Making Internship Experiences Visible

Goal:

Michael wanted documentation during experiential education and internship experiences to be part of the culture, with daily evidence of students’ work experiences in the community.

Unrulr is a tool for students to demonstrate how and what they learn. The demonstration is vital. It’s a show not tell tool. Where students show their parents what they did, not just tell them.

‍— Michael McElreath, Director of Experiential Education

Solution:

To address this challenge, Michael implemented Unrulr by:

• Creating one large cohort for work-experience students
• Pairing adults with cohorts of students for personalized feedback

Michael wanted students to:

• Document their daily experiences via photo, video, or audio
• Create daily exit tickets as evidence of their learning and activities
• Respond to prompts, reflecting on their experiences, such as “Where are you going to be during your internship and what are you excited about?” or “How do you learn best?”

Michael set expectations by:

• Showing examples that modeled excellence in Unrulr posts
• Mandating two posts a day initially, then adjusting to one post a day based on feedback
• Requiring students to comment on at least one other person’s post daily, fostering cross-conversation and authentic peer feedback

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It’s just awesome for kids to see different kinds of work happening. And for me and my teachers, looking at the work-based group or the 13 student-led discovery term classes, seeing all that was happening was a great way for us to reflect back to them ‘look at the cool things that you can be a part of’.

Outcomes:

The implementation of Unrulr led to transformative outcomes for Michael and his students, including:

• Improved visibility for Michael and his advisors, allowing for targeted guidance and support
• Authentic, student-centered documentation of progress and experiences
• A culture of reflection and continuous improvement

The outcomes for Michael’s students were:

• Increased ability to reflect on their learning experiences
• Insight into each other’s work experiences, fostering a shared learning culture
• Recognition of “high-pass” work for those with exemplary documentation and reflection

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Unrulr allows us to share exemplary experiences and reflections with other students, building out a culture.

Michael and his advisors engaged with students’ documentation daily, providing feedback and celebrating their progress. Michael emphasized the importance of authentic reflections and encouraged students to move beyond the minimum requirements, pushing them to explore how their experiences influenced their career interests and perspectives.