News Release

Student project blends learning with helping others

June 10, 2009

Penn State Harrisburg’s academic programs have a longstanding reputation of reinforcing skills learned in class through team projects.

Fostering a successful teamwork atmosphere increasingly important in the professional world, undergraduate and graduate students alike partner in projects mirroring real-world scenarios.

A recent effort involving the master’s degree program in Training and Development will not only serve future students in the major, but served to reinforce work concepts for the project team members.

The team project began when Assistant Professor of Training and Development Jo Tyler began receiving questions from new students in the program regarding a range of topics including course selection, curriculum, options, and internships. Realizing a consolidated information source for Training and Development information existed, Tyler consulted with program coordinator Associate Professor of Education Margaret Lohman regarding a student project to collect and post the information. “We are ideally positioned to do it ourselves as a program with our students,” she said to Lohman.

One of the students in the graduate program class, LeeMarie Diggs says, “Dr. Tyler began the process by asking students why they would be interested in a project to create a web-based organizational and informational presentation for new students.”  A team was assembled and “we began by developing questions – a survey – which was distributed to current students, new students, and graduates of the program. From the completed survey, we were able to begin building the site,” she adds.

“We knew there had to be a better way to make the information available and we asked what they would like – or would have liked – to know. “

The Training and Development program at Penn State Harrisburg is the only one of its kind in southcentral Pennsylvania. It is designed to prepare training and development professionals for a broad range of responsibilities, including performance analysis, training design and delivery, career development, organization development, and program evaluation – all ingredients in the student project.

Meeting as a group only three times during the course of the semester, the team conducted other gatherings remotely via AdobeConnect, eliminating the need for one student residing  in College Park, Md. to drive to campus. “We found you can get things done quickly and efficiently even if you aren’t physically together; we could even be in different countries,” Diggs adds.

‘It all worked great,” Tyler summarizes. “The goal was simply informational – to provide new students with information they indicated they needed with input from grads and others who indicated what they wished they had known. Another layer of learning was the team undertaking outline training directed to competency areas stressed in the program.”

Students who participated in the project with Diggs were Samta Maheshwari, Deborah Chilcoat-Goble, Barbara Hall, Robert Tanner, Allyson Green, Melanie Baker, and Jennifer Poger.