Action Learning: Design Features and Outcomes at Georgia State University

This account of action learning as a curriculum offering at Georgia State University provides background and details of program start-up and operation during a first, experimental year. It explains what features were important in the design, what some of the first-year outcomes were, and what designers of the laboratory course will continuously seek to improve. Research findings from the first year of offering the program supported the expectation that students would gain confidence in their set mentoring and organizational problem-solving skills through a blend of hands-on experience and through independent and in-class reflection. Using critical incidents and journals as a way of staying in touch with events and with their own learning process, participants came to view critique as a leading part of action learning. Graduate students who were the first action learners at GSU included both human resource development and instructional technology majors. They have now fanned out in many directions to learn more about action learning and to carry the process into other organizations.