Experiential Learning - The Need of The Hour

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Have you heard of the old Chinese saying “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will understand”? 

With the increasing rates of the Federal Stafford loan for graduate students and increasing global competition in the job market, pursuing higher education like Postgraduate Diploma in Business has become both more challenging and important. The fact is having a college degree is the basic requirement even for getting the lowest-level jobs. Online education programmes like MOOCs, online postgraduate diploma and other programmes are striving to put back the deteriorating system together. Moreover, various reputed and established organisations like Experience Institute, Enstitute and Watson University are looking forward to develop an all new learning system with personal development and experiential learning.

Need for More Experience 

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, more experience in the current education system is required. Furthermore a post in The Atlantic reports that almost one third of college graduates in Education, Liberal Arts or Social Science regret their choice. But the most popular reason was not the choice of their majors. More than 50 per cent of the students declared that getting more relevant work experience would have been more beneficial for them. Thus it shows the need and demand for incorporating experiential learning or learning from experience into the educational programmes.

What is Experiential Learning?

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Learning from direct experiences beyond the conventional classrooms and developing skills and values forms the basis of experiential learning. It is an academic attitude which involves the process of informing different methods through which teachers decisively engage with students in direct experience with the content in an enhanced learning environment. It also involves focused reflection which results in developing necessary skills, gaining relevant knowledge, clarifying values and improving one’s ability to add value to the community. Experiential learning includes a number of activities such as study abroad, undergraduate research, service learning, internships and other types of work experiences.

It is obvious that not all students can learn effectively in a traditional classroom setting. The students at Experience Institute (Ei) are encouraged to accept 3 apprenticeships/projects while they complete the 5 modules in the curriculum that have been particularly developed for this programme. The one year course provides an affordable graduate experience to its students.

Experiential Learning in Business Education 

In an effort to build better business leaders and managers, business schools and universities are adapting new learning methodologies in order to meet the expectations of the employers and students. Hence, most Fast Track MBA, Accounting and Business Management programmes have effectively included experiential learning into the curriculum due to its increasing importance.

One of the main aspects of business education is applying what you have learnt in real business environments. By teaching in real corporate world context, current MBA, Postgraduate Diploma in Management and other business degree programmes aim to equip the learners with the skills and abilities that will enable them to face the daily challenges and become a successful business leader. Thus, it has been observed that this has lead to enormous enrolment in online postgraduate diploma courses that facilitate them to stay abreast in this highly competitive corporate world.

Scope of Experiential Learning 

Experiential learning aims to make a long term effect on the students by putting them outside the comfort zone and making them to get engaged and reflect on a specific topic or subject matter.

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According to Victor Saad, author of The Leap Year Project: Learning to Risk & Risking to Learn, “Young people need to continue building their confidence and agency. They must learn how to work towards solutions on problems that are not yet clearly defined. This entails learning how to listen, how to empathize with others, and how to use empathy to solve problems in any context from a creative and holistic standpoint.”

He believes that “Society will place a similar value on experiential education as they do now on the traditional degree." Although federal loans presently do not recognise experiential education programmes, but soon things will start changing as different educational institutes are including this approach in their teaching process.

Tools to Prevent You From Having to Throw Your Computer Across Classrooms

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A digital classroom changes the educand and educators life quite significantly. Apart from less stacks of paper, in turn saving a lot of greenery, it also makes keeping track of student work that much easier. Also gone are the days of the physical paper related excuses of not turning up with one’s homework. The taking of notes by students have acquired new forms and lastly but not in any way the least the need emerges of a way to share work between people that doesn’t involve physical paper transfer.

Classrooms with Less Paper

Classrooms with less paper means that you require quick and efficient means to share work other than by physical transportation of the computer or by throwing them around. Students need to hand in their work, teachers need to offer feedback on said work, students need to share their collaborative work, and teachers need to share classroom information and tools of all variety. Luckily, there are tons of different tools out there that can enable you to share nearly any type of file (from .doc/.docx and .ppt to .mov, .mp3/4 , .zip and more!). There’s a lot of info out there on different cloud storage services – which are a great way to share files – but many of these are business focused and not as classroom friendly. We’ve put together a short list of some of our favorite methods of file sharing so that you, your colleagues, and your students can spend more time on the good stuff and less time trying to figure out how to get the information to one another.

Tools to Share Files

Dropbox

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Dropbox is a must have on everyones file sharing toolbox. Its ease of use and simplicity has made it a must have. Offering 2GB of free storage, easy offline access, sending files to dropbox via email and simple sharing. If you are hard pressed for storage or individual file size you will have to pay an amount for a premium account. Or if you are net social you can get your friends to sign up, give them shout outs on social media, give feedback, etc and help you stay free while availing premium features.

Google Drive

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Apart from the fact that it comes from the google stable which gives it a backbone of quality the best part of Google drive is that it is free for up to a whooping 15GB with paid options beyond. It integrates well with other Google products but its drawback is that if you need to share with folks who don’t have Google Drive/Gmail, you’ll run into an issue there.

OneDrive

Basically Microsoft’s answer to Google Drive, with OneDrive you get 7GB of space for free, and it integrates exceptionally well if you’re an MS Office user. If you’re not, it doesn’t make a ton of sense.

Apple iCloud

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The cloud storage service offered by Apple iCould gives you 5GB free, and paid options beyond it. It is asy to set up and use even on PC. If your classroom is all Apple-based, this one is a must have.

Box

Box offers 10GB free storage with paid options beyond that, easy sharing of documents and folders, and easy to use regardless of platform or device.

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The 5 Elements of Digital literacy to Focus On

What is Digital Literacy?

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According to Cornell University digital literacy happens to be the ability to find, evaluate, utilize, share, and create content using information technologies and the Internet, while Henry Jenkins as quoted on Wikipedia defines it as the Digital literacy is the ability to effectively and critically navigate, evaluate and create information using a range of digital technologies. It requires one "to recognize and use that power, to manipulate and transform digital media, to distribute pervasively, and to easily adapt them to new forms.”

The New Literacy

Many teachers now recognize digital literacy to be the number four on the list of literacies their students should have or be striving towards acquiring, as is the case. Reading, writing, and math are now followed by digital literacy.

In his dissertation on the topic Doug Belshaw identifies some of the key elements of digital literacy. Following Belshaw, it must be recognized that these elements are contextual, that is, they depend on the personal, social and cultural context within which they develop. While all graduate students will be expected to have core skills, attributes and identities, discipline-specific literacies will build upon these core elements. They provide a foundation on which more subject/discipline-specific and contextual literacies can flourish.

5 Key Elements of Digital Literacy

Doug Belshaw, in his thesis identifies eight key elements of digital literacy five of which we will elaborate here further.

• CULTURAL



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Developing the cultural component of digital literacy means that the student is able to move easily between different digital environments and use learning technologies in a variety of different contexts. For example he knows how to distinguish between using Facebook for my personal and social connections, and using it for my academic course. He or she is am also aware of the norms, values and codes that are specific to the subject at hand and how these might impact on his use of learning technologies.


• COGNITIVE
This is the need to master the ‘how-to’s of specific tools and technologies that are important for my development as a graduate, including those which are subject-specific as well as more general tools that will make the individual involved a more digitally literate person.

CREATIVE

To develop the student’s creative element he has to use digital technologies to create new things which have value to himself and others. Be prepared to take risks and to value randomness and discovery when engaging with digital technologies. Develop an understanding of the processes, procedures and systems that lie behind digital technologies rather than the specific elements of software/hardware involved.

CRITICAL

You need to be a critical user of digital technologies by becoming aware of the power structures and assumptions behind different digital tools and practices. Like, think about your audience and how they might interpret your digital texts in different ways. You also need to develop an understanding of online security, identity and data management in your own literacy practices.

CONSTRUCTIVE

Learn how to take resources and content that already exists and rearrange and recreate it in order to create something new and that adds to and benefits my learning. 

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Is Distance Learning Programme A Panancea for Stressed Working Students?

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According to a Guardian survey, academics with mental health problems hold responsible university work for their illness. 

Heavy workloads, isolation, and lack of support are the main factors causing mental illness, say respondents, who range from PhD students to vice-chancellors. 

Exclusively targeting academic suffering mental illness, the Guardian survey revealed that about two-thirds of above 2,500 respondents think that university task pressure is the direct cause of their illness.Senior lecturers and others between the age group of 55 and 64 think strongly about this linkage.

More than half of academic from the UK and overseas feel a heavy workload has affected their mental health. Among other factors, a lack of support has affected 44% of respondents from the 25-64 years of age group.

Around half of respondents raise concerns about the isolation they feel while undertaking the course, whereas others blame bullying culture, long working hours and job insecurity for their mental problems.

The Guardian survey hoists fresh concerns on the mental conditions of university staff, and their work culture.

According to National Figures in 2012, about one in 500 faculty members (0.2%) disclosed their mental illness to their university. It also discovered a split between different ages and types of UK institution.

 

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Unreasonable demands by management

Feeling of isolation is generally high among PhD student, around 64%, and those between the 18 to 34 years. On the other hand, senior lecturers and those above 45 years blame unreasonable demands from management for their state of mental health.

Rosie Miles, senior lecturer in English at the University of Wolverhampton, says,

"As 21st century academics, the expectations on us are, in effect, impossible. It is simply not possible at any one time to research effectively, teach well, deal with endless administrative demands, put in major grant bids, be permanently available to students, mark (often lots of) work and have some kind of sensible, balanced work-life ratio. Something has to give, and sometimes what can give is an academic's sense of her or his own worth and value."

Distance Learning Diploma Program is a panacea for stressed working students

 

Mental health problems are also quite common among the working students. A number of working professionals, who are enrolled in management programmes, report mental health problems to the universities or at their workplace.

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Online distance learning could prove to be of greater help to such students in fighting off intricate mental illness. They can pursue online management programmes from some of the well-known online business schools.

The best thing about online postgraduate or undergraduate management diploma programmes is that future or current employers consider them equivalent to the regular or traditional degrees and do not differentiate between the degree holders.

So, if you want to stay free from the mental health problems, consider enrolling in online courses for a lucrative career ahead. There are several postgraduate as well as undergraduate diploma programmes being offered by eminent universities, you can choose to enrol in one.

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