What are the educational outcomes for students in cooperative education? What kind of learning and knowledge is derived from their work experience? Have we taken the educational benefits of work experience too much for granted? Our professional literature is notably lacking in its treatment of accepted educational outcomes for students. Theory lags behind practice. Even in cooperative education practice there is little evidence of the identification and evaluation of assumed learning in work experience.
The main theme of this paper discusses the operational features of cooperative education that have to do with the educational outcomes for students. It is the execution of a designed educational process, individualized with students that, in my view, marks the quality and effectiveness of a cooperative program. This discussion will address the relationship of the educational process to recognized philosophic concepts of learning and knowledge.
In what follows, I will be describing four operational phases of cooperative education, namely: the orientation of students; job placement and planning for learning outcomes; the facilitation of learning during the work period; and the evaluation and crediting of the educational results. These phases of operation are based on the following aims of cooperative education as applied to students.
The cooperative plan should be presented to students as a new kind of educational venture - one that can have a telling effect on their education and careers. Being able to test their interests, skills and goals early in college is an exciting prospect for most students. They should get a picture of the cooperative plan as a personalized process of educational and career development, extending from enrollment through progressive stages of study and experience to life after college.
Orientation means acquainting students regarding their relations with cooperative education faculty, employers and the classroom faculty. It should spell out their personal obligations and responsibilities to the cooperative employer and to the college. It should present the educational gains in cooperative work as a plus benefit gained while being paid for performing a useful service.
Job placement is an individualized process geared to the student's level of study and experience. For beginning students who are uncertain of their ultimate field of specialization or vocation, the co-op placement is the means of testing and exploring interests, skills and occupational fields of work. For advanced students placement is identified with major studies and an introduction to possible fields of full-time employment. Advanced job experience with professionals in the field may also provide motivation and direction for graduate or professional study. The cooperative student is well prepared at graduation to make an intelligent choice between further study and immediate full-time employment.
Job development by the cooperative educational staff should respond to the varying needs of the undergraduate population. It aims to identify prospective employers who can be well served by cooperative students at differing levels of competence and who can provide an environment that will contribute to their education. Serving the interest and needs of employers is a primary consideration. For example, immediate employment needs of a given employer can be served by co-op students who will perform well on the job. There are also long-time personnel needs of the employer that can be served by co-op students whose employment offers the opportunity for excellent assistance and for mutual exploration of a full-time relationship. Some organizations have effective training programs that provide progressive levels of experience for students throughout their co-op program. These work out well for students who are ready to make a tenure commitment.
If cooperative relations with employers are established and maintained on a basis of responsibility and fair play, good results will accrue to the student and the employer. Fortunately, many employers are believers in the cooperative plan as a good way to educate students. Conditions permitting, they are pleased to participate and take pride in being associated with a college educational program.
Job arrangements are thus established with hopes and expectations of both the student and the employer for a productive experience. Once a given job is arranged, the co-op supervisor goes over possible relationships and adaption of the projected experience with the student's interests and needs. Such a planning conference will lead to the identification of realistic objectives and expectations that can be projected for the co-op experience. How specific these objectives can be depends on the student's self-understanding and the nature of the job. Those for the first co-op period are apt to be more general than specific such as, "learning to work with people." Some objectives cannot be established in measurable terms and can be evaluated only over periods of time.
Whatever objectives are established in advance, allowance should be made for unanticipated opportunities for learning that will occur during the work period. Some of the most significant outcomes in any given experience, as in all of life, are accidental. The co-op student should not be bound by preconceived objectives that do not make sense once on the job. Learning objectives should be reconsidered and probably revised during the work period.
Normally, cooperative students begin a work period with high expectation. For the unusual student further motivation may not be needed to facilitate desired outcomes. But for many, these outcomes do not occur automatically. Though more foolproof than most forms of higher education, the cooperative plan requires organized attention to the facilitation of the student's learning.
In 1935, when I moved from being a classroom teacher and faculty advisor to full-time work in cooperative education I was anxious to see what kind of impact the co-op work experience had on the student. Except for the employer's report and the limited personal interview notes with the co-op supervisor, there was very little data to indicate what the student had learned from the work experience. As a classroom teacher I had seen the positive effect of the work experience on the student's academic work. I was also aware of a growing criticism on the campus that the operation of the cooperative program was not sufficiently related to the individual student.
It was from this background situation that we began to formulate a pattern of cooperative education reports to be written by students at the close of each work period. Each report was to include a description of the job followed by how it affected the educational development of the given student. They were to be written in essay form and were to discuss in some detail what a given job had meant to them personally in terms of insights, skill development, knowledge gained and career orientation. They were also asked to evaluate the job and the work supervision and to offer any comments on the college relations with the employer. This open form of communication between the student and the college proved to be a key element in improving the functioning of the cooperative education program. The successive co-op reports together with student interview notes, give a documented picture of the progress throughout the college course. They form the main framework for counseling and long-range planning with individual students.
The co-op reports, modified through the years, continue today as a cumulative record of the student's evaluation of each work experience. Many variations in the form and content of these reports have evolved. For example, one variation dealt with the use of leisure time during the work period; another with the co-op's observations of contemporary society as seen in the workplace.
Upper-class students may design and report a study or research project connected with an academic course or with their employment. As students advance in the program, their co-op reports deal with more substantive learning and with more specific areas of technical and general knowledge.
Through experimenting with differing formats and instructions for the coop reports, sets of guidelines have been introduced to catalyze student observations and reflections during the work period. Some suggestions given to students entering the first cooperative work experience along with the instructions for preparing the co-op report, follow:
This is one simple example of the kinds of guidelines that might enhance the student's educational use of the work period. Naturally, those suggested to engineering students would be considerably different than those in the arts, or in communications, or in business administration. The challenge in formulating guidelines is to invent questions and suggestions that will stimulate the student's observations beyond the normal vision of the job. Much of the induced learning and knowledge from co-op experience will come from alert observations.
During a field visit of the co-op supervisor at the worksite, further discussion of the guidelines along with the student's evaluation of the job would be quite pertinent. While the field visit is focused on the student's progress and the employer's satisfaction, there are other concerns. For example, the student may have questions about the preparation of the co-op report.
Writing about a cooperative work experience is different than writing a term paper. In term papers students are inclined to rely on the writing of others for ideas and for quotation. For the co-op report students have to depend on their own observations. Writing from experience is more interesting, but more difficult for some students. Students are likely to dread writing a thoughtful co-op report. They may ask why they should write about their experience after working full time. Isn't this enough? They have to be reminded that they are engaged in an educational program and that doing the job well is only part of the basis for awarding credit. The rationale for requiring a substantive co-op report is clearly defendable and reasonable. If the benefits and use of co-op reports for the student and for the co-op supervisor are made clear, they will be undertaken with satisfying results. Co-op reports offer a better opportunity than many academic courses for students to improve their writing skill - an important qualification for occupational advancement. The use of guidelines during the work period, and the keeping of a weekly journal of significant happenings, will be of great help to students in articulating the results of their experience.
In the evaluation process of the co-op experience, the student, the employer and the faculty cooperative educational supervisor are the central participants. First, the student evaluates his or her own experience in terms of learning and other developmental outcomes through a written essay followed by an oral conference with the co-op supervisor. The employer makes a written evaluation of the student's work performance and other observed outcomes. The faculty cooperative education supervisor then coordinates the assessment data and makes the final judgement for awarding credit.
Evaluating the student for credit requires combining the rating on the student's job performance with the assessing of the educational gains derived from the experience. It takes into account what skills have been acquired or strengthened; what new insights and understanding have occurred; and what elements of personal effectiveness have been affected through the experience.
The employer's rating is a vital part of the evaluation. The report should be designed to give a picture of the student's approach to the job; making of needed decisions; acceptance of suggestions and criticisms, and adjustment to the organization. The employer should also give an overall rating of the student's performance. Although the employer is not responsible for educating the student, work supervisors and associates do contribute markedly to the student's education. Valuable responses come from asking the work supervisor for his or her comments on what the student has learned from the experience.
What weight should be given to the employee's report in the final crediting? Granting exception, cooperative education credit should not be given to a student who was a distinct failure on the job. Also, credit should not be given merely for a satisfactory job performance alone. It is quite possible, however, that performing well on a difficult job might in itself be an adequate basis for awarding credit. This follows Gilbert Ryle's (1949) theory of "knowing how" as a viable form of learning.
The student's co-op report and its follow-up discussion provide the central focus around which, with the employer's report and other forms of communication with the student and the work supervisor, the final evaluation and crediting can be made. The report will embody the "knowing how" as well as the "knowing that" aspects of the educational outcomes. Understanding and interpreting the student's report should take into account those forms of knowledge and insights not readily transmitted with words. This is known as "tacit knowledge" as described by Michael Polanyi (1966). Evaluating the educational outcomes of a given student work experience takes into account different forms of learning and the distinguishing feature of the particular job.
Follow-up discussions of the report and the co-op experience between the student and the faculty advisers is an educational process as well as an evaluative one. It is through the total evaluation of outcomes that students gain self understanding, self-direction and the self-confidence to manage their own education and career development during and after college.
We recognize that many academicians question the educational validity of work experience. It is not clear how much the doubt is due to their perception of how cooperative education is managed. Questions are raised about accuracy in evaluating co-op experience for educational credit. In self-defense we can likewise question the accuracy in academic crediting in classroom courses. Conceptually, the question revolves around what constitutes education, learning, and knowledge. The viability of cooperative education rests in its design and operation for realizing the optimum educational outcomes for the student utilizing the best that is known about experience-based learning.
We do know there is a difference between learning from experience and classroom learning. As James Coleman points out in his writings, classroom learning deals with principles proceeding from the general to the application. Learning from experience deals with the application of principles, and proceeds from the particular to the general. And this form of learning enables those in work experience to distill general principles from discrete experiences. But, as Ormond Smythe says in his writings on experiential education, "We learn many things besides the general principles ... which Coleman's (studies) envisioned. We also learn habits, skills, attitudes ... (etcetera)."
Gilbert Ryle makes the distinction between "knowing how" and "knowing that." He calls "knowing that" propositional knowledge. Or as one might say in a broader sense it refers to projected facts, ideas or knowledge. "Knowing how" refers to procedural knowledge or skill and can be readily identified with work experience.
The account of Michael Polanyi 's codification of" tacit learning" as a realistic form of knowledge has particular relevance to educational outcomes of cooperative work experience. Polanyi writes "An act which cannot be specified in detail cannot be transmitted by prescription." Fundamental to this contention is the idea that "we know more than we can tell." Smythe illuminates the Polanyi theory by noting that "we can know how to ride a bicycle but cannot tell how" or "we can know how to stay afloat while swimming and not be able to tell how." The acceptance of tacit learning as a form of acquired knowledge bears directly on particular aspects of co-op work experience.
These and many other philosophical concepts of learning and knowledge lend supporting evidence for educational outcomes recognized in cooperative work experience. Without a valid educational process, however, cooperative work experiences loses much of its value for the student and its acceptance as a viable form of higher education. I regret that I am unable in the restricted paper to discuss the uses of the student's work experience in classroom teaching and the role of the classroom teacher in promoting and enriching the students' learning on the job.
Qualified personnel are the most important ingredient in the management and operation of the cooperative plan. Those who fully engage in cooperative education and thus relate to students in placement, educational planning, teaching, evaluating and counseling roles should be qualified as educators and have faculty status. With this quality of staffing and with administrative and budget support, cooperative education will grow in stature and acceptance as it has in a limited number of committed colleges and universities. Any significant extension of cooperative education programs and number of students having opportunities for this kind of superior education will depend on the extent to which the co-op work experience is educationally utilized as an intellectually respected part of a college curriculum.