Balancing student learning and commercial outcomes in the workplace

Community engagement is growing across higher education. Cooperative education and other internships are well established in the literature as pedagogies with links to experiential and connected learning. Cooperative programs combine business, industry, educational providers and students paid on-the-job. Most studies of work-based learning focus on individual or small group-based models. This paper reports on a large and complex work-integrated project involving 35 students from seven disciplines in an Australian higher education context. The students took 10 weeks to research, design and implement an online financial skills training program for small business owners. Students worked in teams to create an online content management system, design the website, develop and edit content and produce audio visual material. Feedback from industry partners and students identified that greater attention to planning, student selection and overall project management could have increased the overall benefits. Findings suggest specific ways to improve large group work-based programs.