The Certificate in Integrative and Experiential Learning certificate (IEL) is an initiative of The Center for Teaching Excellence and the Center for Integrative and Experiential Learning. The program is designed to bring together faculty, instructors, and graduate students interested in exploring ways to help students reflect on and connect what they do within and beyond their curriculum, embrace multiple perspectives, and synthesize and transfer their knowledge to new, complex situations.
Key outcomes for participants include obtaining a deeper understanding of the ideals of integrative and experiential learning as well as developing a toolbox of simple techniques to engage students in reflection on their within and beyond the classroom experiences.
Requirements
Faculty, instructors and graduate assistants who participate in six or more Integrative and Experiential Learning workshops approved by the Center for Teaching Excellence will receive a certificate of completion, a letter of commendation, recognition on the Center for Integrative and Experiential Learning website, and will be eligible to apply for a grant to incorporate integrative learning strategies into a class, develop a new experiential learning opportunity for a course, or develop a team-taught interdisciplinary course. Participants will be required to attend the Introduction to Integrative and Experiential Learning and Small Changes, High Impact: Practices to Support Integrative Learning workshops and four (4) electives. Participants will have 2 academic semesters (and the summer) to complete the certificate.
Click on the "+" sign next to each event to see description.
Required Workshops
During their time at UofSC, our undergraduate students enroll in courses, participate in cocurricular engagements, hold down jobs while preparing themselves for their future careers, engage with the community, and manage their own personal challenges (AAC&U/Carnegie Foundation, 2004), but how do they make sense of these varied experiences and realize how they all interconnect? Integrative learning provides students with strategies to make connections between these within and beyond the classroom activities to help them apply their skills to new and complex problems and challenges.
This workshop explores teaching strategies and philosophies that encourage students to engage in activities beyond the classroom and then have students relate those experiences to their courses and curriculum. After reviewing current research and practices on integrative and experiential learning, how the Center for Integrative and Experiential Learning supports IL and EL, including plans for the new Quality Enhancement Plan, Experience by Design, participants will discuss strategies for encouraging students to reflect and make interdisciplinary connections between their experiences within and beyond the classroom to promote creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving. Register
Utilizing integrative learning principles, the presenters will share examples of how HIP characteristics are incorporated across different disciplines and identify classroom assessment techniques (CATs) that can be applied across a variety of academic settings. Participants will have opportunities to share examples of reflection and integrative learning principles in the design of assignments and appropriate assessment methods for their classroom. Register
Elective Workshops
The Career Champions program was created to educate and empower campus faculty and
staff on best practices to have career conversations with students. The learning outcomes
for level two are as follows:
- Gain knowledge around experiential education
- Identify different opportunities in the Career Center and beyond available for students to gain experience
- Identify ways to help students discover what opportunities they are interested in and know where to find them
- Gain knowledge in how to support students while they are involved in their experience to make it more impactful
- Articulate ways on how to encourage reflection during and after the experience
- Identify ways on how to handle concerns that can arise while a student is participating in an experiential education opportunity Register
In this panel session, we will explore the ways in which inclusive student communities can be fostered through integrative and experiential learning. Engaging students in hands-on experiences and reflection helps them connect knowledge learned in the classroom to real-world situations. All students should be given opportunities to have these meaningful experiences. How can we do that? When creating student experiences within and beyond the classroom, what must be considered to ensure the experiences are accommodating, accessible, and inclusive? What are the potential barriers to student participation and how do we overcome them? How can we structure them so that all students in a class, department, or program feel like they can participate in that experience?
The panelists will share examples of how they support their students in experiential learning to make it more inclusive. We will view this community-building through two lenses: (1) shaping experiences that are accessible and inclusive for all students, and (2) creating experiences that focus on issues of accessibility and inclusivity. Register
Ever wonder what students are truly learning through their research experience? Want to help guide them in that process of self-reflection? Undergraduate research is a well-established high-impact educational practice, and the more that students reflect on the experience, the more impactful it will be.
In this roundtable session, we will focus on how research advisors can support student reflection at appropriate and meaningful points in their students' experience. It will introduce the three domains of learning and their application to student reflection at each stage of the Seven Ps of Research. Using these tools, participants will reflect-in-action to develop tangible ideas for promoting a unique and personalized learning experience for each student. Register
Join us for the 3rd module of Career Champions. In this session we'll learn about the career competencies employers are looking for within our students and how to incorporate those into our academic lessons, student employment, internships, etc. You'll also know how to help students see these competencies within themselves and how to advocate their talents, abilities, and experiences. Register