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Badgers & Hoosiers: An Interstate Collaborative Learning Experience ConnectingMPA Students in Wisconsin and IndianaCOLLABORATIVE LEARNING VALUESWe contend that collaborative learning is a valuable use of instructional timebecause of the following:1. Teachers cannot simply transfer knowledge to students. Meaningful andlasting learning occurs via personal, active engagement,2. Many employers consider the willingness to engage in productiveteamwork to be a requirement for success,3. Our increasingly diverse society requires engaged citizens who canappreciate and benefit from different perspectives, and4. Collaborative learning personally and actively engages students of allbackgrounds (Barkley, Cross, & Major, 2005, pp. xi-xii).FALL SEMESTER 2007One of the more challenging aspects of managing this kind of collaborativelearning experience is finding a project in which students from different classescan jointly participate. While the instructors had shared ideas for in-classactivities (i.e., the chopstick exercise), they had not worked together before on aproject that would involve class members in different locations interacting witheach other directly. Searching for an appropriate shared activity came to an endin early September, 2007, when King received an e-mail from the InternationalCity/County Managers Association (ICMA) with the headline “Get Published!ICMA Press Seeks Proposals for Case Studies.” This announcement described anexcellent 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 thatcould be submitted to ICMA for consideration. Groups wereencouraged to draw on their personal experiences and local observationswhen choosing a case to study.3. Student groups from one institution electronically submitted theirabstracts to pre-selected groups in the other institution’s partneringMPA class.4. The groups then electronically provided each other with 1-2 pages ofwritten feedback on the submitted abstracts.5. Finally, group members in both classes were asked, as part of theirindividual classes, to evaluate how useful the feedback was in improvingtheir abstracts.No other class assignments were collaborative in nature, and in fact theydiffered greatly from each other. For example, UOW students were required todevelop a 3,000-word, extended case study based on the abstract, and to submitit for a grade, an experience that IUN students did not have.While instructors and students felt that this experiment was generally352 Journal of Public Affairs Education
Badgers & Hoosiers: An Interstate Collaborative Learning Experience ConnectingMPA Students in Wisconsin and Indianasuccessful, and worthy of the effort involved, all agreed that it could have beenmore coherently conceptualized and smoothly executed. We found that thelogistics of implementing this type of project were more difficult thanexpected, because of differing class sizes, course content, schedules, andassignments. In addition, just keeping track of the numerous electronicmessages being transmitted between the cities of Gary and Oshkosh proved tobe a daunting task. We learned the importance of being clear about objectivesfor the joint activity, and that standardized response tools and e-mail protocolsneeded to be determined at the beginning of the process. Theserecommendations were implemented as we prepared to conduct a similarexperiment in the spring semester.In Dr. King’s class, the impact of this assignment extended beyond thesemester. Although not required, three of the groups decided to submit theirrevised abstracts for evaluation and possible publication in the ICMA casebook.Two groups were invited to write full case studies for consideration, and, sincethen, one was accepted for publication and is now accessible as Case 13 (“Ethicsand 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 ofthe capstone seminar offered in the spring semester. Although most studentswere not assigned to participate in the cases they helped write, they clearly werepleased to see their work presented by their peers.SPRING SEMESTER 2008The collaborative learning project conducted in the spring semester of 2008was specifically designed so that students in both locations could 1) examinesociety’s perceptions of the value of public administration, 2) explore theconnection between themselves and a larger cohort of MPA students, 3) developan awareness of how public administration is exercised differently in othercommunities, 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 goalsof addressing organization and management theory as it relates to the publicsector, and addressing the relationship between theory and practice in publicsector organizations.Elements of the project’s design were influenced by the previous semester’scollaborative learning project, and several factors needed to be addressed upfront. Fortunately, as was the case in the fall semester, enrollment wascomparable in the two spring classes (about 28 in each). A significant logisticalchallenge was the difference in class schedules — the IUN class met weekly forthree evening hours, from January 19 through the end of April. UWO had fiveJournal of Public Affairs Education 353
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