require and this is part of the work we're doing at northeastern as well.

spk_0 And the competency based movement is what are the problems of the work world.

spk_0 What are the data sets of the work world what are the real opportunities that we can take those problems and integrate them into our courses so that we've got a seamless connection between what our students are learning in their courses.

spk_0 And that the actual experiences and the work that they're doing in the courses are directly aligned with what are the needs of the employer.

spk_0 We have a campus in Portland, Maine called the Rue Institute that is working with a whole number of companies and we source the problems that they are that those companies are dealing with in order to integrate those into our courses.

spk_0 And I think that's got to be the future of work integrated learning as we think about academics and then to Ken's point it really is about equity and access and how we lower the cost through scale in order to ensure that we can begin to close the gap there.

spk_0 It's great. That's good.

spk_0 But we are experimenting with some of the same things the work based learning the paid experiences that are designed to be educational as well as income generating.

spk_0 But I'll tell you that's not our main focus or at least it seems like it's less of a prominent focus for us than what Connie was just describing.

spk_0 I think well, we stand to learn a lot from what they figure out at northeastern about that in particular.

spk_0 For us one of the challenges is that our students come to us already employed many of them.

spk_0 They're not lucrative jobs, but there are jobs that are above minimum wage and that they've been in for a while.

spk_0 And so they can't really shift gears before they finish earning the degree in a way that's economically feasible for them.

spk_0 But there are other things we have found we can do for the sake of scale and equity that are short of the kind of interventions that Connie was describing.

spk_0 For us one of the biggest keys is building these into coursework.

spk_0 And I have mixed feelings about that because as you just said, Carrie, it's not only in the courses, but we find that when we leverage the educational value of clubs, organizations,

spk_0 community placements, our equity gaps reappear almost immediately that the students who are the most challenged to enroll in college are also the ones for whom anything optional is discounted is just dismissed.

spk_0 And so we have faculty who are quite committed to cures, for example, course based undergraduate research experiences as a way of scaffolding cutting edge learning in the field, understanding and researching new questions in ways that are accessible and equitable and don't require extra scheduling or extra trips to campus on the part of the students.

spk_0 We also a lot of our academic majors build service learning into degree requirements, a couple of them build even micro study abroad into degree requirements in ways that spread the access into high impact practices and experiential learning across a broader swath of the population.

spk_0 So I think both of you have very good experience and perspective at scaling and I'd love to hear you speak to I think if you were advising other institutions at how did they can scale it turns out there are a lot of elements to scaling experiential learning and that it actually requires have been out being at North Eastern for a couple of years requires a fairly significant infrastructure.

spk_0 In order to do it at scale so I don't want to cause people to hesitate or have fear about I just want to acknowledge that it does take a bit of an infrastructure.

spk_0 So a couple of things to think about because it's about the learner coming in contact with the world.

spk_0 It means that there has to be a part of the university that's really wrapping their arms around the relationships with the world.

spk_0 So whether we call those partnerships or the folks that are made any engagement.

spk_0 There has to be a commitment to really thinking about what those relationships with the local community and the local partners looks like and somebody has to own those.

spk_0 It can't be that every faculty person is having their own relationships or that folks are doing it off the sites of their desk you have to really be committed to the notion that if you're sending students out in the world that's going to have an impact in the world and can be positive or can be negative and you've got to build those relationships.

spk_0 So that's where you've got to start I think and is really critical.

spk_0 The second thing is that it requires a different approach to teaching and pedagogy and you have to be prepared to provide professional development and to support your faculty and the learning curve that it may require.

spk_0 It requires a way to think about projects and it requires a different mindset around assessments and how to think about that.

spk_0 And then lastly not all of our students come in remember they're coming in out of the K 12 system that hasn't exactly moved over towards experiential learning either.

spk_0 And so many of them come in and say just tell me what I need to know so that I can pass the test that's what they were taught coming in.

spk_0 And so there's has to be a fair you have to expect a fair amount of work with the students as well.

spk_0 In order to help them understand where the learning is happening and so I think those are three infrastructure things that peace I'd say on startup is pick an area you can't boil the ocean pick a pillar or pick a piece that you want to start experimenting with to build it there.

spk_0 This great can you've wrote the book on scale.

spk_0 Sure.

spk_0 Where you added the book I've co wrote the book.

spk_0 At least give you a grain of sand of wisdom it may not have developed into a pearl yet but it's getting there.

spk_0 I'm with Connie you can't boil the ocean and even though the full blown scale of experiential education can be daunting to contemplate.

spk_0 You can start very easily and quite productively with what you have most educators come to our field intrinsically motivated.

spk_0 And so even in a context or an institution that's behind the curve you'll find pockets of just brilliance of just people who have made it work with what they have you can find them.

spk_0 And you can connect them to each other and you may be the first one who ever did it because if your institution is especially benign it they may not be particularly involved in the institution.

spk_0 But if you can connect them to each other.

spk_0 I think the first goal is to make visible the hidden curriculum is to take that good work and make it available to students who weren't looking for it who weren't seeking it out.

spk_0 And you can do that without a lot of money that's mostly just talk that's just changing the language and an admission brochure for example.

spk_0 From there I would say the next key step is coding it into the institutional record set the student information system that too is a way of making the hidden curriculum visible for the sake of access and equity.

spk_0 The students who are saying I don't have time for optional I can only stick to what's required will be motivated if they see it transcripted if they understand that the kind of learning you're offering is valued by employers.

spk_0 And you can do those things before you build full-blown infrastructure relationships with the external world.

spk_0 So many faculty have already done that just with friends of theirs in their industries or research partners and other institutions.

spk_0 So you can leverage from that and scale the first part of the ocean boiling project can just be with working with what you have.

spk_0 So I feel like this has been such a great conversation two last questions one can I'm going to ask you what's that as an educator what is the greatest thing you've learned from your work in experiential learning.

spk_0 And writing about it and studying it as well as living it and Connie I'm going to ask you the same thing too.

spk_0 I should have a cool question I will tell you it's a little it's a little nerdy and geeky and maybe not applicable but I find it fascinating the main thing I've learned by working in this area is that experiential learning is deeply.

spk_0 We are inevitably.

spk_0 Adivistically essentially human we evolved by solving problems in groups that were unscripted and messy and urgent and purposeful and that capacity of humans to share what we learn with each other to leverage the power of teens where people bring in diverse strengths.

spk_0 And yet in our zeal to industrialize education to homogenize learning to make it reproducible on a factory model to treat students as though they were interchangeable we bleached all the interest out of learning.

spk_0 And this field this experiential learning is essentially restoring us to the natural state of human intellectual development which is what gives it its power we're not bucking any trends here if anything we're giving in to our own best instincts.

spk_0 That's very cool love that answer can that be my.

spk_0 I want to put it on my computer read it every morning.

spk_0 I'm glad you guys are geeking out with me because that's the sort of story I can only tell to select audiences.

spk_0 That's such a wonderful answer.

spk_0 Connie.

spk_0 I think I'll say the out my intent is to say the same thing basically the same thing that can set a you slightly different words and I'm significantly less eloquent but would say the thing about experiential learning one is that is can alluded to it keeps reminding us that learning is deeply relational.

spk_0 And that learning is about relationships and happens in relationships and that when we from the research that I funded out of MacArthur and other places that the easiest way to say it is that the most robust learning happens when we can bring together and integrate what the student is really interested in and most passionate about with the opportunity to get better at something and build a sense of competence and self efficacy in a community of belonging.

spk_0 That's great.

spk_0 And the only pedagogy I found able to do that is experiential learning.

spk_0 Yeah, that's awesome.

spk_0 Wow.

spk_0 Okay, one last question and this is always the question I always end every of these podcasts with but you guys have given a lot of words of advice so I just say is there one parting word of advice for given that most institutions are actually doing something already but as institutions are thinking of really scaling this and expanding this is one thing you want to say to the

spk_0 president or the chancellor or the provost and you know that they should be thinking about.

spk_0 Ken's going to go first right.

spk_0 Can you go first now?

spk_0 All right, I'll go first. Yeah, I would say the one thing I would want presidents provost trustees, chancellors to understand the house is on fire.

spk_0 This is urgent. We have coasted fine on the status quo but we won't anymore.

spk_0 The world can't take it. We need a better quality of learning. We need more equitable and pervasive intellectual development to solve the problems we now confront.

spk_0 And what got us here won't get us there.

spk_0 I think what I would say is one read Ken's book.

spk_0 And to don't be afraid of it, it's scalable.

spk_0 So leadership of universities by and large are really having to worry about revenue.

spk_0 And marketability as we look at the consolidation of higher ed and a bunch of universities going out of business.

spk_0 So the two things one is that this is what the students want. So in the context of Ken's comment, which is which I, it's exactly right that it's on that we're on fire.

spk_0 The answer to being on fire is to ensure that we're meeting student needs.

spk_0 And we're meeting them in a way that actually is scalable and people believe that experiential learning isn't scalable, but it is.

spk_0 And that it can solve for the revenue and market problem at the same time that it's in the best interest of the students.

spk_0 It's awesome.

spk_0 What a great conversation guys. Thank you.

spk_0 Both of you have just a lot of wisdom to bring to the table, a lot of expertise experience.

spk_0 So I thank you. This has been really fun.

spk_0 I know it's a crazy week month, whatever graduations and the schools. So thank you for joining us.

spk_0 In this conversation, I was struck by two adjectives, which are also critical traits for 21st century citizens and workers.

spk_0 They are nimbleness and resilience.

spk_0 Most college students enroll with a goal of attaining a degree or certification and increasingly to level up their status in the job market.

spk_0 But are they gaining life skills or is this degree simply a gateway into a career?

spk_0 One of the huge wins in experiential learning is that it promotes deeper learning, not just a degree.

spk_0 Experiential learning is flexible. It's mutable. It's about more than graduating in a GPA.

spk_0 As Ken noted, experiential learning teaches students nimbleness around critical thinking, effective communication and teamwork.

spk_0 Wow.

spk_0 Connie discusses how experiential learning is transferable across domains, settings and technologies.

spk_0 This makes graduates resilient.

spk_0 It engenders deep learning by showing students how to transfer classroom skills into new settings.

spk_0 Ken explains that experiential learning makes learning more meaningful, whether in the classroom or in workplace experiences.

spk_0 Let's think about that in terms of Norrothes' co-ops, where students integrate themselves and what they are learning into a new country, state or workplace as an integral part of the degree.

spk_0 The same goes for CSU-Dominguez Hills, where students have access to meaningful internships and organizations that could hire them after graduation, extraordinary.

spk_0 Experiential learning teaches nimbleness, another word for adaptability and resilience.

spk_0 And let me tell you, those qualities are the most essential skills in order to succeed, if not simply to survive.

spk_0 As Connie says, whether they've changed jobs five times or they're in different kinds of social movements or working in startups, whatever they're doing, students are more resilient.

spk_0 Thanks to Connie and Ken for this inspiring episode. I hope you enjoyed it too.

spk_0 And that concludes this incredible season of Changemakers in Higher Ed. I've got to say, I'm changed.

spk_0 I learned more this season about advancements in higher education than I even anticipated.

spk_0 I'll never be able to fully articulate how fun it was to get schooled, pun intended, and in an area I've spent 30 years working in, higher ed.

spk_0 Each conversation impacted how I think about learning, and I hope it did the same for you.

spk_0 Changemakers in higher ed is a production of Alchemy and Curious Audio. It's hosted by me, Cario Donald.

spk_0 Our executive producer, writer and researcher is Kate Voss. Special thanks to our team, Curious Audio, and especially to Nick Murphy, are wizard and associate producer.

spk_0 If you like what you heard, rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, or wherever you listen, and subscribe or follow it for free.

spk_0 Please also share this podcast with colleagues, family, and friends. And send comments and feedback to podcast at nectar.ing.

spk_0 Until we meet again next season, I want to thank every one of you for tuning in, for caring, and for supporting Changemakers in higher ed.

spk_0 We appreciate you. Enjoy the summer. Talk to you in the next school year. And as always, keep learning and change making yourselves.

spk_0 I'm your host, Cario Donald. Thank you.

Make Education More Meaningful with Experiential Learning

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