New Experiential Learning Toolkit Offers Resources for Learning by Doing

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 09/12/19

Three Canadian institutions have launched a new experiential learning website to serve as a free toolkit in helping college and university instructors implement EL in their courses. The idea of EL is simple: Students learn by doing. That could mean serving an internship, listening to an expert from the field or undertaking course-based projects. The EL Toolkit, as it's called, was developed by Niagara College Canada, Georgian College and Brock University.

The toolkit provides 16 modules with information, examples and templates for designing, delivering, facilitating and assessing EL. The content offers answers to questions often asked by faculty and administration as well as the community and industry partners that are part of EL. (The toolkit also has content specifically for those partners.) Resources include videos featuring faculty, staff, students and partners; links to external materials; and a downloadable planning and development worksheet.

"The toolkit was created to ensure students have the opportunity to engage in meaningful experiential learning opportunities to develop the skills required for their academic growth and career success," said Megan Fenton, Georgian project lead, in a statement. "This toolkit will help us work more collaboratively to ensure our students get the practical experience they need to excel in the workforce, and our partners can address their business and long-term talent needs with job-ready graduates."

The content was licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which allows for the use, adaptation and remixing of materials. The project was funded in part through a $202,000 grant provided by Ontario's Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

The EL Toolkit has a dedicated website.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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