Next week I have been asked to help run some sessions at a symposium on Work Integrated Learning (WIL) for students of computing and related fields. It is a good time for this, as I just spent a semester tutoring four teams of students working on projects for clients. Also I mentored two groups of interns, one group working for private enterprise on AI projects, and the other working for government agencies.
While I had mentored interns previously, and also mentor now entrants to the computing profession for the Australian Computer Society), I had not tutored the project students for some years. The group computer project course at the Australian National University ("
Techlauncher"), was revamped this year, so I decided to tuor, to help bed in the new format & learn more about the new approach being used.
At the same time the concern over AI use at universities, and the debate over practical skills for students have not died down. To add to this,
vocational degrees were added to the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) in February. This allows non-university educational institutions to offer degree level qualifications with more work integrated learning, or even
entirely by WIL. Such a format is not new, and I learned computing only partly at a university, the Australian Bureau of Statistics hired trainers who came in and ran courses on site. I was paid to work downstairs part of the day, then go upstairs for training (on full pay).
As it happens I registered for an
Eportfolios Australia "PARE" (Plan, act, reflect & eportfolio) session. I had assumed this was the usual webinar, but when it started, I discovered it was "Shut up and write" format. So I am writing.
I am assisting with two sessions at the symposium: "Learning Systems: Canvas for WIL, Virtuous Loop", and "Accreditation requirements & Ungrading WIL". The "Virtuous Loop" is something some of my colleagues tell me they know about, so I will leave that to them.
Learning Systems: Canvas for WIL
A few weeks ago I did the introductory training for the Canvas Learning Management System being introduced to ANU. Canvas seems very
similar to Moodle, so should be suitable. My approach is to use the LMS as a place to provide the student with their instructions as to what to do, then collect the results. The actual learning happens elsewhere, outside the LMS. This approach works well with WIL, which clearly can't happen within the confines of the tools an LMS provides.
ePortfolios
This then raises the question of what other tools we can use to help the student with WIL. Given I am writing this during an ePortfolios Australia session, the most obvious is an ePortfolio. Canvas has an ePortfolio tool called "Folio". However, this is unlikely to have adequate versioning features to be usable. To be of use, we need to know when the student added what to their portfolio, including every edit, for "show your work". Also we need to track the contributions of individual students in group projects, where they are assembling a jointly developed document. It is likely we will need to use tools like GitHub for this purpose. That will require training for non-computing students, unused to the concepts inherent in such tools.
Accreditation requirements & Ungrading WIL
Bodies such as the Australian Computer Society and Engineers Australia, accredit university courses. Common requirements of accreditation is for the student to have some group, work and project experience. I mentor interns who work individually at a real workplace and tutor group project students who work on a real project for a real client. In both cases there is scaffolding of the experience, to make it into a course. There are a few lectures, but the emphasis is on meeting with a mentor/tutor regularly. There are also assessed tasks to complete. These tasks are designed to be relevant to real world experience. Typically the students start by negotiating what they are going to do and submit a statement of work document, agreed with the client, for assessment. Also they typically end with a reflective work on what they did and learned from the experience. In between there are progress reports. In the case of internships, the assessor relies on reports from the client, as it is not feasible for them to assess the actual work the student does. In the case of group projects, the assessor may have more access to the work product, but even ... oops time is up ...
At this point, as per the PARE process, we stopped writing and had a few minutes discussion. I shared this document, up to this point. We discussed how to collect notes on what we had been doing for future use. This is very relevant to a discussion of how students document and provide evidence of, what they did in WIL. For assessment purposes we need that evidence, but it can't be too burdensome, for the student, their client, or the assessors. Ideally the evidence is captured as a byproduct of the WIL. This happens reasonably naturally for computer project students, who use online tools common in industry for software development. These tools timestamp every contribution by every team member, and provide statistics on their overall contribution.
Grading WIL
Some WIL is not integrated. The student is required to undertake a set amount of work experience. A supervisor attests the student did the work. There is no detailed analysis of what they did, or how well. At the other extreme, a program like Techlauncher has assessors examining what each student does every week, and in more detail at checkpoints through the year.
Typically in vocational education, students are assessed on a pass/fail (Competent/Not yet competent) basis. Even if there is a numerical grading, this is reduced to pass/fail at the end of the unit of study. The logic behind this is that the student is being assessed as being able to do a job. In some industries this is a legal requirement: no ticket, no job. In contrast a university student is typically graded numerically on a 100 point scale, which is then reduced to a 4 to 7 level grade. The student's grades are aggregated to give a Grade Point Average on a 4 or 7 point scale.
The course results and GPAs may be used internally as a requirement for students to progress in their program, or to apply for advanced study, but are of little or no value to outside employers. Given that WIL doesn't involve they type of learning of a typical academic course, they use of 100 point or even 7 point scale for assessment seem very artificial. The purpose of the exercise is not for the student to be excellent at working in a workplace, they can't be expected to achieve that ... opps time is up again.
Conclusion
Having written about the topic stream of consciousness style, it is time to try to make some short, hopefully helpful, comments on WIL:
Learning Systems: Canvas for WIL
LMS for Scaffolding
A learning management system is useful for providing structure for WIL. The unfamiliar and fragmented nature of WIL can be confusing for both students and staff. The LMS can provide a step by step checklist of who needs to do what, when, & a catalog of the tools and guides they need.
Not Too Integrated
An LMS is not designed for WIL. A useful approach is to use the LMS to tell the student what they need to do, then have them go off and do it with specialised tools, but bring the evidence of what they did back to the LMS for assessment, and feedback.
Most of the evidence of learning outcomes can achieved work products, rather than specially created academic artifacts. As an example, the client or supervisor can be asked to rate the student's performance. The work plans and output can be directly assessed. The tools used to record the student's work can be used to verify they were actually doing the work. As an example, tools such as GitHub record each time each team member contributed to the repository, timestamped.
Accreditation requirements & Ungrading WIL
Accreditation authorities want to be assured the student achieved all skills and knowledge requirements at the set level. This can be difficult with WIL, as what the student does varies based on the client/supervisors' requirements. One way to meet the requirement is by adopting the approach of vocational education. Rather than assess how well the students achieved various tasks, and check they met an overall requirement, check they performed on each to the required level of competency. Numerical measures and scales can still be used, but what is important is the student achieved every requirement.
