Info for Educators/ELI Advisors
Can an experience/course I deliver meet a student's ELI requirement?
For consideration of ELI approval, every experience in question must go through a vetting and approval process by the respective ELI Advisory Team. Experiences that have been approved, and which automatically count for ELI, include: internships through the Career & Professional Development Center, semester-long study abroad programs and cross-cultural courses, service learning courses, and a select number of identified leadership positions.
1) CREDITS
Students must have completed a minimum of 24 credits prior to completing an approved ELI experience. For transfer students, credits from other institutions will be considered toward the 24 credit requirement. Prior experiences that occur outside of Messiah are not eligible to meet the ELI requirement. Transfer students with questions or concerns should contact Christy Hanson, Dean of Experiential Learning.
2) HOURS
The experience must involve a minimum of 40 hours in an applied, out-of-classroom setting.
3) COMMON ELI REFLECTION QUESTIONS
To achieve the two primary goals of ELI (professional development and community engagement), students participating in an ELI experience will design learning objectives at the outset of the experience that flow from the common ELI reflection questions. At the conclusion of the experience, students will reflect on the outcomes of their learning objectives. Contact Christy Hanson, Dean of Experiential Learning, for more information and access to the ELI Canvas course.
4) CAREER APPLICATION
Students will synthesize and translate the learning from their reflection into a “career application” piece that is contextualized for an external audience relevant to the students’ future goals (employer, graduate school, etc.).
Options for career applications include: a resume; ePortfolio; website; LinkedIn profile; personal video; or mock interview using a virtual interviewing software program through the Career & Professional Development Center.
5) ELI ADVISOR FEEDBACK
ELI experiences will be overseen by a Messiah University educator who serves as the student’s ELI advisor. At minimum, ELI advisors will provide feedback to students at the beginning, midpoint and end of the experience. This feedback will relate specifically to the student’s design of and progress toward learning objectives and outcomes as well as the student’s completed career application.
The method of delivering feedback can take on many forms (e.g. 1:1, group, in-person, virtual). Methods used are likely to be influenced by whether the experience is individually-based or in the context of a course.
6) ASSESSMENT & EVALUATION
At the conclusion of an ELI experience, the ELI advisor is expected to complete the common ELI assessment rubric for each student being supervised. This rubric can be accessed as an electronic form in Canvas.
Complete a proposal which will be routed to the appropriate chairperson(s) who oversees the respective ELI experience.