Every discipline taught in higher education-bar none-has a potential impact on our students' abilities to achieve productive careers. Our fields of study are not only valuable for their own sakes. They also have practical application in...
moreEvery discipline taught in higher education-bar none-has a potential impact on our students' abilities to achieve productive careers. Our fields of study are not only valuable for their own sakes. They also have practical application in developing our graduates' core competencies in: • Collaboration and the ability to work effectively as a member of a team • Communication across contexts and audiences • Critical thinking and the ability to solve complex problems • Creativity and innovation • Content area knowledge • Confidence in one's own abilities and capacity to work independently Students are more engaged in learning when they understand how their experience in the classroom will be relevant to the other courses they take, to their major, and to their careers after graduation. However, we have historically left it up to our students to discover these connections for themselves. We teach what we teach, trusting that the intrinsic value of the disciplinary knowledge we convey is sufficient reason to require that students learn our course content. We're usually very good at telling our students what they need to know, and outstanding instructors also take the extra step of creating classroom activities and assignments that provide for how students will learn this required content. But do we do an equally good job of convincing our students of why they need to learn what we're trying to teach? Hopefully, the answer to that last question isn't, "Because it will be on the final exam." Do we genuinely and convincingly communicate why the knowledge we convey in our classrooms is of genuine value to students' personal hopes and aspirations beyond the last day of class? Linked learning is a strategy to maximize students' career success by directly connecting classroom learning to professional application. By drawing overt and intentional parallels between our course content, academic disciplines, creative practice, or scholarly activity and students' future careers, we surpass standard expectations for higher education. Instead, we cultivate students' ability to internalize and apply what they learn in our classrooms, strengthening their collegiate experience and better preparing them to become successful professionals in whatever career field they choose to pursue. Applying a career-focus to your instruction need not alter your course content dramatically, nor is it prohibitively difficult or time-consuming. The first place to begin is to plan a 10-minute lesson for each week of instruction. In time, perhaps you'll decide to create additional components to supplement the career-focus of the 10-minute lessons, devoting an entire class period or more to activities such as inviting a guest speaker, creating or modifying an assignment to include career-related expectations, or forging a partnership with an external organization supportive of the linkage between your course content and career application for your students. For now, let's begin at the beginning. Focus Areas for 10-Minute Lessons What topics or questions could your career-focused lesson address? This will depend on whether you're teaching a course for students who intend to pursue professional practice in an art or design discipline, or teaching a general education or liberal arts requirement. Students majoring in your discipline should receive specific information about the realities of professional practice in your field outside the context of higher education. Students majoring in a related field who take your course as an elective should
