The university is redefining education with a program that lets students engage in intense, creative, collaborative, personal, and, at times, real-life ventures.
In today's competitive higher education environment, a college or a university cannot be seen as just another good institution in a landscape filled with many other similar entities--some a little stronger, others a bit weaker. Today, as branding experts will tell us, it's all about differentiation. But at Ball State University, we think it goes much deeper than that for very compelling, even urgent reasons.
At Ball State, we are redefining education by creating a high-tech--and high-touch--immersive learning environment that allows students to engage with learning in a new way: intense, creative, collaborative, personal, and, at times, even in ways that mirror the risk and reward of real-life ventures. We believe this is an essential way to help shape our students for leadership in the 21st century and to orient education toward the needs of knowledge economics in the future.
By immersing themselves in a project, students achieve much more than simply a grade. In most cases, they become so engrossed in the projects that they quickly race past traditional grading scales and achieve an unprecedented level of learning, establish deeper connections to their areas of study, build a greater understanding of the relationships between their disciplines and others, glean key insights into their career choices, and develop stronger ties to the communities and industries in which they've worked.
Ball State is dedicated to offering in-depth immersive experiences in each of the university's seven colleges through a number of special programs, courses, and institutes. We define immersive experiences as typically worth more than three credits. These experiences engage a group of students (frequently an interdisciplinary one) in collaborative work, are mentored by a faculty member, usually establish partnerships with one or more community entities, and result in an end product, such as a book, play, film, business plan, product prototype, or report.
In these experiences, the students drive the learning process and play a critical role in defining the end product. It is "active learning" at its best, and the experiences connect students to the industries in which they want to establish their careers. Chin-Sook Pak, who left the setting of her traditional classroom for one semester to coordinate an immersive course at our Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry, acknowledged that it is a different way of teaching. "I wasn't the expert anymore, and that was difficult," she admits. "The students had tremendous autonomy. They were the instigators of action, and actually in some parts, they were braver than I because I'm always calculating the risks."
By immersing themselves in a project, students achieve much more than simply a grade.
These experiences are well beyond the pilot program phase. Throughout the university, we have woven a rich tapestry of immersive learning, from dedicated centers to capstone courses, from community-based projects to intensive study abroad opportunities. We are successfully forging many models--all adapted to fit our various colleges' and communities' needs.
The focus on immersive learning is central to the way in which Ball State conceptualizes its mission. While we have a history of providing personal attention and exceptional access to professors who are outstanding in their fields, through immersive experiences we are fostering collaboration between faculty and students. We are creating ways for all students--including freshmen--to participate in these experiences, putting the latest technology into their hands, and encouraging them to take creative risks.
"I think Ball State is a wonderful place because the resources and the constant support and nourishment I received were just unparalleled--it helped me evolve into a much stronger storyteller," says Jaron Henrie-McCrea, recent graduate and winner of a 2005 Gold Student Academy Award. "I could also get my hands on the best equipment like high-definition cameras or work in state-of-the-art editing bays at any time."
We are redefining academic excellence by building a culture of innovation and creativity. Through the development of experiential learning across our university, we are envisioning a future in which at least one immersive experience is available to every Ball State student, making this our hallmark of education redefined.
