How revolutionary workforce changes can energize experiential learning

Experiential learning, a long-aspired-to but often neglected career readiness tool, might finally be gaining a more solid foothold on campus due to today’s workforce disruptions.

The American Association of Colleges and Universities reports that only about a quarter of surveyed faculty, staff and administrators led experiential learning opportunities last fall, highlighting a “persistent gap between aspiration and execution.”

However, experiential learning is an increasingly important asset for preparing the U.S. workforce for widescale technological transformations.

For one, experiential learning can launch students into emerging, high-growth industries such as data analytics, cybersecurity and software development. One Million Degrees, a nonprofit focused on community college student success, created a pilot program to connect Chicago-based learners with paid internships, apprenticeships and mentorships in tech-related companies. 

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“This is about more than just helping students secure internships and part-time work; it’s about equipping students with the skills, support and opportunities they need to access high-demand careers and achieve upward mobility for themselves and their families,” said  Rita Raichoudhuri, chief program officer at One Million Degrees.

A recent Scientific Report article found that project-based learning improved students’ hard and soft competencies, such as technical skills, problem-solving and teamwork. Project-based learning also improved student satisfaction and engagement with curriculum by at least 30%.

Industry mentorships were found to promote the highest growth, the article noted. “It helps in clearly demonstrating, through numbers, just how competencies among the students are significantly improved with real-world exposure: practical exposure that widens the scope of academic learning and career readiness.”

Experiential learning in action

Kennesaw State University recently adopted experiential learning software to connect graduate students with project-based internships in information systems. Domestic demand for information systems managers will grow by 17% through 2033, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Secondly, experiential learning can help individuals bolster their “human literacy,” or ability to understand context and culture and communicate nonverbally, Northeastern University President Joseph Auon said.

“Human literacy is what we do as humans that machines are not going to be able to duplicate for the foreseeable future,” he said. “Experiential education is going to be key in this respect, because it allows you to practice all of these avenues,” he said.

Georgia Institute of Technology’s college of liberal arts is also leading national efforts in integrating the humanities across STEM to inspire cross-sector collaboration and promote project-based learning.

Building better frameworks

As more schools revamp their curricula, academic leaders must ensure that campus community members understand how experiential learning programs are connected.

“Experiential education was happening all over Purdue, but there was no common language for it,” said Jennifer Dobbs-Oates, associate vice provost for World Readiness at Purdue University. “Internships, co-ops, service-learning, simulations—all of these were scattered across campus with no clear connection to one another.”

Universities can better define experiential learning for campus stakeholders in three distinct ways:

1. Planned pedagogy: Create intentional and designed learning experiences.
2. Authentic experience: Ensure the application of knowledge, skills and experiences learned in the academic curriculum mirrors the workplace and industry.
3. Student reflection: This is key to helping students extract long-term value from experiences.