Faculty and Student Perspectives on Cultivating Career Readiness with Online Experiential Project-Based Learning

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Speakers

Dr. Sarah Portway and Samantha Alberts

Brief Description

During this presentation, we will share faculty and student perspectives on a semester-long online experiential learning project and its effect on career readiness. A faculty will share their pedagogical practices, tips, tools, and lessons learned while teaching the project. A former student will share their retrospective perspective, emphasizing the career-readiness competencies they gained or struggled with throughout the semester.

Full Abstract

During this presentation, we will share faculty and student perspectives on a semester-long online experiential learning project and its effect on students’ perceived career readiness. A faculty will share their pedagogical practices, tips, tools, and lessons learned while teaching the project. A former student will share their retrospective perspective, emphasizing the career-readiness competencies they gained or struggled with throughout the semester.

The project was delivered online twice (Spring 2021 and Fall 2021) in an upper-level fashion promotion course at the State University of New York at Oneonta. At the beginning of the course, students are given a brief from Scott Saltzman of PUMA (SUNY Oneonta alum, class of 1986). The brief contains proprietary information with only minor modifications for use in the classroom, and it covers the next season’s upcoming products. Students are asked to design a viable, persuasive, and well-researched promotional campaign for the product launch. Students had frequent networking opportunities with an industry professional and worked with an authentic brand’s upcoming products, and launch dates. Students executed the same tasks as the promotion professionals at PUMA, from developing concept boards and mock-ups, identifying needed resources, creating a timeline and list of functions, and developing a highly detailed and itemized budget. Students present sections of their promotional idea pitch twice during the semester and receive detailed written and verbal feedback from the professor and our partner at PUMA. Students apply their feedback and significantly revise their promotional campaign before delivering their final pitch instead of a written exam.

This presentation is significant because it addresses student perspectives on best practices in the classroom. Further, experiential learning projects are excellent preparation for careers after college (Franek, 2019). This project asks students to cultivate the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) career readiness core competencies (What Is Career Readiness?, 2022) such as professionalism, communication, critical thinking, technology, and teamwork to complete high-quality collaborative projects on time.

Participants will leave the presentation with sample project briefs, project tracking resources, self-and-peer evaluation forms, guidance, and insight on executing experiential team projects in an online learning modality. Participants will also see anonymous course evaluation data and hear from a student who completed the course in the fall of 2021.

References

• Franek, R. (2019). How hands-on learning in college could launch your career. The Princeton Review. https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/experiential-learning-benefits
• What is Career Readiness? (2022). National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/career-readiness-defined/

Session Objectives

• Discover best practices for online, experiential, team, and project-based teaching
• Describe student perceptions of best practices and career readiness after completing an online, experiential, team, and project-based course Presenter Headshot

Biography

Dr. Sarah Portway is an assistant professor, program coordinator, and internship coordinator in the Fashion & Textiles program at the State University of New York at Oneonta. She worked in the fashion industry for ten years at brands such as Burberry and Le Chateau before completing her Master’s in Fashion at Ryerson University (’12) and her Ph.D. in Fiber Science and Apparel Design at Cornell University (’18). Dr. Portway’s research has historically focused on the efficacy of sustainable fashion activism, and recent work has been concerned with best practices to cultivate career readiness in the classroom. Recent scholarly contributions include teaching resources such as case studies for the Bloomsbury Fashion Business Cases and a research paper presented at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) concerning ePortfolios class projects and career readiness. Dr. Portway is experienced with a wide range of high-impact pedagogical practices, as defined by the AAC&U, such as capstone projects, collaborative projects, ePortfolios, internships, and writing-intensive coursework. Dr. Portway’s innovative and technology-driven teaching methods earned her recognition in 2022 when she received the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence.

Co-Presenter Bio

Samantha Alberts graduated in Spring 2022 from the State University of New York at Oneonta with a Bachelor of Science in Fashion & Textiles degree, with a merchandising concentration. She is from Herkimer, New York, where she received an Associate of Applied Science degree in Fashion Buying and Merchandising at Herkimer College. During her undergraduate degree at Oneonta, she pursued independent studies, was a teaching assistant, presented research at Student Research and Creative Activity Day (SRCA day), and entered her work in a highly competitive international competition hosted by the Educators for Socially Responsible Apparel Production (ESRAP). Her study interests include generational impacts and innovative sustainable practices in the fashion industry. She intends to pursue a master’s degree starting in Fall 2023.

Session Notes

Attending the presentation? Take shared notes in this Google Doc and view the final notes below.