Abstract
Work-integrated learning options—or experiential learning—(such as co-operative education, practicum placements, and community service learning/volunteer placements) offer much scope for enhancing educational opportunities for post-secondary students to learn about the workplace and to develop skills that may contribute to their future employability. However, community service learning (CSL) placements and co-operative education (co-op) programs, among other forms of experiential learning, offer so much more than the practical outcomes of skills-development and résumé-building. They provide a space for reflexivity on the student’s positionality in relation to privilege and national and/or global citizenship identity-formation; for critical reflection on ethical issues; for the promotion of social justice; and for praxis (the application of knowledge). The research presented in this article is an evaluation of two sets of experiential learning reflection assignments: co-op work-term reports (from 2nd, 3rd, 4th year and graduate students) and CSL papers (assignments submitted for a fourth year class I taught in winter 2016 on experiential learning). I examine the common themes and differences between these two sets of assignments with particular attention to the preparation and facilitation of learning in both instances, and the difference this preparation makes in terms of the student’s critical reflection.
Highlights
Post-secondary students have access to a wide range of practicum or experiential learning options, or to use the language of the Ontario government’s Higher Education Quality Council (HEQCO), work-integrated Learning (WIL) styles
The value of co-op education and community service learning (CSL) as forms of experiential learning can be seen to change the way students learn in diverse educational contexts
The focus on work-integrated—or experiential—learning and the growing emphasis on a range of experiential learning options within university education (Note 2) mean that more effort needs to be made to ensure that the breadth and depth of learning takes place through a combination of theoretical reflection and practical engagement in the world
Summary
Post-secondary students have access to a wide range of practicum or experiential learning options, or to use the language of the Ontario government’s Higher Education Quality Council (HEQCO), work-integrated Learning (WIL) styles. The typology of WIL includes apprenticeships, field experience, mandatory professional practice, co-op, internships, applied research projects and service learning (Sattler & Peters, 2013) among the diverse choices available to many Canadian students in post-secondary studies These diverse programs are associated with several primary advantages including enhancing a résumé, improving employability, and establishing a fit with a potential career. Drawing on feminist contributions to methodology and epistemology, I argue for a reflexive process of experiential learning which begins with a deeper analysis of one’s positionality and situated knowledge and how these shape our interpretations of Canadian and global citizenship identities Such an approach is informed by a (de)colonizing of pedagogies (MacDonald, 2014)—a process informed by colonial continuities by which our desire to see and know the world is an aspect of the colonial impulse to know and experience the “other”. The main finding from this research underscores the importance instructor facilitation, clear guidelines, access to readings on critical pedagogy, built-in requirements for reflexivity, and institutional commitments to this process in order for experiential learning programs to facilitate deep critical reflection and praxis
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