JOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS EDUCATION - naspaa

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Badgers & Hoosiers: An Interstate Collaborative Learning Experience Connecting MPA Students in Wisconsin and Indiana COLLABORATIVE LEARNING VALUES We contend that collaborative learning is a valuable use of instructional time because of the following: 1. Teachers cannot simply transfer knowledge to students. Meaningful and lasting learning occurs via personal, active engagement, 2. Many employers consider the willingness to engage in productive teamwork to be a requirement for success, 3. Our increasingly diverse society requires engaged citizens who can appreciate and benefit from different perspectives, and 4. Collaborative learning personally and actively engages students of all backgrounds (Barkley, Cross, & Major, 2005, pp. xi-xii). FALL SEMESTER 2007 One of the more challenging aspects of managing this kind of collaborative learning experience is finding a project in which students from different classes can jointly participate. While the instructors had shared ideas for in-class activities (i.e., the chopstick exercise), they had not worked together before on a project that would involve class members in different locations interacting with each other directly. Searching for an appropriate shared activity came to an end in early September, 2007, when King received an e-mail from the International City/County Managers Association (ICMA) with the headline “Get Published! ICMA Press Seeks Proposals for Case Studies.” This announcement described an excellent opportunity for students to work with each other on a “real life” project. This is how it happened: 1. Each class was divided into six groups of four or five students. 2. Each group prepared a one-page abstract for an extended case study that could be submitted to ICMA for consideration. Groups were encouraged to draw on their personal experiences and local observations when choosing a case to study. 3. Student groups from one institution electronically submitted their abstracts to pre-selected groups in the other institution’s partnering MPA class. 4. The groups then electronically provided each other with 1-2 pages of written feedback on the submitted abstracts. 5. Finally, group members in both classes were asked, as part of their individual classes, to evaluate how useful the feedback was in improving their abstracts. No other class assignments were collaborative in nature, and in fact they differed greatly from each other. For example, UOW students were required to develop a 3,000-word, extended case study based on the abstract, and to submit it for a grade, an experience that IUN students did not have. While instructors and students felt that this experiment was generally 352 Journal of Public Affairs Education
Badgers & Hoosiers: An Interstate Collaborative Learning Experience Connecting MPA Students in Wisconsin and Indiana successful, and worthy of the effort involved, all agreed that it could have been more coherently conceptualized and smoothly executed. We found that the logistics of implementing this type of project were more difficult than expected, because of differing class sizes, course content, schedules, and assignments. In addition, just keeping track of the numerous electronic messages being transmitted between the cities of Gary and Oshkosh proved to be a daunting task. We learned the importance of being clear about objectives for the joint activity, and that standardized response tools and e-mail protocols needed to be determined at the beginning of the process. These recommendations were implemented as we prepared to conduct a similar experiment in the spring semester. In Dr. King’s class, the impact of this assignment extended beyond the semester. Although not required, three of the groups decided to submit their revised abstracts for evaluation and possible publication in the ICMA casebook. Two groups were invited to write full case studies for consideration, and, since then, one was accepted for publication and is now accessible as Case 13 (“Ethics and Internal Hiring”) in Managing Local Government: Cases in Effectiveness (International City/County Managers Association, 2008). In addition, two of the case studies developed in the fall class became part of the capstone seminar offered in the spring semester. Although most students were not assigned to participate in the cases they helped write, they clearly were pleased to see their work presented by their peers. SPRING SEMESTER 2008 The collaborative learning project conducted in the spring semester of 2008 was specifically designed so that students in both locations could 1) examine society’s perceptions of the value of public administration, 2) explore the connection between themselves and a larger cohort of MPA students, 3) develop an awareness of how public administration is exercised differently in other communities, and 4) reflect on their own reasons for pursuing an MPA degree. Both courses used Bolman and Deal’s (2003) Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, and Gareth Morgan’s (2006) Images of Organization. Course content differed in the two classes, but they both shared learning goals of addressing organization and management theory as it relates to the public sector, and addressing the relationship between theory and practice in public sector organizations. Elements of the project’s design were influenced by the previous semester’s collaborative learning project, and several factors needed to be addressed up front. Fortunately, as was the case in the fall semester, enrollment was comparable in the two spring classes (about 28 in each). A significant logistical challenge was the difference in class schedules — the IUN class met weekly for three evening hours, from January 19 through the end of April. UWO had five Journal of Public Affairs Education 353
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