Active Learning Experience (ALE)
Active Learning Experiences are a requirement of the General Education Program and provide opportunities for students to explore the connections among different venues for learning, including coursework, work-learning, service, research, and internships. Every ALE must include:
- Learning through sustained, continual engagement in, reflection on, and assessment of an experience;
- The use of knowledge, imagination, and judgment to address questions in a novel context; and
- Exploration of the connections between theory and practice, and between learning in courses and learning outside the classroom.
Recognizing the strong capacity for experiential learning within the Work College Program, the College allows a student's work-learning position to serve as a platform for completing an ALE in one of two ways:
- As an academic course through the Internship Office; or
- As a non-credit experience that satisfies the basic ALE requirement. A proposal for this option must demonstrate a clear and strong connection between the work performed and the academic discipline through which it is studied.
An ALE completed through the Work College Program requires a faculty sponsor and a supervisor co-sponsor, who work with the student to develop, guide, and assess the experience. Supervisors are not required to participate in this program, but doing so adds an element of learning to the workplace and encourages collaboration between the academic program and the Work College Program.