Learning by Doing: Secretary of Education Tours SLCC Media Facilities

 

During a recent visit to Salt Lake Community College’s South City Campus, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona laid out four “buckets” for successful education: career guidance, work-based learning, dual enrollment, and industry credentials.

For Cardona, those buckets represent an approach to higher ed that produces tangible, economically impactful results, connecting K-12 education to higher ed and, ultimately, careers with pathways that feel accessible, tangible, and compelling. For SLCC and the Center for Arts and New Media, which hosted the secretary’s visit, those buckets represent daily operations. The hands-on experience afforded by SLCC’s cutting-edge recording and film studios prove the point.

“You learn by doing with people who have experience in a place that’s as real as out there” Cardona said, lauding the excellent work by South City Campus faculty by sweeping his arm toward the window to emphasize the connection between work-based learning and professional opportunities in the various media industries that require technical expertise.

Josh Elstein, SLCC’s South City Campus program director for Arts and New Media, explained how the College epitomizes that approach, using hands-on experience to provide a platform of practical proficiency for students with a creative interest in media – a complete education that helps students turn what they live to do into what they do for a living.

“People think of art, and they think of the creative side,” explained Elstein. “But this is really a technical field. We train creative technicians here. They come with their passion for making art, and what we teach them are the tech and skill sets – and then they put those together to either transfer to a four-year institution or go right into the industry itself.” 

Cardona’s “buckets” recommend this approach. So does his personal educational experience.
“I’m a trade school student,” he said of his own K-12 educational background in automotive studies at H.C. Wilcox Technical High School in his hometown of Meriden, Connecticut.

“There’s always a stigma – four-year college or bust,” Cardona said while noting that, “four-year college has become a very expensive career exploration option. How do we make higher education connected to employment? The goal is to lead with options.”

The recent High School Arts and Media Workshop Day, where students from around Salt Lake valley met the faculty and learned about the programs and courses, represents an effort to foreground those options early in a student’s educational journey. “Not only do [these students] see what they could be learning and doing,” explained Elstein, “but they’re interacting with the faculty and getting that experience while they’re even in 9th grade.”

“It sells itself. This is engaging,” replied Cardona. “Kids would want to continue if they see these things. Problem-based learning and learning-while-doing is better pedagogy than memorizing facts. It’s really about engaging learning.”

From an audio mixing session to a directorial turn filing in front of the LED wall on the Taylor Virtual Production Stage, Cardona was able to experience SLCC’s approach to learning-while-doing.

After an introduction to the LED wall from Dave Lehleitner, associate professor, and Jake Dickey, the adjunct instructor who teaches the course on using the technology, Cardona was ushered behind the camera: “Our programs are meant to be hands-on,” prompted Elstein.

The secretary took hold of the camera’s trolley while setting the scene – staged virtually in the red desert of Southern Utah – with a prompt.

“We’re calling this ‘Lost in the Wilderness.’ We lost the secretary, and we have to find him,” he said with a laugh before declaring:

“Action!”