What is a Project-Based Work-Based Learning (WBL) Type?

Project-Based Work-Based Learning Types

The project-based WBL type was implemented after realizing there is a need to track hours for groups of students participating in WBL experiences that take place over more than one day. Because it's a group of students partaking, student-based isn't a fit. On the flip side, since it's more than one single day, an event isn't the right fit either. We determined that we needed a way to add hours per student over the course of the entire project but still separate those hours by the day. The overall look and feel of this type is inspired by the task progress grid, the industry certification progress grid, professionalism grid, etc. to give the type a gradebook feel.

Enrollment forms can also be tracked with projects. The forms are not required until a student has hours assigned to them, but you can still complete forms ahead of time if you anticipate that the student will be involved in the project.

Unlike events, students are not assigned to the event, any student can be allocated hours at any time. This allows you to have the flexibility to substitute students for specific roles in the project if another student is absent for a day. These projects are completely open ended. They do not have a start or end date. If the project is concluded, you simply archive the type and the hours will still be reportable.

Project-based WBL types can be used for school-based enterprise, service learning, or even volunteer hours. Since volunteer work for students could happen sporadically and sometimes individually (not in as a group), this is a great way to track those volunteer hours. This way you don't have to create a whole student-based experience record for one day of volunteering and don't have to create a whole event record with only one student marked that they attended it. Since there is no end date to a project, you can simply allocate volunteer hours to any student for any day at any time so those student's hours are logged and added to the student's record.

If you'd like to add hours for students that were completed before you were using this software, having a project-based type named "Back-dated Hours" is a good way to enter those. This will allow all of your reporting for students to be entirely consolidated.

Any user that has access to the WBL module and the project-based tab will have the access to update hours for the students they have access to. This means that teachers can enter hours for their own students. If the project's responsibilities span multiple classes, each corresponding teacher can add what their own students were responsible for.