Work-Based Learning

excerpted from the Alliance for Excellent Education (pdf)

What Is Work-Based Learning?
Work-based learning consists of a range of experiences that help prepare students for post-secondary education and a career by extending and deepening classroom learning. High-quality work-based learning includes a continuum of experiences, such as career awareness beginning in the early grades; career exploration in the middle and high school grades; practicum experiences that allow for the application of academic concepts through real-world experience and engagement with adults outside of high school; and career preparation at the secondary and post-secondary levels. These experiences can be facilitated through a variety of activities, including job shadowing, internships, apprenticeships, and service-learning projects in high school and beyond.

Work-based learning can convey a variety of benefits to students. When coordinated with students’ academic course work, work-based learning can reinforce and strengthen academic competencies. By allowing students to apply what they are learning to real-life situations and problems of significance, work-based learning opportunities can help participants develop twenty-first-century skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, teamwork, and project management. Further, by providing students first-hand exposure to jobs and industry professionals, work-based learning can broaden career aspirations and employment options and employability skills. For example, a study by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education finds that students participating in work-based learning showed improvements in attendance, speaking and listening, and improved interactions with coworkers.

However, despite these benefits, there are a variety of state and local obstacles that can limit both the
access to and quality of work-based learning opportunities. Such obstacles include

• state and local seat-time requirements that prevent students from attaining academic credit for learning opportunities that take place outside of the school building;
• lack of funding for transportation to and from work-based learning opportunities and limited district  bus schedules that may restrict transportation to certain locations at certain times;
• liability concerns, particularly safety;
• logistical and financial constraints in providing compensation to participants; and
• lack of a formal definition describing high-quality work-based learning experiences. 

See the hyperlinked report for state examples.