Program Development, Growth, and Evaluation

Applied learning programs have been growing steadily over the past five years as follows:

• EL Participation – Over the past year there were 2,707 co-ops, 6,635 interns, 558 senior design students, 368 undergraduate research students, totaling 10,268 and 9,406 in service learning, for a grand total of 19,674 participants.
• Co-op - Co-op has grown from 400 to over 900 students per semester, making the program one of the largest in the country. Participating students work multiple semesters, come from all Colleges in 63 degree programs, work in an average of 635 employer learning sites, and earn $11.2 million in salaries. The program actively works with over 1300 employers. 
• Internships – Students in internship, practica and clinical practice courses increased % to 6635. An Internship Symposium was held this year to increase communication among internship faculty and coordinators on campus (60 at present). It was well received and will be repeated annually. 
• Service-Learning – From an effort to expand Service-Learning starting in 2002, there are now 81 Service-Learning courses.  Last year, 62 of these classes were taught in which 3600 students provided 54,000 hours of service to 667 non-profit agencies each semester.  The program was awarded a “Most upcoming program award” by Florida Campus Compact in 2004 and co-sponsored a Service-Learning Conference this year for the Southern Region. Service-Learning involves faculty on an Executive Board, sponsors faculty events (Service-Learning Day with a speaker to introduce Service-Learning concepts and best practices; Summer and Winter Conferences in which faculty transform existing courses into Service-Learning courses) and a student event (Service-Learning Showcase in which students display exhibits about their projects that are judged for scholarships awards).

The success of these programs depends heavily on relationship building with faculty, student development departments, employers/community partners, and professional organizations as follows:

• Faculty - The program partners directly with 25 internship faculty and coordinators on campus and has strong collaborative relationships with specific academic departments as well, such as Hospitality Management, Legal Studies, and Management Information Systems. Additionally, half of a coordinator position is funded by the College of Business Administration and a satellite office will be opened in that College this year to further strengthen this partnership.  
• Student Development – A strong collaboration with International Service Center allows Experiential Learning to assist most international students to obtain experience for Curricular Practical Training and monitor their compliance with INS regulations.  An equally strong relationship exists with Financial Aid in which Experiential Learning administers a financial aid state grant program (90K) called the Florida Work Experience Program.  Experiential learning programs contribute to student retention through strengthening academic capacity with applied learning and through student earnings, $11.2 million last year, which contributes to students’ ability to fund their education.  Lastly, collaboration with Career Services allows for efficient and seamless service for employers and students to move from experiential opportunities to full-time employment.
• Employers/Community Partners - On-going relationships with industrial partners are also strong, with some relationships having continued for many years such as with NASA, United Space Alliance, Siemens Westinghouse and a large number of smaller local companies. Many UCF graduates are now managers, inviting students to their business establishments to benefit from the same applied learning experiences that they had access to when they attended UCF.   Ultimately, experiential learning leads to excellent outcomes for employment since 70% of co-ops and 50% of interns as opposed to only 30% of student without major-related experience get jobs related to their major upon graduation. 
• Professional Organizations: To remain current in the experiential learning field, department faculty are involved in professional organizations and serve on state and national boards and committees including the Florida Career Professionals Association Board, the National Academy for Work-Integrated Learning Board, the research committee for the Cooperative Education & Internship Association, and the Editorial Board for the International Journal for Cooperative Education & Internships. Experiential Learning will sponsor an International Symposium on Work-Integrated Learning for the World Association for Cooperative Education this year.

Experiential Learning courses are structured to provide and assess student learning outcomes and the educational process used accommodates for the distance between the student and the university as follows:

• Structured for learning - Co-op and internship courses all include appropriate supervision, major-related experience, reflection and evaluation.  For instance, Co-ops taking courses for credit complete a distance learning course that uses their experiential learning environment as the vehicle in which student’s learn course content and reflect on their experiences in real-time.  The students not only benefit from resources available at their work-site and not in the classroom, such as supervisors, fellow-workers and state-of-the-art equipment, but they also have access to other students in other work-sites through online structured discussions that expand their knowledge of practice in their chosen field. 
•  Assessment of learning outcomes - Through these courses, students evaluate themselves on skill acquisition and employers evaluate student performance compared to entry-level new hires. The result is on-going data on student learning outcomes related to professional, personal, and academic competencies such as those defined in the Secretary’s Commission on Necessary Skills report (1990), accreditation requirements and university defined parameters.  Employers also complete surveys to assess the benefits they receive from participation in applied learning programs. Last year’s student learning outcome results are available in the link on links on Student Learning Outcomes for both Co-op and Service-Learning and outcomes for Co-op employers are available under the link for Employer Benefits. These outcomes and used to strengthen applied learning processes and are disseminated to departments to assist in student evaluation and curriculum design. The data is also in producing published research on learning outcomes and experiential learning best practices.