Experiential Learning Approach Research Articles

SCREENING TEST ON DYSCALCULIA LEARNERS TO DEVELOP A SUITABLE AUGMENTED REALITY (AR) ASSISTIVE LEARNING APPLICATION

Dyscalculia refers to persistent difficulty in learning Mathematics without being aware of the condition. Such a condition is not easily detected and most of them would be left undetected, apart from being labelled as lazy or slow learners. Early delay places them behind in acquiring other fundamental areas of Mathematics. As such, this study identified learners suffering from dyscalculia (also known as acalculia) through screening tests for early intervention. The methodology used in this study was based on two screening tests (ST1 and ST2) conducted on learners to identify ‘student areas’ or their specific type of dyscalculia using the Dyscalculia Screening Test Instrument (DSTI) and verification of the specific types made by selected expert teachers, respectively. An early identification study on suitable assistive learning technology for these learners was performed. Prior studies reported that suitable assistive technological tools can improve the learning process of those with learning disability (LD). The findings displayed the effectiveness of the screening tests (ST1 and ST2) in detecting learners with dyscalculia, particularly in areas related to memory, abstraction, sequencing processing, motor, and visual perception. The results derived from plausible assistive digital technology revealed that visual-based fusion technology, such as Augmented Reality (AR), exposed the dyscalculia learners to experiential learning approach that made learning Mathematics meaningful.

Applying Experiential Action Learning Pedagogy to an Intensive Course to Enhance Capacity to Conduct Community-Based Participatory Research.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is widely recognized as an effective approach to understand and address health inequities. Opportunities for public health practitioners and researchers to engage jointly with community partners in intensive colearning processes can build capacity for CBPR. Using active learning approaches that engage diverse partners can enhance partnership development, competence, and equity. Examination of such pedagogical approaches can strengthen understanding of their contributions to the effectiveness of CBPR capacity-building programs. This article describes a weeklong intensive course carried out by the Detroit Urban Research Center as the foundation for a yearlong training program to build the capacity of community-academic partnership teams to engage in CBPR in their own communities. The in-person CBPR course was developed and implemented by expert academic and community instructors and used an experiential action learning model that integrated CBPR principles and processes. We describe the course content and application of our collaborative, experiential action learning model to course design; present results from participant evaluation of course effectiveness, CBPR competence, and equitable partnership development; and examine the contributions of the pedagogical approach to outcomes central to successful CBPR. The participatory, formative course evaluation used multiple methods that included closed- and open-ended questionnaires to assess instructional effectiveness, participant competence on 12 core components of CBPR, and course impact on partner relationships. Evaluation findings suggest that an experiential action learning approach with attention to colearning, collaboration among diverse instructors and participants, and an environment that fosters and models equitable and trusting relationships can be effective in building CBPR capacity.

Survey-based experiential learning - means of raising professional awareness in developing countries

Abstract Background Healthcare in post-war Balkans is still under development. Healthcare changes towards more complex clinical scenarios that need different competencies around patients. This study reports on survey based learning to increasing professional awareness for developing sustainable healthcare settings using an experiential learning approach. Methods In this study, researchers and educators identified non-technical skills concepts on individual, team, and organizational levels. These concepts were contextualized into the local setting through interactive workshops. Two pediatric surgery clinics in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina participated who were part of an international clinical skills training project. The tools and surveys were: Johari window, Kolb’s learning style questionnaire, team members exchange quality scale, the IPEC framework for interprofessional competence, Team STEPPS observation tool and organizational models. Results A model is developed for contextualizing core concepts on professional awareness into a local developing healthcare setting. It entails three steps conducted in consecutive workshops: Identifying research-based concepts on professional competence on individual, team and organizational levels. Facilitating local contextualization of these concepts by using surveys in interactive workshops. Agreeing on indicators to maintain high professional awareness. Conclusions Capacity-building in public health can be conducted through increasing professional awareness. Professional awareness can be approached in individual, team and organizational dimensions. Established core concepts of non-technical skills can be contextualized in other cultures through a survey-based experiential learning approach. Key messages Professional individual, team and organizational awareness is a vital part of conducting efficient healthcare. The professional awareness can be enhanced through processing core concepts in a local context through facilitated workshops.

Customer relationship management technology: bridging the gap between marketing education and practice

The recent machine learning and analytics advances in customer relationship management (CRM) technologies place new demands on marketing education and practitioners to develop the skills needed to use the technology. Compounding the issue, research on the use of technology in sales curriculum is underdeveloped. In a comprehensive review of the sales education literature, one study identified that only six articles on sales technology were published in major marketing education journals from 1979 to 2013. In an effort to bridge the gap between critical industry competencies and marketing curriculum, understanding the impact of technology use and training is important for educational planning and student development. Using a survey of 82 salespeople in the United States, the current study empirically evaluates how use of technologically advanced CRM features influences self-perception of CRM knowledge, the perception that additional technology training would be beneficial, and adaptive selling performance of sales practitioners. A majority of survey respondents in the current study cited a need for college students to receive increased exposure to advanced CRM technology training and skill development. We propose an experiential learning approach to teach marketing college students advanced CRM features to help them bolster their effectiveness and value in the workplace.

Toward Resilient Nurse Leaders: The Leadership-In-Action Program in Nursing (LEAP-IN).

Leadership is a critical component of health system performance. This paper describes a tailored leadership development program for nurse managers in an academic health network in Montreal, Canada, developed in collaboration with a university school of continuing studies. This program is aimed toward strengthening individual leadership competencies and developing a resilient nursing leadership community of practice. In total, 26 nurse managers across the health network participated in the program. Senior nurse directors participated by facilitating group discussions with the nurse managers. Program content was developed through a participative process and in direct response to senior leadership participation through online surveys, interviews and focus groups. An experiential learning approach was used to analyze incidents, explore problems and develop projects specific to the learners' context. The present paper describes the development of this program, outlines plans for evaluation and discusses the lessons learned throughout this process.

Online journalism education in Rwanda: students find value in the Experiential Learning Approach

The digital age is reshaping media industries locally and globally, forcing media firms and media producers to master new media tools in order to remain competitive and employable. This technological revolution has had a marked impact on the structures and economic viability of media, necessitating media training institutions to rethink how they prepare future media professionals for work in the twenty-first century. In order to keep pace with these rapid technological changes, educational institutions have had to adjust journalism curricula to integrate online or multimedia journalism courses that build online competencies and the technological skills needed for graduates to flourish in digital media domains. Despite these efforts, industry players still decry the apparent unpreparedness of graduates, largely attributing this to the learning approach taken by universities.Quality skills training has been argued to ensure that learners can relate with real work life. However, in countries like Rwanda, little is known about whether these new strategies are fostering the knowledge, skills and professional dispositions needed to work in a country that is undergoing rapid technological and economic change. Drawing from experiential learning theory, this study uses five focus-group discussions from five Rwandan journalism schools to glean the views of final-year students on how trainers employ practical pedagogy to cultivate students’ online skills in readiness for employment. Findings reveal that students consider the experiential learning approaches to be essential to their perceived online readiness. These enhanced skills were achieved using digital scenarios relating to students’ future work environment. However, the perceived quality of this experience varied from trainer to trainer, based on a range of factors including their how students perceived the trainers’ attitudes towards new media, their perceived ability to teach the digital skills and the learners’ own digital experience and competence.
 
 How to cite this article: 
 NJUGUNA, Joseph; JJUUKO, Margaret. Online journalism education in Rwanda: students find value in the Experiential Learning Approach. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South. v. 3, n. 2, p. 84-101, Sept. 2019. Available at:
 https://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=91&path%5B%5D=48
 
 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
 To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Mapping Evidence of Experiential learning for Primary Health Care Workers in Low-and-Middle-Income Countries: A Scoping Review

Background: Improving equity of healthcare is one of the main global health priorities, particularly in low and medium-income-countries (LMICs). However, most LMICs still struggle to achieve equity in healthcare provision. One of the major contributing factors to achieving health equity in these settings include low levels of healthcare competency among primary healthcare workers. Experiential learning has been shown to contribute effectively to healthcare curriculum delivery. The purpose of this study was to systematically map evidence of experiential learning training programs for PHC workers with a focus on quality improvement in LMICs.
 
 Findings: Of the 240 022 articles retrieved from database search, 129 studies were found to be eligible for inclusion in abstract screening following title screening. Subsequent to abstract screening, 29 articles were eligible for inclusion in full article screening. Full article screening resulted in four articles found eligible for inclusion for data extraction and quality appraisal. Included studies were conducted in the following Countries: South Africa, China and Brazil. The following themes emerged: The utility, efficiency and acceptability of experiential learning approaches to PHC workers and Reflection. Experiential learning through various approaches was shown to have the potential to provide an important practical aspect on curriculum delivery not easily taught in lecture-based learning. Skills developed by PHC students in LMICs included communication, empathy, creativity and critical-reflexive skills. The reflection step of experiential learning was shown to be a useful tool to identify root causes of health systems inefficiencies and to inform policy making. The quality of included studies was found to range from above average to high quality.
 
 Conclusion: Limited research on the utility, efficiency and acceptability of experiential learning approaches to PHC-based professionals as well as on the impact of these approaches to the provision of quality services was found. Research focused on the development and piloting of experiential learning approaches to determine feasibility and to ensure effectiveness of interventions towards continuous professional development and life-long learning of PHC nurses in rural clinics is recommended.

Experiential Learning Approach: Its Effects on the Academic Performance and Motivation to Learn Physics of Grade 10 Students

Experiential Learning Approach: Its Effects on the Academic Performance and Motivation to Learn Physics of Grade 10 Students

Introducing ERP Concepts to IT Students Using an Experiential Learning Approach with an Emphasis on Reflection

The introduction of enterprise resource planning (ERP) concepts to IT students entails many challenges. Due to the system’s complexity, newcomers need an extensive amount of time to be able to use it independently. Additionally, the learning preferences and characteristics of digital natives differ significantly from previous generations. Therefore, the use of alternative learning approaches is desirable. To achieve the best possible learning outcomes, it is advisable to implement learning approaches that require students’ active participation, for example, an experiential learning approach. A variation is an ERPsim business simulation game, which we used within the ERP systems course. The game is implemented in sequential rounds, whereby each round ends with a review of the collected experiences. The simulation game was used at the beginning of the course to ease the introduction of ERP concepts for IT-related students. This paper is the result of three years of research into the perceived usability of SAP ERP introduced with the business simulation game, combined with the results of a study evaluating students’ opinions, knowledge, and skills. Perceived usability was measured using a System Usability Scale (SUS), while the students’ experiences were gathered using a self-evaluation questionnaire. The study revealed the positive impact of the experiential learning approach that was used. Students evaluated the usability of SAP ERP as OK, and empirical analysis confirmed that the use of the simulation game for introducing the ERP concepts resulted in anticipated knowledge and skills, while increasing the students’ intent for future engagement.

Reaching Out to Underserved High School Students: An Experiential Approach to Higher Education

Research indicates that underserved students are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to entering and succeeding at college. However, with sufficient support, they can turn those disadvantages around. To address the persistent challenges of the underserved college-bound students, institutions of higher education created special pre-college outreach initiatives. This study provides finding regarding how an outreach program can apply experiential learning approach to motivate students through an experiential summer pre-business program that targets specifically targeted underserved high school juniors from various school districts in Southern California. This study also presents eleven years’ outcome assessment of this private university program. Using information from a survey and a lexical analysis of a sample of 574 students over 11-year period, this study finds that the experiential college outreach program increased underserved students’ drive for attending college and may be one promising practice to help close the gap in accessibility to higher education. The results illustrate the value of outreach programs provided by an institution of higher education to support underserved students through the fusion of business education and experiential learning.

Head-Mounted Display Virtual Reality in Post-secondary Education and Skill Training

Background: This review focused on how immersive head-mounted display virtual reality (VR) was used in post-secondary level education and skill training, with the aim to better understand its state of the art as found from the literature. While numerous studies describe the use of immersive VR within a specific educational setting, they are often standalone events not fully detailed regarding their curricular integration. This review aims to analyse these events, with a focus on immersive VR’s incorporation into post-secondary education. Objectives: O1) Review the existing literature on the use of immersive VR in post-secondary settings, determining where and how it has been used within each educational discipline. This criterion focused on literature featuring the use of immersive VR, due to its influence on a user’s perceived levels of presence and imagination. O2) Identify favourable outcomes from the use of immersive VR when compared to other learning methods. O3) Determine the conceptual rationale (purpose) for each implementation of immersive VR as found throughout the literature. O4) Identify learning theories and recommendations for the utilization of immersive VR in post-secondary education. Methods: A literature review was undertaken with searches of Education Research Complete, ERIC, MEDLINE, EMBASE, IEEE Xplore, Scopus and Web of Science: Core Collection to locate reports on the use of immersive VR in post-secondary curricula. Results: 119 articles were identified, featuring disciplines across Arts and Humanities, Health Sciences, Military and Aerospace, Science and Technology. 35 out of 38 experiments reported to have found a positive outcome for immersive VR, after being compared with a non-immersive platform. Each simulation’s purpose included one or more of the following designations: skill training, convenience, engagement, safety, highlighting, interactivity, team building and suggestion. Recommendations for immersive VR in post-secondary education emphasize experiential learning and social constructivist approaches, including student-created virtual environments that are mainly led by the students themselves under team collaboration. Conclusion: Immersive VR brings convenient, engaging and interactive alternatives to traditional classroom settings as well as offers additional capability over traditional methods. There is a diverse assortment of educational disciplines that have each attempted to harness the power of this technological medium.

Helping Students Develop Intercultural Intelligence In Tertiary Education

Many students never develop good intercultural competencies during their years at college or university. These students are often unaware of how important cultural attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are in their daily and academic lives. Students are also unaware of their own cultural boundaries that may be impacting their communication and engagement with others. Assignments that teach intercultural competencies can help students in a variety of ways: to gain confidence in their own cultural identity and acquire a set of skills to communicate and lead in a global world. In this paper, the researcher discusses some effective activities that can be used to teach students intercultural competencies and increase students' intercultural intelligence. Activities are based on experiential and blended learning approaches and integrate technology tools to engage learners. These activities are based on Knowledge Workx intercultural intelligence training that introduces three key theories of culture: Hofstede's cultural dimensions, World View theory, and Knowledge Workx of 12 Dimensions. These theories follow the layers of culture found in an iceberg metaphor that includes the top of the iceberg and observable culture, next is attitudes, the third layer is norms and values, and finally the most hidden layer is one's beliefs. Based on these theories, three blended and experiential projects were developed to include cultural object presentations, a research project on current intercultural conflict, and a cross cultural communication research and application of cultural maps. Three psychometric tests were also used to increase intercultural awareness: culture learner/critic, worldview, and 12 Dimensions tests.

Experiential Learning To Promote Systems Thinking in Chemistry: Evaluating and Designing Sustainable Products in a Polymer Immersion Lab

The integrated application of green chemistry, life cycle thinking, and systems thinking has the potential to reduce environmental impacts related to the use and production of chemical products or materials. Life cycle and systems thinking are key perspectives needed to avoid the unintended consequences or unsubstantiated claims that inhibit development and adoption of more sustainable products. However, systems thinking is rarely taught in the chemistry curriculum. Students need experience evaluating the effects of products on societal and earth systems (i.e., using systems thinking) in order to anticipate trade-offs and make informed design decisions. To give students an immersive learning experience, we developed a sustainable product design project that brings together tools from green chemistry, life cycle thinking, and systems thinking. We found that this experiential learning approach gave students generalizable strategies for innovating and implementing sustainable practices in their current industrial positions. The project was divided into three workshops: in Workshop I they evaluated the life cycle impacts and toxicity for a material of concern, in Workshop II they measured the performance of this material and compared it to alternatives, and in Workshop III they designed a mock-product that was both high performing and environmentally friendly. We piloted this framework with master’s students evaluating polymer foams for use in an infant car seat; however, we envision this project being suitable for a range of other types of products. Moreover, we have suggested ways to adapt the duration and sophistication of the workshops to make them appropriate for a variety of course levels.

Teaching and Learning Insight among Higher Education Students utilizing E-Tool for Game Development Subject

There are many adapted teaching and learning (TL) practices that utilized e-learning tools to teach computer laboratories among the tertiary education students. What is the appropriate approach for TL on computing subjects catering for the current era of students?Since information and knowledge can be accessed widely and learnt from the Internet technology. Kolb’s experiential learning and inquiry-based learning approaches had presented several studies area application and resulted to enrich students’ hands-on learning. This research aimed to identify the teaching practices for game development related to computing skill subject. Focus is made for educators to adapt the teaching model as a method for students’ learning emphasizing on software skills in developing game content. The proposed teaching models are framed as referenced from both Kolb’s and inquiry-based learning theories to design the lesson plans and lab exercises. Then, a pilot test survey was conducted among the game students to retrieve their perception and experience throughout the learning process. The survey data presented students’ learning are effective by watching and doing. Corresponding, the inquiry-based model is recommended for teaching practices especially to students without any prior knowledge and skills in to the computing development subject. Therefore, this research suggested both teaching approaches to strengthen students’ basic knowledge learning prior to beginner level

An innovative experiential and collaborative learning approach to an undergraduate marketing management course: A case of the Philippines

This paper proposes a collaborative approach with the Computer Science Department and Product Design Course to conducting Marketing Management (MM) in the undergraduate program to achieve the skills critical to the 21st-century. These skills are collaboration and teamwork, creativity, and critical thinking and problem-solving. This study aims to present a case of innovative experiential learning in teaching an advanced MM course by bringing in students from other programs (collaborative learning) and working with real-life clients (experiential learning). Instead of the traditional teacher-centric lecturing and the use of case studies, this proposed approach is student-centric learning (i.e., students were tasked to identify the needs of the real-life client and offer an innovative solution). Ninety five percent of the MM students found the new method to be effective in terms of: applying theory in real life situation, improving their ability to identify needs and opportunities, developing actual products/services based on the identified needs, working with an interdisciplinary team, enhancing their interpersonal skills, developing their leadership skills, improving their communication skills, and encouraging them to keep learning. Areas for improvement are also discussed in the paper.

From reflective observation to active learning: A mobile experiential learning approach for environmental science education

AbstractSeveral previous studies have emphasized the importance of situating students in authentic learning or problem‐solving contexts to enhance their learning performances. However, some challenges of situated learning have been stated, such as the lack of effective learning support or concrete objective design to improve students’ learning engagement, problem‐solving competences and their active thinking. In this study, a mobile technology‐supported experiential learning system was developed to improve students’ problem‐solving competences as well as their learning performances, attitudes and collective efficacy. Moreover, an experiment was conducted on an environmental science course in an elementary school to compare the effects of this method with those of the conventional situated mobile learning approach on students’ learning effectiveness. The experimental results display that the implemented approach can significantly enhance students’ learning achievements, environmental attitudes and collective efficacy; furthermore, the students who learned with the implemented approach showed higher problem‐solving competence than those who learned with the conventional situated mobile learning approach, implying a noticeable reference for conducting experiential learning activities in environmental science education. Furthermore, the promotion of students’ active thinking in the mobile technology‐supported experiential learning is discussed. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic The importance of situating students in authentic learning or problem‐solving contexts to enhance their learning performances has been emphasized. Some challenges of situated learning have been stated, such as the lack of effective learning support or concrete objective design to improve students’ learning engagement, problem‐solving competences and active thinking. Properly integrating technology into instruction is most effective in an authentic learning context. What this paper adds A mobile technology‐supported experiential learning system was designed to conduct an authentic learning activity. The proposed approach can significantly enhance students’ learning achievements, environmental attitudes and collective efficacy. The students who learned with the proposed approach showed higher problem‐solving competence than those who learned with the conventional situated mobile learning approach. The promotion of students’ active thinking while learning with the mobile technology‐supported experiential learning system is discussed. Implications for practice and/or policy The mobile technology‐supported experiential learning system is beneficial to students in an authentic learning environment as it triggers their active thinking. Such an approach can be designed with authentic learning activities in other courses by replacing the authentic objects and learning materials. It would be interesting to probe students’ social interactions and learning patterns in an experiential collective learning activity.

Models for enhancing the development of experiential learning approaches within mobile health technologies.

Models for enhancing the development of experiential learning approaches within mobile health technologies.

Experiential and vicarious learning approaches in developing higher-order thinking skills among business education undergraduates in federal universities

This study examined the relationships between experiential learning, vicarious learning and higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) among business education undergraduate students. A correlational survey research design was used. A sample of 151 business education lecturers (43 Males and 108 Females) was randomly selected across three Federal Universities in South-South, Nigeria. Four-point scale self-constructed questionnaires were used for data collection. The reliability coefficient using Cronbach alpha method was 0.93 for experiential learning, 0.92 for vicarious learning, and 0.96 for HOTS. The bivariate correlation matrix and Fisher-Z transformation were used for data analyses. The results revealed a significant difference in the relationship between experiential learning and development of HOTS based on gender. Conversely, the results revealed no significant difference in the relationship between vicarious learning and development of HOTS based on gender. Based on these findings, managers of business education programmes should endeavour to create an enabling environment and atmosphere that would assist students to experientially and vicariously learn during instructional processes, thereby, equipping them with the requisite skills and competencies required to confidently engage in entrepreneurial careers and lifelong learning tasks upon graduation.Keywords: Business education lecturers, business education students, experiential learning, higher-order thinking skills, vicarious learning

Pedagogy and Innovation in Science Education: A Case Study of an Experiential Learning Science Undergraduate Course

Experiential learning approaches are desirable in higher education for improving students’ learning experience. However, the effectiveness of implementing such an approach in an undergraduate science course is challenging. How do students develop scientific knowledge and skills through planning and implementing innovative activities for the targeted groups, and how do the implemented activities empirically contribute to theoretical frameworks? This paper discusses the design and implementation of an undergraduate experiential learning course for students from diverse science backgrounds. According to Kolb’s experiential learning approach, this course creates two major experiences for students: conceptual acquisition, and experience of design and implementation of innovative teaching and learning activities. This research investigates a science course aiming to develop student teachers’ ability to design and implement innovative activities in classes. A qualitative research design was adopted to analyse the implementation of experiential learning processes. Owing to the specialty and diversity of the participants involved, an intrinsic case study was conducted to holistically examine the course with a focus on the construction of scientific knowledge and pedagogical issues. Units of analysis involved a series of activities embedded into the course. Specific domains of pedagogical innovation such as Techno-Pedagogy were premeditated. One of the major findings reveals the development of a didactic protocol framing the implementation flow of the experiential learning process associated with emerging innovative teaching components. In short, it shows that the experiential learning approach demonstrates the crucial role of facilitating constructive learning for undergraduate students from various disciplines to develop innovative pedagogical and learning skills.

Teaching Computer Graphics Through a Digital Humanities Project.

Teaching computer graphics in an effective way is a challenging task. Different approaches are proposed in the literature, some focusing on traditional teacher-led lectures, others on interactive teaching methods. This paper describes an experiential learning approach applied in a university-level course in computer engineering. Students were involved in the realization of a digital humanities project, the 3-D modeling of the city of Pavia, Italy, as it was in the 16th century. Traditional lectures introduced key theoretical elements, but students were subsequently given specific assignments and retrieved additional content when completing the tasks assigned to them under the overall guidance of their supervisors.