The payoff is not just the knowledge students gain from their efforts but the ability for Nunn to get to know attendees of a college without a specific construction-management track and find those who may be interested in joining the industry upon graduation.
Pitch for WIL is not just industry altruism. They get early access to talent and can choose to have a relationship oriented approach.
Companies get help with projects they might otherwise struggle to complete, and students graduate with experience they can show prospective employers.
Authentic application that's meaningful. The challenge and opportunity: capture in useable ways data that tells the story about the experiences so that students can effectively share with employers. (and edu can run analytics to learn about what works, why, what to do when it works well/poorly)
As AI becomes a bigger part of the workplace, students need a chance to put their skills to use, tackling the same real problems they might encounter in a job. Project leaders hope that combining a broad college education with practical experience and industry-recognized credentials will give students the knowledge and adaptability to navigate a rapidly changing job market. The bigger question is whether colleges can make that combination a sustainable part of how they prepare students for work.
n 2023, an estimated 8.2 million learners sought internships, yet only 44 percentof them found one. Even fewer — just 30 percent — had work-based learning experiences marked byclarity, supervision, and skill development.2
We know that experience applying learning is key to learners unlocking salaries commiserate with their credential attainment. (See Talent Disrupted, and No Country for Young Grads) Add it up: * Employers want people with application experience * There are 8M seeking internships and fewer than 4M accessing them * Calling an experience in the workplace an "internship" or "work-based learning", etc does not make it so. That takes intentionality and the competency to implement the intentions. * There's a deficit of such intentionality and competency. So, in addition to getting as many people as possible to think about every experience possible as a potential opportunity for experience and skill-building to support workforce readiness, we also urgently need to build up capacity nationwide to support employers and learners with scaffolding these experiences.
Work-based learning (WBL) experiences, including internships, co-ops, and apprenticeships, provideemployers with access to emerging talent and allow learners to build valuable skills through hands-on work
Work-based Learning requires the learning to be intentional
Small organizations oftentimes will not have the staff or resources to dedicate toward [work-integrated learning projects] so the need to have a plug and play processes is imperative to successful partnerships at this scale.”
Partnership is not just agreement to host learning experiences. It requires that the experience is designed for and supportive of learning.
n 2023, an estimated 8.2 million learners sought internships, yet only 44 percentof them found one. Even fewer — just 30 percent — had work-based learning experiences marked byclarity, supervision, and skill development.2
Internship gap in raw numbers and in high quality practices.