Learning Beyond the Classroom--more notes

Learning outside of the classroom:
Key questions
--How it occurs
--Effective
--What do you learn
--How much how learn
--How learn about opportunities, take advantage
--Assessment
--Why it matters to college, people, community?

Our group included: Chris, Susan, Bridgett, Emily, Kimberly
Does learning happen outside of class – students responded – Yes definitely – writing center major force in learning. Psychology student – alumni mentor major force – helping her connect to “real world”. Helping her chart her future – connect learning to outside context. Meets at Alumni house for variety of assistance, i.e. facilitation in job skills, grad school letters, job shadowing, etc. Emily – find writing center applicable – found out about through class she had with Chris.
Some students involved – some not . Students that are motivated, or “kismet”, relevant. Invitation is important – luck of draw if someone comes to your class. Adjunct component
Does college have an obligation to make sure every student has this type of out of classroom experience. First generation students – don’t know about college experience. Assume that because something is listed, they will find out about it – rather than reaching out. Attaching experiences to class makes it more relevant.
Should there be a way college should measure these experience. Kimb doesn’t know how to measure these experiences – one of the most rewarding experiences of her life – how do you measure this?
Completion of electronic portfolio – Kimb – thinks this would help keeping up with techniology and define their own learning goals and interests. Believes that e-portfolio would help structure learning. Would requirement of e-portfolio bother you – yes and no – might be a great opportunity, helpful to be built into expectations. Facebook brought up as example of students doing this as fun – could e-portfolio look like face book – ie. Westbook, GriffinPage
Extra-curricular connections to personal growth – understanding of other issues – Level of confidence required to get involved in these activities – mixed response –
Motivation – Kimberly wanted to be best could be (internal motivation – towards personal success, feels extremely responsible for the quality of her education). Emily more motivated by her personal interests. Positive experiences and quality of experience motivated to continue participation.
Variety of programs is beneficial.

The A-Word

Regarding ways of assessing how students benefit from cocurricular jobs, programs, and activities, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) may be of some service. On question asks about hours spent doing cocurricular things, and specific questions target particular kinds of activities (tutoring, service learning, diversity, etc.). Paul Presson can crunch the numbers to see how participation in those activities matches up with overal student satisfaction and academic engagement. (Some of NSSE's benchmark categories for academics look a lot like our college-wide learning goals.) Of course, if there's a strong negative correlation between particpating in a certain activity and levels of academic engagement, that would be good to know, too :)

I've included questions on this year's CLA to see if there's any corellation between particular kinds of cocurricular activities and high writing/critical thinking scores. Those numbers won't be available until August, but let me know if you'd like to see them for next year's annual report.

Meeting Notes

Dimple Singh represents AMP, ASWC, work study, and a practicum with Phillips Edison. Bryan Craven is the president of the A-Team (Student Alumni Relations Committee)

Is the experience important?

Yes. We learn to apply the academic skills to life skills. You don't understand the quality of the extracurricular learning experience until you've been through it and can quantify those life skills. A recent campus speaker said that recruiters these days have moved from looking for graduates with knowledge, to those who can prove what they know, what they can do , and what they will do as employees.

Getting credit for the life skills as part of our degree is attractive.

An obstacle to getting involved is the lack of awareness among students as a whole.

The facilitators continue to learn with the students. We should have our goals outlined ahead of time and guide students into understand those goals and being able to use their fulfillment in resumes, job interviews, future employment.