1 EXPERIENTIAL JOURNALISM : AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO WORK-BASED LEARNING Nicholas Rowland, Wesley Culp, and Thomas Shaffer Pennsylvania State University

2 Agenda : a traditional format minutes devoted to a PowerPoint minutes devoted to potential personalization and localization of our model for you and your campuses minutes devoted to an open-discussion period Outline : describes our project and a model 1. Description of the outcome-based project 2 2. Present the model it generated and supporting literature 1 Annual Meeting of the American Democracy Project. Snowbird, UT Culp, W How Whistles Matter for Penn State Football Games Center Daily Times. …………………………………………………………..

3 Project: born of Wess necessity – Circumstances in May 2008 for summer internship 1. Student recognized value of internship experience 1 2. Student wanted real-life experiential learning 2 3. Student needed money 1 4. Student needed faculty support and guidance 3,4,5 Outcome : Experiential Journalism (EJ) 1 2 Parilla, P. Hesser, G Liberal Learning and Internships in Sociology The Internship Handbook, Second Edition. 3 Ehrenriech, B Nickel and Dimed.: On (Not) Getting By In America. New York, NY: A Metropolitan/Owl Book 4 Nathan, R My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned By Becoming A Student. Penguin Press 5 Kingsolver, B. et al Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Harper Perennial 6 Wacquant, L Body & Soul. Oxford University Press …………………………………………………………..

4 EJ : a work-based non-internship outcome-based model based on fieldnote method with academic seminar – Description :Wes secured employment with PSUs Auxiliary Police, established permission to examine his work, and ultimately published a public interest piece in local paper Significant problems addressed by EJ model 1. work-based : WBL experience that supplied income 1,2,3,4 2. non-internship : viewed as employee, not student* 3. outcome-based : guided fieldnotes, audience-focused 5 1 Little, B. Brennan, J A review of work based learning in higher education. Department for Education and Employment, Sheffield 2 Lee, J Colleges Make Way for Internships The New York Times, July 19, B7 3 Chaker, AM Summer Internships Can Carry a Price Wall Street Journal, June 29, D1 4 Quotes from Internships.net listserv dataset (rights secured from arbiter) 5 Culp, W How Whistles Matter for Penn State Football Games Center Daily Times ………………………………………………………….. Some students even effectively end up paying tuition to do unpaid internships because some companies concerned about labor laws, require students to receive academic credit for the experience. And so college administrators nationwide have become more concerned about access to internships at all socioeconomic levels (Lee 2006). In the past five years, the number of companies that require students to get college credit for their unpaid work has increased between 30% and 40%, says Mark Oldman, co-founder of Vault Inc., a New York career-information company … [and] the growing number of interns seeking credit is leading schools to rethink their policies (Chaker 2006). Reactions from the professional community to unpaid internships: (ND, Internships.net dataset) 1. Rail against the system – insist that all internships be paid 2. Encourage colleges to underwrite the high costs of student internships 3. Acknowledge that elites have an unfair advantage* and find/create cost-effective alternatives

5 STUDENT EXPERIENCE – Perceptions of the task vs. reality of tasks Example: AO Police, fieldnotes, and freelance publishing – Immense utility experienced first-hand Example, Penn State Beaver Riots 1,2 – Experience opened the door to new opportunities Example, UWEMP (nonprofit org, youwemeempowered) 3 Example, Public Relations Captain of THON 4 1 Doughtery, R Penn State Riot Follows Huge Win at Ohio State Associated Content, October 26 2 Miller, D Arrests expected in PSU riot Penn Live.com, October …………………………………………………………..

6 STUDENT PERSPECTIVE – Strengths of experience : 1. Experience of being a freelance newspaper article writer 2. Learning to balance academic writing and a paying job 3. Having a foot in the door for future writing opportunities – Limitations of experience : 1a. Struggling to remain objective when you are part of the story 1b. Being able to see the people I worked with as 3-layered beings: co-worker, friend, and subject to study 2. Double demand on students time 3. Experience demands absolute professionalism 1 …………………………………………………………..

7 1 Emerson, RM., et al Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, University Of Chicago Press 2 Corsaro, W. (1996) Transitions in early childhood: The promise of comparative, longitudinal ethnography, in A. Colby, R. Jessor and R. A. Shweder (eds) Ethnography and Human Development: Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry, pp Chicago. IL: University of Chicago Press 3 Bloom, B "The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain 4 Anderson, LW., et al. (Eds.) A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives. ………………………………………………………….. FACULTY EXPERIENCE Capturing Experience 1,2 Field : moment-by- moment descriptive notes Reflective : compare to previous experiences Conceptual : link notes to experienced concepts Learning outcomes 3,4 Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating

8 FACULTY PERSPECTIVE – Strengths of experience : 1. Monitor and assess student learning on multiple fronts 2. Student responsible for work and learning is central – Limitations of experience : 1. Unpaid but time-intensive 1 …………………………………………………………..

9 ADMINISTRATOR PERSPECTIVE Experiential Journalism is really a specific application of a partnership model that could expand meaningful work-based learning opportunities Development of skills and habits of mind Writing/communication; self-directed learning Peter D. Hart Research Associates (January 2008); NSEE, High-impact practices Learning-focused Challenges: Student: level of responsibility, maturity Faculty: interest, incentives Money: still tuition-based Receptivity of community organizations? 1 …………………………………………………………..