Student-Led Learning - Here's How
Disclaimer: This is one approach. Consider your audience, objectives, and institution…
At Full Sail University, flexible learning means elevating student voice and student choice.
From an implementation standpoint, here’s how we approach both the opportunities and challenges inherent within student-led learning initiatives.
When students commit to a particular degree program, their coursework follows a prescribed path that cumulatively builds on competencies and components developed along the way. The majority of classes are built using a project-based learning approach that allows students to demonstrate their relationship to the content in personally and professionally relevant ways. Students choose any number of media-rich deliverables to showcase both the process and product of their learning throughout the program.
Full Sail courses run every 4 weeks, which gives us the regular opportunity to iterate and innovate within our curriculum
When requesting feedback from students regarding their experience we have often heard...
We wish we had more time...
We wish we could work on our own projects...
We wish we could learn more about…
We wish we could collaborate with…
We wish we could slow down…
In honoring student voice and in direct response to this wishlist, we instituted a portfolio track within each degree program that built off the following principles:
Personal Relevance
Collaboration
Modeling
Mentoring
Meaning-Making
As students follow a prescribed path through their curriculum, there are numerous (5-7 depending on the degree program) portfolio development stops peppered throughout their journey. No new content is delivered in these courses. Instead, they provide students regular opportunities to revisit and refine the concepts and techniques from previous classes. These portfolio courses are designed to support each individual student as they explore a process of discovery, an articulation of self, and a demonstration of skill.
The synchronous time spent in these courses is guided by faculty mentors who coordinate opportunities for students to connect with industry professionals, partner with local organizations through internships, and collaborate in groups on real world projects and initiatives.
Students choose how to best optimize their asynchronous time through a unique combination of:
Goal Setting
Self-Exploration
Collaboration
Skill Development
Career Readiness
Because students design their own learning experience during these portfolio courses, they assess their progress using the RISE Model, which is a tool that structures and facilitates the self-examination of professional body of work. By addressing a series of stems aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy, students are prompted to use higher order thinking skills to thoughtfully consider how their workflow and work product form a rich narrative that is both an articulation of self and a demonstration of skill.
