Browsing by Subject "Experiential Learning"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Becoming aware of and learning how to navigate the SBIR program: the entrepreneurs‘ perspectives.
    (2011-04) Sarvela, Pamela M.
    Little is known about how much technological innovation is lost in the United States because technology entrepreneurs do not have the financial capability for the research and development necessary to bring an idea to a commercial level. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is part of a national innovation system developed to support research and development efforts for technological innovation by small business. The program is national in purpose, but regionally distributed. The old adage of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer seems to hold true with 56% of SBIR awards going to the same handful of states since the genesis of the program. This study explored the phenomenon of how entrepreneurs in Minnesota learned to navigate the SBIR program by interviewing six entrepreneurs who had experienced various levels of success. Intellectual capital—human, social, organization learning—served as the thread woven through all aspects of the participants learning how to navigate the SBIR program. As the stories unfolded, the participants description of learning by ―doing it‖ revealed the complexity of the interrelationships; and an adaptable and flexible learning style which Kolb (1984) refers to as learning in a holistic way.
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    Conceptual Basis for Interprofessional Education at the University of Minnesota
    (University of Minnesota, 2005-08) University of Minnesota. Academic Health Center; Speedie, Marilyn K.; Powell, Deborah; Disch, Joanne
    The University of Minnesota Academic Health Center is perfectly positioned to develop interprofessional team education and exemplary practice sites. We have committed leadership, multiple health professional schools under one roof, several initial experiments in providing interprofessional experiences to our students, and a student body that is calling for this kind of training. This report proposes a new way to think about interprofessional education.
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    Educating the New-Century Engineer: Understanding the Role of Extracurricular Project-Based Experiential Learning in Engineering Education
    (2016-06) Dukart, Kyle
    The purpose of this study is to understand the role that extracurricular project-based experiential learning plays in educating undergraduate students studying engineering. Informed by the literature in the fields of student engagement and experiential learning, the study examines perceptions and experiences of nascent engineers to understand how these specific extracurricular activities contribute to their collegiate experience. Extracurricular projects refer to non-credit and non-paid design-and-build activities where the majority of the activity takes place in a campus context and is student driven. Students who were taking part in extracurricular engineering projects while completing their four-year engineering degree at the University of Minnesota were included in this qualitative case study. Ten interviews were conducted to collect the majority of the data, which was supplemented with three observations and the collection and inspection of artifacts. The study results are organized into findings on student perceptions and the experiential learning process. Key findings include extracurricular projects as an especially impactful engagement activity for engineering students. Such projects also are effective tools for increasing self-efficacy and motivation and serve as a particularly valuable career preparation experience. Additionally, the organic design-build process students engage in outside the structure of a classroom parallels with Kolb’s model of experiential learning, suggesting a particularly suitable method for educating “new-century” engineers.
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    Integrating Mixed Reality Technologies into an Environmental Learning Field Experience: A Case Study
    (2022-12) O'Leary, Patrick
    The demand for technology integration has presented teachers with new pedagogical choices for designing engaging learning experiences for students. These technology choices are becoming abundant and varied, confronting teachers and administrators with determining how effective these methods are for teaching. This research was focused on one of these choices, whether including mixed reality (MR) technologies enhanced the learning experience for college students in a field-based course. The experiential learning theory (Kolb, 1984) provided the framework for understanding the learning process through the experiential learning cycle; a cyclical process of starting with a concrete experience, reflecting on that experience, formulating new concepts, then applying what was learned. This theoretical framework was used to explore the research questions of how MR technology might enhance the learning process, enrich the reflections process, and determine if the students perceived these MR enhancements as useful. This constructivist process for learning was the basis for developing the MR field guide which provided the tool for examining the student experience while they participated in a soil science field study course. This research followed a constructivist-interpretive paradigm using a qualitative, exploratory case study methodology Merriam & Tisdell (2015). Interviews and surveys were used to illuminate the experience the students were having while using the MR field guide. Key findings indicated that the inclusion of the MR field guide has the potential to improve the learning experience and the reflective observation needed to influence learning. The research found that the MR technology facilitated by the MR field guide had both advantages and challenges in enhancing the learning experience. Student participants felt MR technology provided enhanced learning opportunities if certain challenges were overcome. The insights gained from the findings of this study will add to the knowledge for developing more effective teaching strategies when using MR technology and provide guidance to future efforts for technology integration in environmental education.
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    Learning to lead: A quasi-experimental test of the interplay between experience and training
    (2015-07) Jones, Stephen
    Two dominant ways that employees learn leadership skills are formal training and on-the-job experience. Both types of learning are ubiquitous in organizations, but their interplay is rarely considered. In this study, I adopt learning theories from educational and cognitive psychology to explain why experience may help or hinder the effectiveness of leadership training, and I test my hypotheses using a quasi-experiment in a public accounting firm. I also examine the impact of other individual differences--cognitive ability, motivation to lead, learning goal orientation, and pre-training self-efficacy--on training effectiveness. From the perspective of the leader, prior leadership experience significantly improved the effectiveness of leadership training. Leaders who had led more projects and had been exposed to a broader range or leadership situations were those who benefit the most from leadership training. The results support the theory that cognitive constraints impede learning during training for novice leaders and are alleviated when leaders possess more experience. However, the same support was not found from the manager and subordinate perspectives. Regarding individual differences, there was clear evidence for the benefit of a learning goal orientation, mixed evidence for the benefit of motivation to lead, very limited evidence for self-efficacy, and no evidence for cognitive ability. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.
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    Millennial Instructional Preferences in Post-Secondary Business Programs
    (2017-04) West, Cynthia
    Abstract The purpose of this mixed method study was to examine the instructional preferences of millennial learners and how their instructional preferences affect their choice in post-secondary business programs. The instructional preferences of millennial learners are an important question for post-secondary business programs enrolling learners from diverse generational backgrounds. The generations represented in the post-secondary classroom are the baby boomer generation, generation X and the millennial generation. However, millennials are the largest student population currently entering post-secondary programs. The study included participants from three post-secondary business programs in the upper mid-west. The statistical tests used included descriptive analysis and frequencies; a two-tailed independent sample t-test; and Pearson correlation coefficients. This study also used phenomenological methodology to form descriptive themes from one-on-one interviews. The interview data was analyzed using the Hycner’s phenomenological research. The role of work experience appeared to impact a focused program choice and instructional preferences. The study provided evidence for the value and need for knowledge-based and interactive learning to meet the millennials’ educational goals. A theme identified in the phenomenological analysis of the interviews was the millennial generation cohort was not tightly defined. Millennial learners in post-secondary business degree programs, regardless of age, based instructional preferences primarily on varying amounts of work experience.