Established by student activists in the 1960s, Project Community in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan (U-M), Ann Arbor, is one of the longest-running community-engaged ...learning programs in the country. Community-engaged learning courses like Project Community have been identified by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) as a high-impact educational practice because they allow for simultaneous learning in the classroom and community (AAC&U 2022). This paper explores how Project Community utilizes various pedagogical approaches grounded in liberatory and social justice education to provide U-M students with the opportunity to learn how to engage in mutually beneficial, respectful, and ethical relationships with community members. The structure of this two-course sequence is described and examples of experiential activities are provided so that instructors can gain insights into how students can apply their sociological lens to real world experiences. Data from teaching evaluations and post-course surveys from Fall 2019-2022 are included to explore how Project Community has increased students' awareness of their positionality in society, deepened their understanding of social inequalities, and strengthened their commitment to social responsibility.
Reflection is fundamental in experiential pedagogies, and many studies have been carried out to investigate its impact and benefits on student learning outcomes. However, the concept of reflection is ...not well understood. In this study, we focus on the concept of reflection and ensuing approaches to it in service-learning, an experiential pedagogy that has been hailed as a high-impact practice in higher education. We first survey the semantic background of reflection and its usage in service-learning literature. We then present a qualitative study of how university faculty involved in service-learning actually conceive reflection. In-depth interviews uncovered common tendencies as well as concerns about handling reflection in service-learning courses. We devised a framework to map teachers’ conception of reflection onto the service-learning goal of transformative education. From the data set, we identify four conceptual domains echoing varying conceptions of reflection in literature: reflection as
transformative learning
, as
mindful practice
, as
evaluation exercise
, and as
articulated thinking –
with the most popular being evaluation exercise and transformational learning.
Abstract Background Graduate Entry Nursing (GEN) programmes have been introduced as another entry point to nurse registration. In the development of a new GEN programme, a problem-based approach to ...learning was used to develop critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills of motivated and academically capable students. Objective To explore and evaluate the design and delivery of course material delivered to GEN students embedded in authentic learning pedagogy from the perspectives of both GEN students and academic staff using an unfolding case study approach. Methods An educational design research approach was used to explore the learning experiences of GEN students using an unfolding case study approach situated in experiential pedagogy and the teaching experiences of the academics who designed it. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with students once they had finished the course and weekly reflective diary recordings by academic staff throughout implementation. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Findings Student reflections highlighted that this cohort had insight into how they learned and were comfortable voicing their needs to academic staff. While the unfolding case studies were not liked by all participants, for some it offered a unique learning opportunity; particularly when scaffolded with podcasts, simulation labs, tutorials and clinical placements. Staff reflections primarily aligned with student experiences. Conclusion The gaps highlighted in the delivery of the course suggest that a blended pedagogical approach to graduate entry nurse education is required. Specifically, GEN students are aware of the learning needs and are happy to express these to academic staff, thus suggesting that engaging with a co-design curriculum approach will benefit future cohorts.
This study examines the relationship among experiential entrepreneurship pedagogy, entrepreneurial competencies and employment status of business graduates in two European countries. A proposed model ...relies on the adapted Bloom's taxonomy, human capital theory, and experiential learning theory. The model examines knowledge, skills, and attitudes as competencies, and relates them to the two forms of employment status: nascent intrapreneurship and early-stage entrepreneurial activity. These inter-relationships are tested closely considering a dominant pedagogical approach to teaching entrepreneurship - traditional or experiential.
The study is based on a cross-sectional survey of 454 graduates from Bachelor-level business programmes delivered at eight higher education institutions (four in each country); and on 16 semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurship educators, who taught the surveyed graduates.
The findings highlight that experiential pedagogy can be indeed more effective for developing all three entrepreneurial competencies, while traditional pedagogy might still be suitable for theoretical knowledge about entrepreneurship. Furthermore, experiential pedagogy moderates the relationship between different competencies and the employment status of graduates. This contingency on the pedagogy type is crucial implying a combination of traditional and experiential teaching methods to balance the effects of entrepreneurship education.
This paper analytically responds to the collaborative performance work Writing the Feminist Internet as a motif of fourth wave feminism. It probes at the edge of Internet dark spaces that are often ...occupied by those who point to complacency in engagement with networking systems, by drawing auxiliary attention to the apparatus. Further examination sheds light on the valences and anarchy of technopolitics that transpired and reflects on the call for 'hybrid of feminist activist efforts' noted by Emma A. Jane. Positing towards 'a recalibrated approach to collectivism' (2015, 285) Jane continues to give rise to a vast communal realm for the expression of alternative behaviours. In building upon the feminist 'wave' metaphor there is acknowledgement that the undercurrents of nautical lineages come to endure through 'debt, or inheritance' more often than a confluence of flows. The findings reveal that the potency of a chthonic feminist internet theory lies in its indeterminate stance. In conclusion, it is proposed that ambivalence and prominence in obscurity in such expansive 'dark social spaces' is where new meanings and enunciations can brew and be read as a source of critical and aesthetic ambiguity, amongst the highly revered principles of disarray, pandemonium and incompleteness.
Innovative pedagogical approaches are needed to teach community practice in this time of rapid community change and political polarization. Bridging the Gap Together is an ongoing experiential ...learning project with undergraduate social work students and a qualitative study designed to enhance "poverty awareness" and increase social connection among members of a rural, poor community. Students express an increased and deepened understanding of poverty post-experience. Their reflections also capture an awareness of the importance of human connection and the potential of compassionate professionalism to foster its development.
Although cultural diversity has been a growing discussion topic at conferences in recent years, the library and information science (LIS) profession remains in the gatekeepers of predominately white ...and female identities. Consequently, due to perpetual homogeneity and systemic institutional norms, some information professionals lack a deeper understanding of effective intercultural approaches and strategies to serve patrons who come from different cultural, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds. This study demonstrates how information professionals can promote civic engagement by engaging in introspective reflections of their own identities and privileges. The qualitative content analysis of fourteen personal identity narrative papers from a recent 'Cultural Competence" course reveals how students' understanding on identity, privilege, oppression, and intersectionality evolved by self-exploring their own cultural identity narratives. This study addresses an approach to LIS education that calls for intentional efforts in developing experiential pedagogical approaches for facilitating critical self-reflection through coursework. Finally, it emphasises that self-reflexive information professionals equipped with cultural humility will go a long way in promoting civic engagement and building a more respectful, collaborative, cohesive, and culturally sensitive community.
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