ELC Facts
Our Mission | Our Approach | Center Facts | Center Strengths | The Experiential Learning Cycle
Our Mission
The Experiential Learning Center (ELC) is a unique training facility used extensively to support Marshall graduate and undergraduate programs. Through the ELC, students are offered numerous opportunities to participate in hands-on training sessions designed to improve their presentation, negotiation and organizational skills. The ELC is committed to bridging the gap between theory and practice by exposing students to business-like situations that assist them in the practice and development of critical management skills.
Our Approach
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Center Facts
- Every student at Marshall goes through the Experiential Learning Center!
- Established in 1967
- Multiple Centers in two buildings
- 18 fully equipped individual videotaping studios and one-way observation capability
- Over 120,000 student hours are spent at the two centers annually
- Utilization rate for ELC facilities averages 98%
- Over 60 Business Courses use the two centers in delivering instruction
- Topics covered include: leadership, teamwork, communication, negotiation, decision-making
- ELC houses an extensive library of experiential activities that are used to simulate the real-life business situations
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Center Strengths
- Commitment to the learner-centric approach to teaching and learning
- Proper integration of technology into both the teaching and the research mission of Marshall
- Strong support from faculty and positive feedback from students on ELC research and training services
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The Experiential Learning Cycle
Experiencing
The initial stage involves participation in a structured experience. This step may be associated with "games" or fun. It involves self assessment or interpersonal interaction and is used as the "doing" part of experiential learning.
Publishing
The second stage of the cycle consists of having participants share their feelings, reactions and observations during the event. The intent here is to make available to the group the experience of each individual both at the cognitive and affective levels while the activity was progressing.
Processing
This stage consists of systematic examination of commonly shared experiences of the participants who essentially reconstruct the patterns and interactions of the activity from the published individual reports.
Generalizing
An inferential leap has been made at this point in the structured experiences, from the reality inside the activity to the reality of everyday life outside the training session. Participants are led to focus their awareness on situations in their personal or work lives that are similar to those in the activity that they experienced. Their task is to abstract from the processing some principles that could be applied "outside".
Applying
The final stage of the experiential learning cycle is the purpose for which the whole structured experience is designed. The trainer helps participants apply generalizations to actual situations in which they are involved. It is critical to design ways for individuals and/or groups to use the learning generated during the structured experience to plan more effective behavior.
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