Redesigning the Construction Internship Course With Personalized Learning Paths

Internship experience is an essential component in construction pedagogy. It connects students' learning from the classroom with practical insights and real-world industry needs. However, in most universities, internship courses often lack a standard structure and students' performance is typically evaluated based on a log of daily work activities and a final report. This is a waste of opportunity for providing students with a deeper, reflective, and individualized learning experience. Therefore, this paper presents an innovative and structured approach to transforming the student internship course, using the Construction Management program at Florida International University (FIU) as a case study. The redesigned course aims to provide students with a more personalized learning experience, allowing them to reflect, share, and learn from each other, as well as to promote a more robust professional network. The course includes both mandatory and optional modules, which covers not only technical skills such as training on the tools widely-used in the industry (e.g., Procore and Bluebeam), but also soft skills such as time management, public speech, professional writing, and advanced topics like artificial intelligence applications in construction. Students have the flexibility to complete the different modules in any desired order at their own pace, and select 70 % from the optional modules based on their interests and career goals. This new course structure is intended to equip students with critical skills relevant to the construction industry, promote lifelong learning attitudes, and help them have a successful and balanced career. Student assignments and reports from five semesters are further analyzed using text mining techniques. The results indicate that the redesigned internship course has positively impacted student engagement, professional growth, and readiness for careers in the construction industry. The results of this paper provide insights that can support construction management programs in establishing and enhancing internship courses within their curriculum.