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Learning Outside the TraditionalClassroom: Educating the WholeStudent
By Amanda Marsden, Richard Porter, and James R StellarFebruary 20, 2008
Octavia’s journey began when she was a freshman. After hearing a fellow NortheasternUniversity Student speak about her experience studying abroad in Ghana, there was nodoubt in Octavia’s mind that she had to travel abroad as well. As she described:“The moment she finished her presentation I knew that I had to see the deepindigo coastline, smell the hustle of a day’s work that began at 5 a.m. with themango-colored sun, hear the earth’s heart beat as it danced from the Njombe [adistrict of Tanzania].”For Erin, a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, her journey to the NASAJohnson Space Center began with an e-mail from an advisor about a fellowship programat NASA.For Mariko the journey began, incredibly enough, before College when she met anadvisor at an open house for admitted freshman, toured his research laboratory, andshowed up in the first few days of her Freshman year to begin working on neuroscienceresearch. Having published more papers than some graduate students, she is now part of the Stanford medical school fall 2007 freshman class and a different person than whenshe arrived.
Growing participation
The face of higher education is changing as Experiential Education programs includinginternships, cooperative education, study abroad, undergraduate research, service-learning, and community-based research are becoming an increasingly importantcomponent of college education for nearly all students in the country. According to thethird Internship Survey by career publisher Vault Inc., the number of students participating in internships is sharply rising with 62% completing an internship in thesummer of 2006, a significant increase from 41% in 2005. Considering that figure onlyreflects the number of students participating in internships, if the number of studentsengaging in study abroad, undergraduate research, co-op and service learning were alsofactored in, the percentage of students nationwide participating in any form of experiential education could be well over 75%. Experiential Education is a significantinvestment by both students and institutions of higher education. It continues a trendseen in high school where students often have service-learning or internship opportunitiesor even requirements. Some colleges brag on their web sites about how many hours of community service their entering freshman class performed in high school, as if to say,“Come to our institution. We have students like you.”1
 
The growing importance of experiential education is also reflected in an increasingnumber of colleges and universities introducing experiential education as a graduationrequirement [NY Times]. Such schools range from small liberal arts colleges, such asHendrix College and Rhodes College (featured on 2/08 the AAC&U web site for their community engagement program), to large research-intensive universities, such as Northeastern University.
The Value Proposition
A growing national debate is emerging on the value versus cost of higher education itself.Faced with escalating tuition costs, many students and their families are asking whether the conventional college/university experience is worth it. Colleges and universities thatoffer forms of experiential education in addition to traditional undergraduate coursework attract astute parents and students looking to get the most ‘bang’ for their tuition buck.Given the magnitude of the investment colleges and universities are making in variousforms of experiential education, it is time to step back, be mindful, and investigate at leastthe following points: (a) What characteristics of out-of-the-classroom experiences inducestudents to fully realize their potential to learn? (b) What steps help students to deeplylearn from their experiences and integrate their out-of-the–classroom and in-classlearning? (c) What are the underlying principles of this different kind of learning?Here, our goal is to promote the importance of asking these questions for higher education and suggest a place to look for answers, not to answer them. That will comelater and require significant additional research that contributes to the emerging scienceof learning from experience as well as the classroom.
Key characteristics of the student experience
Answers to our questions must emerge from an understanding of the key characteristicsof the student experience in programs such as study abroad, co-op/internships, service-learning and undergraduate research.Through student examples, we identified a pattern of key characteristics that drivestudent learning in these contexts. These characteristics are that the students ‘feel’ theexperience, take on responsibility, and see an impact of their work that is external tothemselves. The result is that students make meaning in their lives, helping to definethemselves in what is called a community of practice [Wenger].
Feel the experience:
The first key characteristic is that the experience is deeply felt.Whether a student participates in study abroad, service-learning, undergraduate researchor co-op, an emotional element exists. Octavia speaks to this point in writing about her study abroad experience in Ghana as follows:“I could have read a book on West African culture, language, history, and values.However, it would have been merely words that sounded like freshly squeezedtheories dripping loose from some academic head. My experiences gave me neweyes, tastes, thoughts, sounds, movements, realities, smells, words, relationships,and memories. I realized that it is easy for an outsider to place judgment on2
 
another’s cultural values and norms but the path toward authentic understanding istedious and often confusingly painful journey.”
Assume responsibility:
The second key characteristic is assuming responsibility. Erin’sexperiences at NASA offered her this opportunity. In Erin’s words“NASA demonstrates a lot of confidence in their co-op employees. … I got putright in the middle of a project and put in charge of a contract team…they threwyou right in like you were a full-time engineer. They were definitely around toanswer questions, but they had a lot of confidence in our abilities.”Erin responded to the opportunity. During her first session at the Johnson Space Center,she worked in a thermodynamics group as a test engineer. In her second assignment, she became certified as a NASA instructor, and taught expedition crew members, safety personnel, and flight controllers about emergency hardware. For her third work term,Erin worked in a motion controls group for the international space station. Her fourthwork session was in advanced mission design, where she was also involved in theColumbia accident investigation. Not all experiences are as completely successful as Erin’s. What makes the difference?Students’ initial expectations of their experience and contributions are often at odds withthe reality they find. Consider for example Octavia’s expectations and the reality shefound. In Octavia’s words:“I expected to step off the plane and be embraced by Ghanaians as if I were their long lost sister from across the Atlantic,”Octavia’s initial expectations were far from being met:“Initially they treated me as if I was a wealthy tourist instead of the homelessdescendant that I perceived myself to be,”This tension between initial expectations and reality is common. Some students respond by disconnecting. An intern, for example, may feel that his/her initial work assignment is boring or beneath them and respond by just going through the motions. Others mayrespond by implicitly understanding that this tension between expectations and realitycan generate learning [Wenger, p. 227]. These students heighten their awareness of their surroundings to create opportunities to achieve valuable outcomes even though thoseoutcomes may be short of initial expectations. In Octavia’s experience, after considerableinteraction with people in Ghana, she wrote about the best she felt she could do at gainingacceptance into their lives.“We were able to build a swinging bridge that allowed us to cross back and forthinto one another’s world,”
See the impact:
The final key characteristic of the student experience is that students seean impact of their work that is external to themselves. For Mariko, she saw the impactfrom her research in the advisor’s lab as well as from her other co-op experiences. In her first co-op at Boston University Medical School, Mariko had the opportunity to work with a professor in the Department of Pharmacology. She noted that this co-op was atruly unique opportunity for her because she was able to work side-by-side in the lab withthis professor, a graduate student from France and a few other technicians, in conducting3
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