Connecting Students to Campus Recreation Through a Profession-Based Learning Approach

The profession-based learning model provides students with opportunities to apply the learning that occurs in the classroom to projects and experiences that typically occur within the professional environments of their future employment (Mottet et al., 2017). In this presentation, the audience will gain an understanding of the current student population and what motivations could impact students deciding on a major/career. Another objective would be to understand how campus recreation professionals could engage students in a way to encourage future professional engagement (e.g. graduate assistantship, entry-level position).

This deeper appreciation will be facilitated by presenting a case-study of a recreation program that uses profession-based learning to structure their education to students (Hallmon, Nagata, & Myllykangas, in press). This will help encourage the development of effective and efficient partnerships between campus recreation professionals and recreation faculty to ensure students and pre-professionals are adequately prepared to move into campus recreation positions.

Learning Outcome(s):

1. Describe the current population of students and what motivations could impact a student decision on a major/career.
2. Describe how campus recreation professionals could engage students in a way to encourage future professional engagement.
3. Gain a deeper appreciation of how to use a profession-based learning model to educate recreation students to pursue a campus recreation career.

Core Competencies:

Philosophy & Theory

Research & Evaluation

CEUs:

0.5 NIRSA CEUs