journal of public affairs education - NASPAA *The Global Standard ...

Badgers & Hoosiers: An Interstate Collaborative Learning Experience ConnectingMPA Students in Wisconsin and IndianaThe UWO class incorporated community scan information and an analysis ofthe interview data into a mini-social-science research project that was submittedat the last class meeting, in addition to being sent back to IUN. While notstatistically significant, their findings included the observation that IUNstudents had many reasons for entering a graduate program, and that theprimary value of completing the degree program was because of its applicabilityto their work situations. Beyond this, IUN students believed that the primaryvalue of public administration is to improve society.STUDENT RESPONSEIn a 2005 Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE) article, Alice Schumakerreported on her empirical study to investigate the perspective of 100 MPAstudents at the University of Nebraska-Omaha on group projects. Although hermain thrust was to identify the skills developed during group projects thatmost successfully transferred into the workplace, the point most applicable tothis undertaking was Schumaker’s observation that “[P]art of the joy ofgraduate education is to build friendships and professional relationship,” andthat “[I]nstructors should be aware of opportunities to foster studentfriendships” (p. 33).Since our earliest efforts to engage classes in shared learning activities,students have been intrigued by the idea of interacting with students fromother institutions. For example, even though they had no direct interactionwith one another after the chopstick exercise, our students enthusiasticallyparticipated in discussing similarities and differences between the two groups’responses, and the students’ perceptions of being connected to the conceptsexplored in each class.During the fall of 2007, in the first full-blown attempt to involve our classes ina single, integrated, collaborative-learning project, students in both classesdisplayed confusion over what the project was supposed to accomplish and howit was to be logistically managed. Although writing and submitting an abstractfor consideration by the ICMA publication, seeking feedback from groupmembers in another class, and giving feedback on this feedback all wereappropriate assignments for both classes, the logistics of implementing theseactivities was a nightmare that nearly made management of the project takeprecedence over its substance. Students were further confused by the fact that theinstructors used the collaborative project to implement somewhat different goalsin the two classes.Responses to critiques of the abstract from colleagues in partner classes weregenerally positive, but both instructors observed a bit of competitive “chestthumping”on each side throughout the project. For instance, an IUN group’sresponse to the critique of their abstract by a UWO class in the fall semester of2007 included the following comments:Journal of Public Affairs Education 355