Open Access15: Teaching Business by Doing Business: An Interdisciplinary Faculty‐Friendly Approach
Author(s) -
Michaelsen Larry K.,
McCord Mary
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
to improve the academy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-4822
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-4822.2007.tb00485.x
Subject(s) - practicum , service (business) , loan , engineering management , discipline , business as usual , engineering , knowledge management , business , medical education , computer science , marketing , mathematics education , psychology , management , sociology , medicine , finance , social science , economics
This chapter describes the implementation of an interdisciplinary undergraduate curricular innovation in two different university settings. The Integrative Business Experience (IBE) requires students to enroll concurrently in three required core business courses and a practicum course in which they develop and operate a startup business (based on a real‐money loan of up to $5,000) and carry out a hands‐on community service project. This chapter also reports outcomes for students (including data from an assessment), examines the variables that minimize the difficulty of achieving cross‐disciplinary integration in IBE, and suggests keys to enabling faculty‐friendly integrative course designs in other settings.