scholarly journals Evaluating Experiential Learning Approaches for Asian Students at North American Universities

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Chen-Yu (Crystal) Feng ◽  
Wei Song ◽  
David D. Schein ◽  
Paul Clark
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Learning Styles ◽  
North American ◽  
Learning Preferences ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Asian Students ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
International Programs ◽  
American Universities ◽  
Future Direction

In recent years, experiential learning modality has become an integral part of business education in international programs. Although extensive research has been conducted in the experimental learning arena, the research regarding international students, especially the rapidly growing number of Asian students, with a significant percentage from China, is still limited. This study utilized a mixed-methods design using Kolb Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) to investigate the preferred experiential learning (EL) pedagogical practices for Asian students while studying at North American universities. This study revealed that students with a positive attitude toward EL could fundamentally strengthen their learning outcomes. In contrast, well-balanced learning styles should be emphasized instead of ranking the priority of learning preferences or taking only one learning approach. The limitations of the study and the future direction of related research are also presented.

Enriching the intersection of service and transformative learning with Freirean ideas: The case of a critical experiential learning programme in Brazil

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 579-597
Author(s):  
Rosane Dal Magro ◽  
Marlei Pozzebon ◽  
Soraia Schutel
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Management Education ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Management Students

In this article, we examine the value of combining transformative and service learning pedagogical practices in management education programmes to encourage management students to be more critical and reflexive regarding serious contemporary issues like social inequality and sustainability. We draw on a long-term management education experience conducted in the northeastern region of Brazil, where international students learn how to develop a real-time community-based project with local inhabitants. We argue that while service learning approaches promote pragmatic action-based principles, transformative learning acts at the epistemic level, contributing to change in values. In addition, Paulo Freire’s ideas are integrated to reinforce critical and reflexive dimensions of the learning experience. Our results offer a process-based model showing how a critical experiential learning pedagogy might lead to the development of community-based competences, which, in turn, might lead to changes in the deeply held values of the participants. Freire’s emancipatory ideas are applied not only regarding the relationship between teachers and students, but also to the distinction between Western and non-Western societies, going beyond questioning of the destructive consequences of financial capitalism to question the hegemony of one worldview over all other possible ones.

How Cultural and Learning Style Differences Impact Students’ Learning Preferences in Blended Learning

2012 ◽  
pp. 30-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Tempelaar ◽  
Bart Rienties ◽  
Bas Giesbers ◽  
Sybrand Schim van der Loeff
Keyword(s):  
Learning Styles ◽  
Blended Learning ◽  
Learning Style ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Learning Preferences ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Learning Tools ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
First Year Students

In teaching introductory statistics to first year students, the Maastricht University uses a blended learning environment that allows them to attune available learning tools to personal preferences and needs, in order to address large diversity in students. That diversity is a direct consequence of a heterogeneous inflow of primarily international students, transferring from different secondary school systems with large differences in prior knowledge, and transferring from very different cultural backgrounds. In this empirical contribution, the authors focus on the role an adaptive online tutorial as component of the blend can play in bridging the consequences of a broad range of differences such as prior mastery of the subject, cultural background, and learning approaches. They do so by investigating the relationships between the intensity of the use of the e-tutorial and students’ characteristics related to nationality, cultural background, learning styles, goal-setting behavior, achievement motivations, self-concept constructs, and subject attitudes.

scholarly journals Teaching Causation and Effectuation in the Large Classroom: A Production–Trade Game

2020 ◽  
pp. 105256292095197
Author(s):  
Noushan Memar ◽  
Angelina Sundström ◽  
Toon Larsson
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Learning Styles ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Entrepreneurship Education ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Business Courses ◽  
Educational Backgrounds ◽  
Questionnaire Surveys ◽  
Teaching Learning

Researchers claim that experiential learning approaches (e.g., gamification) are well-suited to management and entrepreneurship education. However, this research has been conducted mostly in small classroom settings. With the increases in the number of university business students, many business courses have also increased in size. The large classroom setting introduces new pedagogic concerns, in particular regarding the complexity of the teaching–learning environment, as a result of students having diverse educational backgrounds, skills, and learning styles. This article explores this concern in its investigation of the ways in which business higher education can prompt various business behaviors among students in large classrooms.By utilizing the gamification of concepts, we created an experiential learning exercise—the Strategic Business Game. Questionnaire surveys conducted with the 126 university students enrolled into two majors during the game reveal that this educational learning experience prompts the students’ causation and effectuation behaviors. In this educational learning experience, the complexity of the large classroom is seen as an advantage and gives the educators an opportunity to increase the quality of the student interaction. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the appropriateness of experiential learning through gamification on individuals’ business behaviors as revealed in large classes in management and entrepreneurship education.

scholarly journals Journalism teaching and experiential learning

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 34-48
Author(s):  
Kate Kartveit
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Learning Styles ◽  
Learning Theory ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Learning Preferences ◽  
Learning Cycle ◽  
Experiential Learning Theory ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Starting Point

TV-journalism can never be thought successfully entirely on a theoretical basis. The students must experience the professions challenges and difficulties by exercising and experiencing the TV-journalistic methods, TV-tools and TVaesthetics in practice in order to achieve skills within TV-journalism. The article discusses how Kolb’s learning circle successfully provides a pedagogic approach in practical journalism learning and teaching. Kolb experiential learning theory says that ideally the learning process represents a learning cycle or spiral where the learner touches four bases in process, that means a cycle of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting. Kolb describes four different learning styles or learning preferences. This refers to four different ways of experiencing the learning process. Every learner has a preference to learn in different ways andthe learning circle offers the learners to fulfil the learning process no matter what starting point the learner prefers. This approach focuses on journalism training as growing a person from the inside, whereas conventional teaching and training is the transfer of capability into a person from the outside. Keywords: coaching, conventional learning, David A. Kolb, Experience Based Learning Systems, Experiential Learning Theory, International TV-program, journalism studies, learning cycle, learning process, pedagogical approach, TV-journalism. p>

scholarly journals Mechatronics: Experiential Learning and the Stimulation of Thinking Skills

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Maki K. Habib ◽  
Fusaomi Nagata ◽  
Keigo Watanabe
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Experimental Systems

The development of experiential learning methodologies is gaining attention, due to its contributions to enhancing education quality. It focuses on developing competencies, and build-up added values, such as creative and critical thinking skills, with the aim of improving the quality of learning. The interdisciplinary mechatronics field accommodates a coherent interactive concurrent design process that facilitates innovation and develops the desired skills by adopting experiential learning approaches. This educational learning process is motivated by implementation, assessment, and reflections. This requires synergizing cognition, perception, and behavior with experience sharing and evaluation. Furthermore, it is supported by knowledge accumulation. The learning process with active student’s engagement (participation and investigation) is integrated with experimental systems that are developed to facilitate experiential learning supported by properly designed lectures, laboratory experiments, and integrated with course projects. This paper aims to enhance education, learning quality, and contribute to the learning process, while stimulating creative and critical thinking skills. The paper has adopted a student-centered learning approach and focuses on developing training tools to improve the hands-on experience and integrate it with project-based learning. The developed experimental systems have their learning indicators where students acquire knowledge and learn the target skills through involvement in the process. This is inspired by collaborative knowledge sharing, brainstorming, and interactive discussions. The learning outcomes from lectures and laboratory experiments are synergized with the project-based learning approach to yield the desired promising results and exhibit the value of learning. The effectiveness of the developed experimental systems along with the adopted project-based learning approach is demonstrated and evaluated during laboratory sessions supporting different courses at Sanyo-Onoda City University, Yamaguchi, Japan, and at the American University in Cairo.

Transforming Ways of Enhancing Foreign Language Acquisition in the Spanish Classroom: Experiential Learning Approaches

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 398-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Moreno-López ◽  
Aida Ramos-Sellman ◽  
Citlali Miranda-Aldaco ◽  
Maria Teresa Gomis Quinto
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Foreign Language Acquisition ◽  
Spanish Classroom

scholarly journals Assessment of Experiential Learning and Teaching Approaches in Undergraduate Programmes at the School of Agricultural Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Opolot Henry Nakelet ◽  
Isubikalu Prossy ◽  
Obaa Bonton Bernard ◽  
Ebanyat Peter ◽  
Okello Dorothy
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Traditional Lecture ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Makerere University ◽  
Curriculum Review ◽  
Lecture Method ◽  
Agricultural Sciences

Competent graduates are a critical input in enhancing the university’s role in agricultural transformation. How graduates play their role in contributing to development mirrors on how they trained. Low quality graduates are believed to be a product of a more subject-centered and instructive style of teaching. The Makerere University Kampala School of Agricultural Sciences (SAS) made effort to improve and enhance the competence of its lecturers to use a learner centered teaching approach in its programmes through training. This paper presents an assessment of how the training influenced the lecturers to use different teaching practices toward producing quality responsive graduates. Data was collected from 120 students and 20 lectures from the SAS using a semi-structured questionnaire. The findings show that Training lecturers in experiential learning influenced their awareness and use of experiential learning approaches in delivery of the courses they taught. Effective application of experiential learning approaches was constrained by challenges of varied understanding and appreciation of the concept among lecturers, short class periods, large class sizes and financial limitations. In effect, the traditional lecture method remained dominant. Above all, application of experiential learning approaches is not institutionalized at SAS thus limiting the attainment of critical and reflective thinking for the attainment of lifelong learning abilities among students. To strengthen application of experiential learning approaches, training of all lecturers and curriculum review to integrate experiential learning practices as part of the general teaching quality assurance measures is critical.

scholarly journals The importance of respecting the learning styles in the teaching process: An example of Kolb's model of experiential learning

Norma ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-79
Author(s):  
Lana Tomčić
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Learning Styles ◽  
Learning Difficulties ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Learning Theories ◽  
Teaching Process ◽  
Analysis Techniques ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
Common Learning

The aim of this paper is to point out the importance of knowing and respecting the learning styles in the teaching process through the presentation of Kolb's model of experiential learning. The goal is achieved at the theoretical level, using the method of theoretical analysis and content analysis techniques, starting from the analysis of concepts and classifications of learning styles in the most common learning theories, through different ways of respecting learning styles to Kolb's model of experiential learning. Knowledge of learning styles is of multiple importance for pedagogical theory and practice: the acquired knowledge contributes to better knowledge and understanding of students, their way of learning, the quality of teacher-student interaction, but also to shedding light on the causes of learning difficulties and preventing school failure.

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