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When developing a project, input from stakeholders is a key to success. In this paper, a Virtual Gemba Walk dashboard for virtual capstone projects is proposed. A Virtual Gemba Walk aligns the expectations of the three stakeholders: student, teacher and industry sponsor through a real-time analytics dashboard that visualizes project indicators, tracks progress and identifies misaligned expectations. This poster presents a proposed interactive dashboard, that leverages data from technology to support the Virtual Gemba Walk process. The dashboard contains key indicators of the capstone project, triggers new Gemba Walks and visualizes feedback from each stakeholders’ perspective. The aim is to help students, teachers and industry sponsors to get meaningful feedback for a better chance of project success. 

Experiential learning programs like internships and capstone projects are high-impact practices that allow engineering students to build a professional network, apply technical skills in a real-world context, and develop non-academic skills that employers need. In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent school closures impacted the entire engineering education ecosystem, particularly internships and other experiential learning opportunities. Virtual internship, an education intervention developed to broaden participation in experiential learning for non-traditional students, was rapidly deployed to address the disruption to internships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Key challenges that emerged during the implementation process include marketing the new program to existing partners, deciding on a remuneration structure, and navigating IP issues. The paper systematically steps through the implementation process and how the challenges mentioned above were addressed in practice. As life, school and internships return to normal in 2021 and beyond, the Virtual internship intervention can still play a valuable role in the experiential learning landscape. However, higher education institutions may need to intentionally de-couple the educational innovations rapidly developed during the COVID-19 pandemic from being ‘pandemic solutions’ to valuable alternatives that provide equitable and scalable access to educational opportunities and proactively invest in their continued sustainability and growth. 

Understand some of the key research insights that lead to the need for scaffolding • Hear a practical example of how Northeastern University is attempting to scaffold experiential learning programs through the implementation of technology • Take away practical tips and tools that can be implemented into any experiential learning program.