Credit to Dean, Yanamandram, Eady, Moroney, O'Donnell, and Glover-Chambers (2020: 2) for the fictional scenario about a subject coordinator.
Devoted academics endeavour to prepare students for careers beyond graduation. Apart from teaching, they nurture strong relationships with industry and stakeholders in the field. They further maintain professional networks and memberships in order to remain abreast with changes in their fields. They often pursue work-integrated learning (WIL), as pedagogical strategy aimed at enabling students to practise and apply their discipline knowledge and build workplace and employability skills while studying. Modes or types of WIL vary. Some use placement forms of WIL, whereby students undertake sustained time in a workplace with an industry partner. Sometimes these stints of work experience are sandwiched into the curriculum, other times as capstone modules during the final year, designed to integrate and apply theoretical knowledge acquired. Another form is problem-based or focussed learning. An industry partner may attend a class and present students with one or more dilemma their organisation is currently facing. Students then work in teams, conducting empirical research, analysing the problem from multiple perspectives, and develop a proposal recommending the best way to address the problem. Towards the end of the academic term, students go on a field trip to the organisation to ask practitioners questions and test their proposed solutions, in order to ensure feasibility and relevance. Teams thereafter present their revised solutions to a panel comprising industry representatives and academic staff.
The Covid-19 pandemic impacted these and other forms of face-to-face teaching. However, innovative academics adapted and switched to online modes. Industry partners would present by means of Zoom, introducing the problem/s and illustrating the scope by means of videos. Students would work remotely in teams, making use of social media. Sessions with in-company practitioners would be enabled through Zoom/Teams, and similarly final presentations. In this way remote problem-based learning (PBL) as non-placement WIL (NPWIL) is accomplished.
Dean, B.; Yanamandram, V.; Eady, M.J.; Moroney, T.; O'Donnell, N.; and Glover-Chambers, T. 2020. An institutional framework for scaffolding work-integrated learning across a degree. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 17(4). Available at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol17/iss4/6.
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