For Faculty & Staff
Project-Based Learning
From the joint Project- & Problem-based learning Institutes to customized training for your academic program, faculty development is offered through the partnership of AEL & CETL in a variety of fashions. Learn more PBL.
Join our Community of Practice
Enhance your teaching through our experiential learning Community of Practice. Access professional development programs, workshops, and collaborative opportunities with departments like the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), and programs such as the Virginia Talent + Opportunity Partnership (VTOP), offered by the Center for Economic and Community Engagement.
Request a Service
The Academy for Experiential Learning offers professional development and assistance to faculty, staff, departments, and colleges. Request one or more of our services: Academy for Experiential Learning Service Request Form.
Description of Services
Data Collection: Our office provides support, resources, and suggestions for performing your gap analysis (conducted at the start of departmental/school/college Bridge Experience Program development to understand where needs and gaps exist among your students and program of study). We can provide disaggregated data for your department to facilitates this process, support the development and deployment of your data collection instrument, and assist in the analysis of your collected data. Our office can also provide services and support for evaluating courses and conducting program evaluations, focus groups, and impact studies.
Curriculum Planning/Revision: The Academy for Experiential Learning offers support to individual faculty and departments in assessing current curricula and employing modifications. From revisiting learning outcomes and their alignment with syllabi to assisting with shifting teaching approaches and integrating a more holistic, multi-disciplinary approach, our office will work with you to implement elements into the course that you deem more appropriate and beneficial. Additionally, we will offer suggestions and assistance on flipping your classroom to help increase student confidence and ownership, as well as guidance on forming and assessing groups, classroom facilitation, incorporating reflection exercises, and techniques for motivating students.
Scaffolding Plan of Study (embedded in curricular planning/revision on the service request form): With an increase demand in professional, transferrable, and inter-personal skills, post-graduation destinations, whether graduate school, work, community engagement, military, or any other possibility, require adaptability, creativity, a more robust understanding of the bigger picture and the pieces of which it is comprised, and greater awareness of the self and the world. Traditional teaching approaches of lecturing, memorization, and testing through quizzes and exams, are no longer adequate for the demands each individual is faced in the world. The ability to apply learning, think critically and proactively, and troubleshoot problems are necessary functions to possess. Our office works with departments and individuals to integrate the scaffolding throughout the plan of study required by the demands of today's world. We will work with you to think through the best approach for your course, the learning outcomes, and how to ensure alignment. We work with individual faculty and advisors to provide the scaffolding and support to students, as well as on the college-level to coordinate across the plan of study, attenuate subject boundaries, and assess student learning in greater dimensions.
Student Opportunity Center (SOC): Our office offers demos of the Student Opportunity Center (SOC), a platform for finding and promoting research, internships, service learning, and other experiential learning opportunities. We provide student-focused demos (in-class or co-curricular) that cover how to access, search, and apply for opportunities. We also offer faculty and staff sessions that demonstrate how SOC supports experiential learning goals, including how to get departmental or program opportunities featured on the site. Presentations can be tailored for students across varying majors, as well as for faculty, advisors, BEP participants, and academic departments.
Communicating the BEP/Creating buy-in: The Academy for Experiential Learning provides strategic support to help departments effectively communicate the purpose, value, and expectations of the Bridge Experience Program (BEP) to internal and external audiences. We assist faculty, staff, students, and community partners in understanding how the Bridge integrates into academic pathways and contributes to student development, career readiness, and applied learning outcomes. We offer customized communication strategies, including presentation materials, messaging frameworks, departmental briefings, and outreach templates, that help colleagues and administrators articulate the program’s goals in a clear and consistent way. Our team also supports engagement planning for students, helping departments communicate requirements, timelines, and benefits in a way that fosters enthusiasm, clarity, and early commitment to the experiential learning process. To help build cohesion across the department, we facilitate conversations among faculty and advisors that surface shared priorities, align expectations, and establish common language around experiential learning. This includes workshops, co-design sessions, and collaborative planning meetings that strengthen internal coordination and unify the department’s approach to implementing the Bridge Experience Program.
Finally, we provide guidance for engaging external stakeholders, including community partners, employers, and alumni, by helping departments communicate partnership opportunities, mutual benefits, and the role of experiential learning in student success. Together, these efforts support stronger relationships, clearer expectations, and a shared commitment to delivering high-impact experiential learning opportunities to students.
3900 Canvas System: Our office provides support for the implementation and use of the 3900 Canvas System, a centralized platform for managing and documenting experiential learning requirements. This system helps students track their progress through experiential milestones such as reflection submissions, activity approvals, and BEP requirements within a single, accessible course structure.
We offer individual and group consultations that guide faculty, staff, advisors, and BEP teams through the setup of the 3900 Canvas environment and the data available for tracking, reporting, and funding. These sessions cover workflow design, integration of experiential learning activities, and strategies to monitor student engagement and completion.
Reflection: As an integral piece to holistic growth and developing a greater level of emotional intelligence, reflection enables students to think more deeply. By understanding significance, opening their mind to new perspectives, and learning to identify and think more critically about behaviors, interactions, and results, students increase their leadership, creativity and innovation skills. Embedding reflection throughout the plan of study prepares students to maximize classroom and experiential learning. The Academy for Experiential Learning offers support and training in scaffolding the plan of study with a progressive sequence of learner-centered approaches and reflection, as well as assists in how and when to incorporate reflection, improve reflection prompts, and assess reflection responses. Because the Bridge Experience Program (BEP) requirements are directly tied to the three learning outcomes of the program, our office provides professional development directly to address helping students respond to those BEP reflection prompts and assess responses.
Assessment: Providing feedback to students is critical to their learning and growth. The more understanding and awareness a student possesses, the they are able to maximize their experience and develop the skills needed to flourish in the world. By providing salient and robust feedback, students are able to make greater connections and meaning. Feedback also enables a student to realize elements of which they were previously unaware or were unexplored. To optimize experiential learning, students should have the guidance and skills to think more critically and intentionally. Assessing the BEP student submission can be challenging, particularly discerning if a student indeed met the requirements outlined in the rubric. The Academy for Experiential Learning offers support, guidance, and training on assessing student submission and providing feedback to nurture and enhance student knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Showcasing Student Work (Experiential artifact): Our office supports the development and presentation of experiential learning showcases designed to highlight student achievements, applied projects, research outcomes, internships, community-engaged work, and other high-impact experiential learning activities. These showcases provide students with an opportunity to reflect on their learning, articulate their growth, and present their work to faculty, peers, community partners, and campus or external stakeholders. We assist departments, programs, advisors, and faculty with the full lifecycle of planning and executing a showcase event. This includes consultation on event design, support creating reflection prompts or presentation rubrics, guidance on recruiting participants, and guidance on developing communication materials such as posters, digital slides, and program summaries. Our team can also advise on aligning showcase criteria with program outcomes, BEP competencies, or departmental learning goals. Whether hosted as a poster session, gallery walk, digital submission, or live presentation, showcases serve as an impactful platform for students to demonstrate applied learning and for programs to illustrate the value of experiential education. Our office provides tailored support to ensure events are meaningful, accessible, well-structured, and reflective of institutional standards for experiential learning.
Consultation: The Academy for Experiential Learning is available for one-on-one, group, departmental, and college-level consultations. The scope of the consultations are not limited, but determined by the assistance you seek.