Surfboard - Field Experience

* Overview * Can you imagine a Field Experience program that requires no administration, improves learning and retention, plus prints your end of year reports in a single click?  What about one that doesn’t use spreadsheets, the honor system, or waste ridiculous amounts of time?  We did… and that’s not even the best part. It’s free to try. It’s inexpensive to run. It’s up and running at your school in 5 minutes. * Summary of the Program * 1. The Surfboard is setup for the University. 2. Student downloads the Surfboard from the App Store. 3. Student self-registers on the App. 4. Student scans a unique University QR Code. 5. Student chooses their Class. 6. Student chooses their Placement. 7. Student carries phone on visit to Placement. 8. Professor tracks the Student’s progress during the semester. 9. Placement reports are filed at the end of the semester. * Life without the Surfboard * Honor System - Students manually keep track of their time and compile their own reports. At the very best, this is time consuming and leads to errors. At the worst, this leads to dishonesty and a lack of proper training. Mentor System - Professors burden the Mentors with being babysitters for the Students. Along with trying to be Teachers, Mentors are tasked with keeping logs, providing updates, and producing the end of semester reporting. Partial System - Schools implement partial measures that meet some but not all of their requirements. This usually results in inaccurate, time consuming reports, typically requiring Spreadsheets, Mentors, and Students to produce them. * Life with the Surfboard * Accountability - Students are held accountable for their visits, which means they actually go and learn from their Mentors. Retention - Teachers know immediately when a Student is falling behind, which leads to an earlier intervention and a higher retention rate. Accreditation - Administrators can have confidence that their Teachers are running a credible Field Experience Program. Tracking is effective, reporting is comprehensive, and the benefits to the Student are real. * Positive Impact at All Levels * Administrators want a modern University that embraces technology. Students don’t want to go to a school that fills out paper logs and spreadsheets. Professors care about their Student’s education. They want to spend more time teaching and less time doing administration. The Surfboard frees up time and enforces learning. Students love the Surfboard. Students have given the App a near perfect rating and tons of positive feedback. They love checking their progress and knowing how they’re doing. Mentors enjoy being a part of the learning process for the Students… and that’s it. They shouldn’t be involved in the administration of your field experience program. * Security * Controlled Access - Only Authorized Faculty are granted access to a Class and a Student’s Placement Activity. Delayed Reporting - Placement activity is never reported when in-progress and completed placements are intentionally delayed. Plus, only dates are visible to Professors. Limited Tracking - Placement activity is only recorded in predefined windows. Under normal schedules, this means no tracking on weekends and after-hours. Student Control - The Student accepts and has full control over all tracking. They authorize and accept the placement and can end it at any time. * Full-Service Solution * We create and configure each class, minimizing the time required to get the program started. We create each location with an expertly placed geofence for optimal tracking of visits. We add the user accounts, restricting access to the classes being administered that period.