Student Driven Business Projects: Motivation, Implementation, and Consequences

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Our goal as an educational institution is to make students self-educating people. We aim to develop in students the ability to synthesize knowledge from various sources and help them learn practical business methodologies. Specifically, the chief objective in our courses is to provide students with a fundamental understanding of concepts in a fashion such that the knowledge and skills obtained from these courses is transferable to integrated real applications (Smith & Van Doren, 2004), in line with the needs of the future marketplace (see for example, Ackerman, Gross & Perner, 2003; Walczak & Lantz, 1998). The importance and advantages of experiential learning exercises is well documented in other disciplines such as nursing, medicine, economics, computer science, journalism, and social work (see Batalden and Davidoff 2007, Waldeck 2007, Todd 2007, Steel et al 2007, for instance). This paper relates to our learning gleaned from over ten years of using student driven projects as experiential learning tools to ensure learning outcomes commensurate with learning objectives espoused in our courses. We report on student driven projects that form an important and effective means of experiential, student learning centered education in our pedagogical palette. We use this pedagogical tool based on documented effectiveness of such experiential exercises in producing learning outcomes that are cherished by students, valued by employers, and encouraged in the mission of most institutions of higher It is our goal to ensure that our students engage themselves in active hands-on learning and will be able to apply their learning in business settings, in particular as team players. We start with a brief description of literature that supports the conceptualization, implementation, and efficacy of such experiential learning. We then proceed to provide examples of some of the projects our students have participated in. In the subsequent narrative, we underscore the benefits of such endeavors for our students, our clients, and our employers. We then proceed to caution the reader about some of the stumbling blocks, pitfalls and traps that we have encountered in our pedagogical development. We conclude by providing some preliminary thoughts on further research that might enrich our scholarly approach to pedagogy. CONCEPTUAL UNDERPINNINGS OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING Past research in student learning in higher education provides us with sufficient evidence to establish that learning is an active process in which students actively construct knowledge from their experiences in the world (Michael, 2006). Add to this the idea that people construct new knowledge with particular effectiveness when they are engaged in constructing personally meaningful artifacts (Todd 2007) and we find a conceptual foundation for the use of student driven business projects as a pedagogical tool. Extant literature provides some guidance on organizing real-life, student driven projects (for example, Lopez & Lee, 2005). However, the larger research stream in the area of experiential learning better informs our application of student driven projects. Waldeck (2007) refers to such experiential learning as education. His research underscores the complimentary relationship between such personalized experiential learning and learning outcomes. Moving from individual learning to cooperative learning, meaningful group work has also been shown to be a particularly useful active learning tool (Whetten 2007, Livingstone & Lynch, 2000). In the medical arena, Batalden and Davidoff (2007) view experiential learning to be critical in providing patient care. They make the distinction between knowledge of medicine (knowing that) and delivery of care (knowing how) and report that providing quality care is better taught through experiential learning than through age old established pedagogy of medicine, which is highly effective in transferring knowledge yet woefully inadequate in establishing quality of care delivery. …

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