EXPERIENTIAL JOURNALISM:
AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO
WORK-BASED LEARNING
Nicholas Rowland, Wesley Culp, and Thomas Shaffer
Pennsylvania State University
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• Agenda: a traditional 20-20-20 format
1. 20 minutes devoted to a PowerPoint
2. 20 minutes devoted to potential personalization and
localization of our model for you and your campuses1
3. 20 minutes devoted to an open-discussion period
• Outline: describes our project and a model
1. Description of the outcome-based project2
2. Present the model it generated and supporting literature
1 Annual Meeting of the American Democracy Project. Snowbird, UT. 2008
2 Culp, W. 2008. “How Whistles Matter for Penn State Football Games” Center Daily Times.
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• Project: born of Wes’s necessity
– Circumstances in May 2008 for summer internship
1. Student recognized value of internship experience1
2. Student wanted real-life experiential learning2
3. Student needed money1
4. Student needed faculty support and guidance3,4,5
• Outcome: “Experiential Journalism” (EJ)
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2 Parilla, P. Hesser, G. 2005. “Liberal Learning and Internships in Sociology” The Internship Handbook, Second Edition.
3 Ehrenriech, B. 2001. Nickel and Dimed.: On (Not) Getting By In America. New York, NY: A Metropolitan/Owl Book
4 Nathan, R. 2005. My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned By Becoming A Student. Penguin Press
5 Kingsolver, B. et al. 2007. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Harper Perennial
6 Wacquant, L. 2006. Body & Soul . Oxford University Press
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“Some students even effectively end up paying tuition to do unpaid internships because some
companies concerned about labor laws, require students to receive academic credit for the experience.
And so college administrators nationwide have become more concerned about access to internships at
all socioeconomic levels” (Lee 2006).
• EJ: a work-based non-internship outcome-based model
based on fieldnote method with academic seminar
–past
Description:Wes
employment
PSU’s
Auxiliary
“In the
five years, the number ofsecured
companies that
require students with
to get college
credit
for their
unpaid work
has increased
between 30%
and 40%, saysto
Mark
Oldman, co-founder
of Vault
Inc., a New
Police,
established
permission
examine
his
work,
and
York career-information company … [and] the growing number of interns seeking credit is leading
published
public interest piece in local paper
schools ultimately
to rethink their policies”
(Chakera2006).
•Reactions
Significant
problems
addressed
modeldataset)
from the professional
community to
unpaid internships:by
(ND, EJ
Internships.net
1. “Rail against the system” – insist that all internships be paid
1,2,3,4
1.
work-based:
WBL
experience
that
supplied
income
2. Encourage colleges to underwrite the high costs of student internships
3. Acknowledge that elites have an unfair advantage* and find/create cost-effective alternatives
2. non-internship: viewed as employee, not student*
3. outcome-based: guided fieldnotes, audience-focused5
1 Little, B. Brennan, J. 1996. A review of work based learning in higher education. Department for Education and Employment, Sheffield
2 Lee, J. 2006. “Colleges Make Way for Internships” The New York Times, July 19, B7
3 Chaker, AM. 2006. “Summer Internships Can Carry a Price” Wall Street Journal, June 29, D1
4 Quotes from “Internships.net” listserv dataset (rights secured from arbiter)
5 Culp, W. 2008. “How Whistles Matter for Penn State Football Games” Center Daily Times
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• STUDENT EXPERIENCE
– Perceptions of the task vs. reality of tasks
• Example: AO Police, fieldnotes, and freelance publishing
– Immense utility experienced first-hand
• Example, Penn State “Beaver Riots”1,2
– Experience opened the door to new opportunities
• Example, UWEMP (nonprofit org, “you●we●me●empowered”)3
• Example, Public Relations Captain of THON4
1 Doughtery, R. 2008. “Penn State Riot Follows Huge Win at Ohio State” Associated Content, October 26
2 Miller, D. 2008. “Arrests expected in PSU riot” Penn Live.com, October 26
3 http://www.uwemp.com/
4 http://www.thon.org/
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• STUDENT PERSPECTIVE
– Strengths of experience:
1. Experience of being a freelance newspaper article writer
2. Learning to balance academic writing and a paying job
3. Having a foot in the door for future writing opportunities
– Limitations of experience:
1a. Struggling to remain objective when you are part of the story
1b. Being able to see the people I worked with as 3-layered beings:
co-worker, friend, and subject to study
2. Double demand on student’s time
3. Experience demands absolute professionalism
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•FACULTY EXPERIENCE
• Capturing Experience1,2 • Learning outcomes3,4
• Field: moment-bymoment descriptive notes
• Reflective: compare to
previous experiences
• Conceptual: link notes to
experienced concepts
Remembering
Understanding
Applying
Analyzing
Evaluating
Creating
1 Emerson, RM., et al. 1995. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, University Of Chicago Press
2 Corsaro, W. (1996) ‘Transitions in early childhood: The promise of comparative, longitudinal ethnography’, in A. Colby, R. Jessor and R. A.
Shweder (eds) Ethnography and Human Development: Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry, pp. 419-457. Chicago. IL: University of Chicago Press
3 Bloom, B. 1956. "The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives” The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain
4 Anderson, LW., et al. (Eds.). 2001. A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives.
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• FACULTY PERSPECTIVE
– Strengths of experience:
1. Monitor and assess student learning on multiple fronts
2. Student responsible for work and learning is central
– Limitations of experience:
1. Unpaid but time-intensive
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• ADMINISTRATOR PERSPECTIVE
• “Experiential Journalism” is really a specific application of a
partnership model that could expand meaningful work-based
learning opportunities
• Development of skills and “habits of mind”
• Writing/communication; self-directed learning
• Peter D. Hart Research Associates (January 2008); NSEE, ‘High-impact practices”
• Learning-focused
• Challenges:
•
•
•
•
Student: level of responsibility, maturity
Faculty: interest, incentives
Money: still tuition-based
Receptivity of community organizations?
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