Jeela Jones, Professional Development Coordinator
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
Don Quick, PhD., Assistant Professor
Colorado State University, Fort Lewis, CO
In this paper cooperative education is reviewed as an educational strategy with links to experiential and connected learning. The purpose is to examine these links and gain a better understanding of what makes for a rich cooperative experience. The sources used to examine this educational strategy are numerous but John Dewey from the early part of the twentieth century and David Kolb from the 1980's figure prominently with regards to experiential learning, and the Belenky et al. study Women's Ways of Knowing, from the 1980's particularly with regards to connected learning. These definitive studies and authors are updated with twenty first century authors.
From this review emerges the idea that learning in cooperative education may involve more than gaining on-the-job experience within the student's field of study. The cooperative experience may in fact include experiential, as well as, connected learning. Through connected learning, students have the opportunity to build knowledge through relationships, emotion, subjectivity, and multiplicity, as well as real-life experience. In terms of practice, the implication is that learning within the context of cooperative education may involve recognizing the multiple ways of building knowledge.
Keywords: Cooperative education, connected learning, experiential learning, learning by doing, the learning cycle
When speaking with a number of cooperativeeducation students, it was interesting to learn that many value the opportunity to work in jobs and with people related to their academic studies. The students indicated that they are more connected with their disciplines now than when they sat in the classroom, and they are more connected with the people who are working in their chosen field. Also, students indicated that through these connections, their experiences are richer than with the classroom work alone. These student experiences gave direction to a literature review required for a larger research study. As researchers, we sought to understand what the literature has to say about cooperative education and its links to experiential and connected learning. In this paper, we look first at cooperative education and its relationship to experiential learning. Then we review connected learning, and conclude by bringing the two together, and finally we offer an implication for practice.
Cooperative (co-op) education is an educational strategy that enables learners to benefit from both the classroom and the workplace on a number of levels (Groenewald, 2004; Grosjean, 2003; Mariani, 1997). Students who are enrolled in co-op programs typically alternate between periods of study and periods of work giving them the opportunity to marry theory with practice (Groenewald, 2004; Grosjean, 2003; Mariani, 1997) and, therefore, capitalize on the various contexts for learning (Grosjean, 2003). With beginnings that date back to the early 1900's, it is an educational strategy that has proven popular over time and continues to attract university and college students today. With its rich historical and theoretical background, as well as its connections to experiential learning, cooperative education remains worthy of thoughtful examination.
The idea of cooperative education as an instructional method began in earnest (Herr, 1995) in the late 1800's with Herman Schneider, a civil engineer who saw the value of blending classroom learning with practical application. By critically analyzing the performance of engineering students as they struggled to adapt classroom learning to the workplace, Schneider became convinced that linking school and work was essential for high performance workers and conceived the idea of blending apprenticeship with schooling (Grosjean, 2003). By alternating between school and work, rather than postponing work until after graduation, Schneider believed that students would have a greater opportunity to learn the skills not easily conveyed in the classroom setting. As a result, in 1906 Herman Schneider created the first cooperative education program in the United States at the University of Cincinnati through the College of Engineering (Grosjean, 2003; UC History in Brief, 2004). In time, the original program expanded to include not only civil engineering but chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineering as well. Today more than 3,000 students participate in the University of Cincinnati co-op annually, working locally and around the world in programs as diverse as design, business, arts, science, and of course, engineering (University of Cincinnati Co-op, 2004).
From the onset, co-op programs proved popular and steadily spread across the United States (Solvilla & Varty, 2004). By the late 1920's, over twenty schools had adopted the co-op concept for students in a wide range of programs, including the liberal arts (Grosjean, 2003; Herr, 1995). This progressive movement towards cooperative education may have been fueled by the work of John Dewey, a personal and intellectual friend of Schneider (Van Gyn & Grove-White, 2004, p. 27). Often cited as an originator of the work-linked education philosophy (Linn, 1999; Prentice, 2001), John Dewey wrote passionately and directly about the topic. In his book Democracy and Education (1916) Dewey proposed that "the only adequate training for the occupations is training through the occupations" (p. 310) because the activities involved in learning have real purpose. He adamantly stated that the learner, "unconsciously, from the motivation of his occupation, reaches out for the relevant information, and holds to it. The vocation acts as both a magnet to attract and as a glue to hold. Such organization of knowledge is vital, because it has reference to needs; it is so expressed and readjusted in action that it never becomes stagnant" (p. 310).
In effect, Dewey believed that vocation acts like a medium for learning because knowledge weaves into the particularities that make up each student's life, giving meaning to school and therefore, making learning more active and concrete.
Although Dewey has been criticized (Korowski, 1991), his ideas have carried forward into current discussions on cooperative education. These include the philosophical foundations of cooperative education (Heinemann & DeFalco, 1990; Linn, 1999; Saltmarsh, 1992), transformative learning (Saltmarsh, 1992), vocationalism (Prentice, 2001), as well as work-experience enriched learning (Giles, 1991; Heinemann, DeFalco, & Smelkinson, 1992; Korowski, 1991). Indeed, the philosophy of John Dewey is capable of "cross-cutting" many of the discussions on experiential learning (Linn, 2004a, p. 25).
Over time, the awareness of work-linked education spread from the United States and north to Canada. Beginning in July 1957 with seventy-five engineering students (Grosjean, 2003), the University of Waterloo opened its doors as the first Canadian cooperative education institution. It grew out of a vision held by several businessmen who had transferred from US offices and were familiar with the co-op concept (McCallum & Wilson, 1988). Now, Waterloo is the world's largest cooperative education program with an enrollment of approximately 11,000 students (We're Waterloo, 2004) in areas of study such as arts, engineering, environmental studies, mathematics, and science (Cooperative Education and Career Services, 2004). Recently, the University of Waterloo has focused research efforts on work-linked education with the Centre for Advancement of Cooperative Education, "one of only three major co-op research centers in the world" (Bow, 2005, p. 2). The current success of cooperative education as a structured educational strategy is misleading given that it took several years to catch on in Canada (McCallum & Wilson, 1998). It was not until some twenty years after Waterloo began that co-op programs really started to take hold and yet, "by the late 1980s, 60 Canadian institutions were offering co-op programs to approximately 27,000 students. A decade later, 110 institutions and 61,000 undergraduate students were participating in co-op" (Grosjean, 2003, p. 178). While initial growth was slow, programs now span the entire country from Newfoundland to British Columbia with many following the Waterloo model.
At around the same time that co-op programs expanded across Canada, David A. Kolb (1984) published Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Building on the work of John Dewey, among other leading theorists, Kolb advanced a now famous learning cycle that incorporates the notion of hands-on experience. He explains that for learning to occur, students must complete four learning stages. These include (a) concrete experience, (b) reflective observation, (c) abstract conceptualization, and (d) active experimentation. Concrete experience and active experimentation are gained through the process of doing while reflective observation and abstract conceptualization are gained through the process of considering. Each of these stages is part of the process of learning and help to transform experience into knowledge.
Consequently, Kolb's learning cycle remains meaningful to cooperative education not only because it supports hands-on experience as a valuable learning method, but also because it validates hands-on experience as a learning style. Kolb (1984) helped support the belief that experience is fundamental in the knowledge-building process and as a result, Kolb's work, which is more often sited specifically within counseling and psychology, has recently begun to permeate cooperative education literature. For example, Kolb has been revisited as a lens to understand construction internships (Tener, 2004), liberal arts co-op programs (Linn, 2004b), and social work field education (Raschick, Maypole, & Day, 1998). As a note, other perspectives that have shown to be effective as a lens for exploring cooperative education include Mezirow's transformative learning theory (Stark, 2004), Saljo's conceptions of learning (Grosjean, 2003), and Bandura's social learning theory (Linn, 2004a; Linn, 2004b).
One organization that helps support cooperative education is the Canadian Association for Cooperative Education (CAFCE). Established over thirty years ago, CAFCE is an organization that provides college and university level co-op programs with guidance, support, and information on a number of levels (Canadian Association for Cooperative Education [CAFCE], 2004). These include program design, development, and management. CAFCE also acts as a forum and resource for cooperative education research. It is important to note that through the efforts of CAFCE, co-op programs across Canada have become well developed and internationally respected. This is due in part to the stringent accreditation process that requires programs to meet specific criteria. One important criterion for accreditation is ensuring that students are provided with meaningful jobs where they fully participate as an employee during work terms, rather than simply observe (CAFCE, 2007). Thus, the Canadian Association for Cooperative Education upholds the concept of experiential learning as a key component to program quality.
According to Kolb (1984), building knowledge requires that learners do more than passively reflect and conceptualize. To truly know, they must also engage in their environment in an active and concrete way. Interestingly, by requiring students to alternate between blocks of time in the class and on the job, cooperative education opens up opportunities for learners to pass through a learning cycle that includes both thinking and doing. In effect, cooperative education provides the context for experiential learning and in keeping with Kolb's learning theory, greater opportunities to build knowledge. Cooperative education may also provide the context for connected learning.
Through their landmark book Women's Way's of Knowing: The Development of Self, Mind, and Voice, the researchers Belenky et al. (1986) brought attention to the multiple ways of knowing. Significantly, they showcased how separate knowing, that is knowing gained through objectivity and opposition, is not fully representational of women's epistemological behaviors. Indeed, women are highly likely to incorporate a procedure called connected learning whereby the individual gains knowledge by looking through "the lens of another person" (p. 115) rather than through the "lens of a discipline" (p. 115). While this might imply that women should receive different, even segregated instruction, Enns (1993) suggests that learning environments would benefit by being more inclusive, to women as well as men, by incorporating a mix of learning modes. "Separate knowers and connected knowers are fictional characters; in reality the two modes can and do coexist within the same individual" (Clinchy, 1996, p. 207).
Merriam (1993) describes connected learning as an integration of the "private and the public, the personal and the political" (p. 97), but it is a procedure that is by no means highly polished (p. 109). Indeed, connected learning is difficult to frame succinctly because it is by nature a moving (Brown & Gilligan, 1992), boundless (Belenky et al., 1986), and messy (Skrtic, 1995) experience where the learner "co-creates the personal realities to which she responds and thereby participates in a reciprocity - not only between her environment and her body, but also within different levels of her own activities" (Mahoney, 1996, p. 129). As such, it occurs when learners feel as though they safely belong amongst their fellow students, teachers, family, friends, colleagues, and community. Using dialogue as a communication method, learners develop their authentic voice (Belenky et al., 1986, p. 33) and make an effort to emphasize connection over separation, acceptance over assessment, and collaboration over debate (Johnston, 2001).
To enter this sphere of knowledge-development, several elements must interlace: learners must engage in relationships and relationship building; they must feel emotion and even emotional within their relationships; and they must perceive the other as a person on the same level with different but equally valuable experiences and perceptions. Additionally, and important to this analysis, learners must value real-life experience as a tool in building knowledge. In fact, the connected learner values real-life experience as a key indicator of validity (Belenky et al., 1986; Merriam, 1993; Noddings, 2003). This is in contrast to situated cognition theory which implies a staging of events to bring real-life to the classroom (Stein, 1998, p. 2); connected learning would bridge the topic to students' individual lives (Brown, 1998, p. 5).
"For example, a women in an algebra class might finally understand how to calculate percentages when she realizes that she has always been able to figure out how much to leave for a 15 to 20 percent tip in a real-life situation" (Merriam, 1993, p. 97).
Rather then bringing real-life to class, class is brought to life because it is tied to active and concrete experience.
An important aspect of real-life experience is relationships. As a result, relationships and relationship building are central to connected learners as it is through the acts of relationship forming, such as playfulness and warmth (Brown & Gilligan, 1992), bonding (Kroeger, 2004), nurturing (McCraken, 1998), and valuing (Brown, 1998) through which something can become trusted and known. Brown and Gilligan (1992) state that "rather than blurring perspective or clouding judgment with feelings, relationship is the way of knowing, an opening between self and other that creates a channel for discovery, an avenue to knowledge" (p. 28). Through relationships and relationship building, learners build bonds and therefore, move more openly with differences in thoughts and ideas. Ultimately, the connected learner values real talk, a cooperative communication style that requires active listening, openness, and sharing (Belenky et al., 1986) as well as a belief in the other (Belenky et al., 1986; Clinchy, 1996).
Belief in the other comes as a result of learners allowing emotions to enter their sphere (Belenky et al., 1986). Being able to "hear the other in the others' own terms" (Clinchy, 1996, p. 216) enables the learner to empathize, trust (Belenky et al.), and open the door to other emotions such as joy (Keller, 1983; Noddings, 1984), and even laughter (Kroeger, 2004). Goldberger (1996) explains that the "mind-body dualism, tracked across time and the evolution of Western thought, has resulted in the pitting of reason against emotion and male against female" (p. 14). Through this separation opportunities to build knowledge may be narrowed.
Noddings explores the impact of emotions, particularly receptivity, as a powerful tool for learners. She describes how sometimes it is important to ask learners to "stop thinking" and simply open themselves to the problem. She explains the importance of our senses as such:
"I have watched students under the stop thinking directions suddenly see, and the result is impressive. Advocates of direct teaching and specific objectives may make a parody of the suggestion and ask: What shall we do with students - sit around and stare at the math problems? The answer is, of course not. Incubation and illumination do not come to the unprepared. But we need balance in our instructional efforts and far greater emphasis on affect and training of the senses. That the subject matter is worth looking at and listening to, that it can be played with, that it may respond unexpectedly, are messages worth conveying to our students' (p.146).
In effect, the advice is to not think about the problem but to feel the problem. Rather than separating the "knower from the known and the mind's knowing from it's emotional, bodily, and social life" the learner benefits from their "appreciative abilities" (Ruddick, 1996, p. 262). By feeling, other important information may become apparent and lead to an ability to solve and truly understand the problem at hand. In a detached unemotional mode, the possibility might otherwise be lost due to limited attention to what may be regarded as integrity (Debold, Tolman, & Brown, 1996, p. 106).
Another aspect of connected learning is subjectivity, where the learner sees other individuals as subjects and not objects. Interestingly, subjectivity need not be associated with another person. In fact, connected learners not only treat people as subjects but they may also, if circumstances are right, treat objects or ideas as subjects. Unlike separate learners who hold people, ideas, and things at arms length (Belenky et al., 1986; Severiens, Dam, & Nijenhuis, 1998) or use objects-to-think-with (Papert, 1980, p. 11), the connected learner allows the line between the self and the other to blur, opening herself to the object (Noddings, 1984). Barbara McClintock, the frequently sited Nobel Prize winning scientist, describes the transformation of object into subject as such:
"I found that the more I worked with [the maize] the bigger and bigger it got, and when I was really working with them I wasn't outside, I was down there. I was part of the system. I was right down there with them, and everything got big. I was able to see the internal parts of the chromosomes - actually everything was there. It surprised me because I actually felt as if I were right down there and these were my friends' (as cited in Keller, 1983, p. 117).
While not a typical person, the magnitude of McClintock's contribution to science draws attention to the potency of subjectivity. What is significant is how subjectivity enabled McClintock to become open to new knowledge.
The connected learner also understands through multiplicity. "With multiplicity, truth is no longer conceived as absolute and singular but multiple and infinite" (Belenky, et al., 1986, p. 63). In this way, the learner seeks to understand another person's perspective knowing that, while it may be completely unique, it holds value because it is from that individual's context. "Generalizability may be important when one is trying to demonstrate some law of cause and effect or of correlation between events, but is not necessarily relevant to the study of human perspectives" (Harry, 1992, p. 121). With multiplicity the learner behaves as a human and seeks out the human in others with all the contradictions, variances, and derivatives that that means. In due course, the connected learner comes to know by integrating the multiple pieces of information gained from listening to herself (Belenky et al., 1986) and the varying positions of others (Maher & Tetreault, 1996, p. 160).
As such, connected learning is difficult to define because it is complex and it does not remain static. Instead, it shifts and weaves through relationships and relationship building, emotion, and subjectivity, as well as multiplicity, and like experiential learning, real-life experience.
Cooperative education is an educational strategy that enables students to learn in class and on the job. And, by participating in this model, students have the opportunity to do more than simply observe, they have the opportunity to experience something for themselves within their chosen field of study. According to Kolb (1984), this type of learning strategy, where learners participate in considering as well as doing, increases their potential for knowledge development. But, what is this act of doing? To be sure, doing may mean completing a task or working on a problem but, it may also mean connecting with people, with oneself, and the environment through discussion, laughter, and listening. This is experiential learning, but of a particular sort.
The Canadian Association for Cooperative Education (CAFCE) maintains that for a program to be accredited, it must ensure that students participate fully and not just observe when on the job. In doing so, CAFCE seeks to accredit programs that enable experiential learning. But, what is meant by the term "productive work" (CAFCE, 2007)? Certainly, the term implies completing tasks and job responsibilities linked to a student's field of study. But productive work, to be meaningful, may require more subtle activities that only emerge through connected learning. As described by Belenky et al. (1986), "without playing, conversing, listening to others, and drawing out their own voice, people fail to develop a sense that they can talk and think things through" (p. 33).
The implication for practice therefore, is in recognizing the multiple ways of building knowledge. Naturally, employers must provide some degree of guidance in order for students to work productively and therefore, experience the practical application of what was learned in the classroom. As advanced by Dewey (1916) and Kolb (1984), hands-on experience is fundamental to making meaning. However, it may be worthwhile to view time spent by employers in developing a one-on-one and connected relationship with co-op students, as meaningful as well. Through relationships and relationship development, learners may have the opportunity to use dialogue as a communication tool and in turn, find their authentic voice (Belenky et al., 1986, p.33). Even casual discussion may represent opportunities for learners to feel emotional involvement, that they are a subject and not just an object that produces work. Personal involvement on behalf of employers may also represent opportunities for learners to understand the differences and similarities between their employer's, other's, and their own contexts, and therefore, multiplicity. Woven together, each of the elements that make up connected learning, deepen what is meant by productive work.
It is quite difficult to measure an employer's commitment to connected learning. Above all, employers must ensure that students have the opportunity to apply what was learned in the classroom setting. Nevertheless, recognizing that knowledge may be developed in multiple ways, and may be impacted significantly by connected learning, we go a long way in expanding the idea of what it means to learn on the job.
Cooperative education programs have increased and developed over time. Beginning in 1906 with the University of Cincinnati civil engineering program, co-op has since grown to include programs as diverse as design and business in both the United States and Canada. In North America, co-op programs typically require students to alternate for periods of time between work and study with the goal of increasing learning in both contexts.
Learning in cooperative education may occur because it enables participants to learn by doing rather than by simply observing. Dewey (1916) believed that learning by doing is essential because it enables learners to create links between the classroom and the workplace. This notion is supported by Kolb (1984) and his theory of experiential learning that places emphasis on not only considering but also becoming involved. Belenky et al. (1986) also highlighted learning by doing. However, they advance that learning by doing is centered on real-life experience and involves relationships, relationship building, emotion, subjectivity, and multiplicity. Without a doubt, recognizing that productive work may involve more than completing tasks linked to student's field of study, our understanding of what makes for meaningful work terms becomes more inclusive. To ensure greater inclusiveness an examination of the parameters used for approving work terms may be required with particular attention paid to employer's personal commitment and involvement with co-op students while on the job. Certainly, an open discussion on the links between cooperative education and experiential and connected learning would prove meaningful in deepening our understanding of the co-op strategy.