Are you tired of lecturing to a classroom full of zombies?  Are you looking for a fun way to wake up the minds and hearts of your students? Have you considered transformational service learning? In this 30 minute roundtable, we will discuss different methods of developing engaging service learning experiences designed to empower your students to use their classroom knowledge in a real-world environment.

We will also describe our recent success in developing and implementing a multidisciplinary service learning experience with three professors and 135 students representing the following five classes: Business Communications, Human Resources, Principles of Marketing, Consumer Behavior, and Introduction to Business.

The university students with encouragement and technical support from their professors hosted the first annual Business Bulldogs Networking Showcase for area high school students. In each course, the university students developed a component of the event which fit with the curriculum of their course.  For example, in the H.R. class, the students developed an event application and made phone calls to prospective attendees.  In the consumer behavior, class the students designed Corporate Social Responsibility YouTube videos.  The Intro to Business, Principles of Marketing, and Business Communications class designed informative ethics research displays.

In this roundtable, participants will discuss ways of developing new teaching/learning opportunities for transformational learning projects.  Attendees will brainstorm ways of applying both Bloom’s Taxonomy and Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle in their traditional classroom environments.

A recent case study describing the first annual Business Bulldog Networking Showcase, which was developed and implemented by the presenters in Fall 2017, will be used as a jumping off point for a brainstorming session to discuss ways of implementing high impact learning experiences in the classroom environment.

The Business Bulldog Networking Showcase programming was developed considering the importance of activities which empower students to reach higher levels of educational attainment discussed in Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956). The professors endeavored to develop learning experiences which increased student expertise beyond Bloom’s (1956) basic Knowledge and Comprehension to the areas of Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation. The event gave students the opportunity to apply their new knowledge in developing programming to share their learning experience with area high school students. In the face-to-face reflections and online survey results, university students reported experiences which demonstrate they gained the opportunities for analysis, synthesis and evaluation through preparing, implementing, and evaluating the event.

The Business Bulldogs Networking Showcase event resulted in some exceptional teaching/learning moments. The activities included in the event were designed to maximize the classroom experience by giving students an avenue to practice the course theory in a real-world environment.

Below is a description of the programming presented by the university students to the high school students:

• Bulldog Speed Networking – This station enabled high school students to get face time with SWOSU administrators, faculty, staff and students. The students were encouraged to ask questions about classes, internships, clubs, scholarship, housing and much more.

• Bulldog Team Building Bash – This station included five high energy networking games, which were similar to what a professional might experience at a corporate training or business retreat.

• Business Scavenger Hunt – This station encouraged students to learn about ethical issues in business.  The booth included topics ranging from sports to politics to positive examples of corporate social responsibility in banking, real estate and insurance. Students who completed the scavenger hunt were entered in a drawing to win an Apple Watch.

• YouTube Video QR Code Challenge – High school students watched videos developed by SWOSU students about proposals for business programs to benefit societal needs.

The Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Cycle was also implemented in the development of this new teaching/learning method. Students’ learning process followed the Kolb’s (1984) cycle starting with 1) concrete experience of learning the course material; 2) reflection on possible ways of applying their learning; 3) forming abstract concepts based on the feedback of their professors and peers; 4) taking their previous experience and testing their new knowledge at the event.

The final deliverable of this session will be the development of a mind map, (recipe) of possible ways attendees representing faculty, staff administration and students can collaborate to develop transformational learning experiences designed to maximize student learning.

Bloom, B., Englehart, M., Furst, E., Hill, W., Krathwohl, D. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York: Longmans.

Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (Vol. 1). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

30-Minute Roundtable Session

Communicating Transformative Learning