Take this transcript of a presentation. Rewrite for grammar, readability, and turn this into copy for a website with clear headers. Example headers could be, "What is Experiential Learning," "Why Experiential Learning at the University of Texas School of Public Health?" "MPH Applied Practice Experience Practicum Course" and "Frequently Asked Questions."

There's multiple ways to think about experiential learning. So we'll talk about experiential learning from an overall perspective. And also we'll be talking about what experiential learning means for the School of Public Health. And after that, we'll all dive right into our applied practice experience Practicum course. That is a required course for the MPH program and I will make sure to leave enough time for questions from the audience. So Introduction to Experiential Learning What is Experiential Learning? Experiential learning covers fundamental elements of a of an applied experience. So we begin with an experience and actual activity, our experience where we engage from a practical perspective and we follow with critical reflection activities that helps us make the connections between what we learned, what we did and what we learned, and how that helps us into the future as we continue to learn and develop goals academically and professionally.
 So what we have here in the PowerPoint is the experiential learning centers and activity that is practical and reflective engagement. There's multiple forms of experiential learning. That's like I mentioned, that the accompanying umbrella to multiple activities such as a practicum course, which we call the Applied Practice Experience, or APEX course, which is our practice or practicum, which is also important, helpful to start becoming more familiar with the acronyms and the terminology. So APEX means the applied practice experience for a practicum course, but there's other forms of experience of learning such as guided research, service, learning, internships or work based projects and other activities that are associated with career services, such as engaging and like I mentioned, extreme shifts in workplace projects and other activities. 
So why Experiential learning at the University of Texas School of Public Health? I'm telling you what what's unique about is. So first off, I'd like to start by talking about the fact that we are the first School of Public health here in San Antonio, and our focus is public health within the San Antonio and South Texas context. That makes us very unique. Just for that mere fact, you're able to connect with community members across the San Antonio and and South Texas communities as you engage in your experiential learning activities, not only through the practicum but across the coursework within the MPH program. experiential learning is actually not only focused on the practicum course, but also embedded across the MPH coursework, meaning you'll have a lot of activities really related to engaging with community directly and from a practical perspective, as you take on every or the majority of the courses with through the MPH program here in San Antonio. as you do that, you'll be applying and expanding on skills and competencies that are related to or that are considered public health competencies and also at the same time making the connection between this public health competencies and career transferable skills that are valuable and that employers look for as they consider candidates for employment across multiple areas and cultural capital. What does that mean? So here at the School of Public Health, we developed a really unique model of experiential learning where we connect the public health competence, these the transferable career skills and the cultural capital to engage in what I mentioned as a very important piece of experiential learning, critical reflection. 
So at the School of Public Health will support critical reflection for my guided process, where you'll be able to describe and examine and articulate your learning but is drawn from your experience of learning activity. And so with that, you'll be able to enhance your understanding of public health. You'll be able to connect to your learning with very specific activities, recognize the value of learning and setting new goals. Through that experience. And so as you make those connections, you'll also be able to recognize that cultural assets that you already come with. That's where the cultural capital comes, in. And this cultural capital can involve your familial and social networks, your lived experiences or traditions or values, your linguistic skills, your navigational skills and assets. So you'll be able to recognize the overlap that exists between this cultural capital, your academic knowledge and your skills, and that can definitely provide opportunities to help you continue shaping your public health interests, your community interest, your leadership styles. And so that's something that we will be providing through reflection and through other activities that the School of Public Health. So we know that that's a very unique offering across public health education. We'll also be providing opportunities to connect that with career advising and career support services across your experience through your MPH.
So now we'll be talking specifically about the MPH Applied Practice Experience Practicum course. So what is a practicum? A practicum is one is an experiential learning delivery form as we know, experiential learning can take many shapes. So one of them is a practicum. What is a practicum course? So it is a course that provides students with a structured, guided and graded applied practical experience that creates 6097 Applied practice experience. Course for the MPH program is our required program that you'll be taking. typically it happens after the second semester of your of your program and we'll talk more about that the sequence. So a little bit more about what is this MPH practicum course. This practicum course is a three semester credit hours course which is required for the program. It is an in-person practical experience, community engagement, typically non academic. However, there can be exceptions to that if it's a project within an academic institution. Is community facing there's opportunities to make that project or that practicum experience eligible for for for this course. So this course can provide opportunities to work in many sectors such as governmental agencies, nonprofits, for profit industry or academic settings based on on your interaction with the community, through this academic institution or practicum site, potentially, I want to make sure that I also bring up the fact that if you're really working in public health, you can take advantage of that and you can also you can actually set up your your practicum in a way where you can conduct your practicum at your current place of employment. However, the projects and the position or the practicum experience that you can potentially experience at your current place of employment needs to be outside of the scope or the job. This purpose are related to your current position, but there's opportunities for that. So what are some of the requirements for the practicum course? There are some recommend that require not requirements, but that some recommended practices to prepare for your practicum. And the first one is that you take on the fund foundational courses that typically most students will be register for. For the first two semesters of the MBA program. This foundational course will give you the foundational knowledge to be best prepared for for your practicum course. These foundational courses will help you develop the theoretical knowledge and the skills related to concepts in public health and decisions that are public health data, health promotion and health behavior, Health policy and introduction to occupational and environmental health and things that can be very helpful and prepare you to best continue on to a practical experience where you can support and help the mission and the goals of your practicum site. what is in fact required for the program is that you complete a learning agreement, and the learning agreement will ensure that you engage in and practicum experiences that will require you to participate for a minimum of 180 hours. That would be the minimum hour requirement for fieldwork and through this agreement, you'll be able to map and identify five competencies related to public health training to be foundational competencies into meaning competencies that are accreditation body. The Council for for Public Education see you'll be provided with a listing of this competency that you'll be able to to gain a better understanding of this competency, particularly through the first couple semesters of your MPH experience. But then as you complete this agreement, you'll be able to map this five competencies, foundational and concentration competencies to two deliverables that students are required to complete the practicum experience this deliverable are high quality products that will help the practicum site in advancing their goals and their objectives and their end their initiatives. so that's what's required through the learning agreement. I mentioned critical reflection. That's something that you'll be actively engaging with through the practicum course, periodic critical reflection exercises and not only completing this critical reflection exercises will be something that will be a critical part of your experience, but also the fact that will facilitate adding opportunities for feedback from your practicum supervisors. We call calling preceptors faculty mentors and see able to continue to continually reflect on your experience and develop new goals and enhance your understanding of public health from a very practical experience. Lastly, we'll have a celebration of your success and your participation to a symposium where you'll have opportunities to present your work through the digital poster sessions, and we'll be connecting that with career networking opportunities. The practicum team begins with us during the students responsible for proposing and completing the experience, I mentioned a faculty sponsor that will be guiding you and supporting you and grading your practicum through the experience that preceptor or site supervisor will be the individual supervising and mentoring through the experience and will have an experiential learning office where you can connect to the resources for the practicum as well as career resources. 1220 is the electronic system where you'll be able to select your practicum site. You'll be able to go through the approval workflows for agreements, for affiliation agreements, for the learning agreement, upload your documents, upload your deliverables, conduct your critical reflection. So everything will be digital as something that's not available across MPH programs. that's something that also brings added value to our MPH program here in San Antonio. we talked about career advising tools that are connected throughout the practicum experience. Those will be available through 1220 as well. Information and resources related to the important question of what can I do with an MPH program being that public health is such a multidisciplinary field, those very important resources looking at earning potential related public health careers, I highly recommend that you go back to our website that that URL is listed at the bottom where we have a lot of information about careers in public health and resources. Just as a quick example, we have some of the careers or jobs related to public health the salaries associated with that will have careers services available to you to engage in those type of conversations, not only for the purposes of the practicum, although that's important to you, how can we connect the practical experience to your career goals your skillset and your values? And so forth? that's something that will be available throughout your MPH program as well. 

Now, I'm going to go through like a couple of very common frequently asked questions, So first question is where will I be able to find a practicum site? I talked about 1220 as as a as a database that will be available for you to select potential practicum projects. But you can also do that on your own to select or developed a practicum project independently. As you connect with your contacts in the field that you might have from previous experience or your connections through LinkedIn or other organizations, or you can do independent searches and we'll support that as well. 

Next question is when should I begin planning my practicum? We would encourage you to begin this planning process. From semester one, you'll have orientation sessions related to do that right from the first semester so they can learn about the process and the resources. we will definitely recommend that you do that as soon as possible. 

What are the benefits of an MPH program? We've talked about this already throughout this presentation. But just to reinforce that, obviously there's opportunities to connect knowledge with practice, immerse yourself through practice for a better understanding of public health in the community, make new connections, develop a professional network that can help you advance in your career goals and develop products that can be published or presented during conversations with potential employers or during job interviews.