Jason Ewers

My key takeaway is that experiences must be meaningful and that clear communication of expectations and intended outcomes is critical to success. I appreciate the insight on making an encounter meaningful for the businessperson through student preparation and the provision of what students need and would like to learn.

Data is vital! Keeping detailed tabs on graduate progress, employer satisfaction, and needs, and current student needs can help guide decision-making. Maintaining relevance to the student/graduate and employers is necessary.

I believe that active engagement with students will have a greater impact on student job acquisition effectiveness. Chunking the resume writing process into sequential projects instead of handing out a worksheet or pointing to a website will help create enduring understandings. Creating a catalog of workshops that serve varied needs will help. 

As a work-based learning coordinator with a program in its infancy, I am working to develop a career center to serve as the hub of WBL activities and resources. This module has helped me think through some preliminary planning and development of a mission statement for my center. Also, within the scope of services, at this time my center is best suited as a career "exploration" center rather than a career "services" center as we are not ready to offer the full scope of services and do not have the capacity to serve students in a job placement role.

I learned that a center can provide a wide range of services. Previously, we were advised to identify the scope of services and this leads me to consider what is genuinely feasible at this time in my center's development. It is impossible to be all things to all people and with limited resources the opportunity costs need to be weighed and decisions must be made.

Establishing a foundation of understanding will assist in program effectiveness and operation. Providing overview information to the company and program details to site supervisors can help with building trust and rapport. Developing a WBL supervisor's guide is a great suggestion.

It is important for all parties to the WBL experience to have a clear understanding of expectations and requirements. Approaching the experience with an individualized training plan will empower the student to understand what skills, and why, they are learning along the way. Formative assessment should prevent any surprises at summative assessment and student self-evaluation shares importance with supervisory evaluation.

The coordinator wears many hats and more often than not, more than one at the same time. Because of the blurring of roles, it is important that the coordinator is able to clearly communicate the aims of the program and collaboratively develop plans for continuous improvement with students, employers, school counselors, school administration, etc.

A WBL program's success is building relationships. Whether a champion, stakeholder, or both, internal and external partnerships must be established and developed in order to provide quality connections and experiences for students. I appreciated the insight on developing a WBL committee for the division's CTE advisory council. 

I feel it was useful to distinguish the phases of the WBL continuum and to identify phase-specific WBL activities appropriate for the objective of each phase. Assisting students in their career exploration to find areas of interest and aligning authentic opportunities and experiences seems to be the key.