Process and Content Integration in an Experiential Learning Guided Internship Program Page 286 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, volume 39, 2012 ABSTRACT Integrating process and content remains one of the greatest challenges in the successful execution of simulations and experiential learning exercises. In addition, ABSEL schol- ars, when designing a learning experience, must include balancing process and content considerations as design considerations. These issues are addressed in an innovative multidisciplinary program conducted by a College of Busi- ness and a College of Education in a large university in the southwestern United States. A process/content integration system labeled the Guided Internship Model, utilizing tech- niques and frameworks conducive to whole person experi- ential learning, is described. The program was implement- ed in a public school system with a group of interns func- tioning as Assistant Principals. The College of Business Professor functioned as the process coach, and the College of Education Professor functioned as the content coach. Innovative aspects of the experiential internship program include the execution of this joint coaching methodology. INTRODUCTION Learning programs that overemphasize content to the detriment of the learning experience tend to fall into meth- odological patterns that include an excessive amount of lecturing, mind numbing and emotion stifling power point slide presentations, and a general set of assumptions that the presentation of massive amounts of information is tan- tamount to learning. Developing viable and even powerful alternatives to this state of affairs --- pedagogical overem- phasis on content, as well as poorly executed mechanisms to deliver content --- has been one of the driving forces that not only led to ABSEL’s formation 39 years ago, but also to its continuing existence. In fact, the primary “main goal” of ABSEL, as found on the ABSEL website is “to enhance the development and application of business simulations and experiential methodologies”. We feel that the vast ma- jority of the extensive ABSEL publication catalog has been devoted, in one aspect or another, to this goal. Thus, no ABSEL citations will be listed on this point. There are simply too many examples. All of that said, integrating process and content re- mains one of the greatest challenges in the successful exe- cution of simulations and experiential learning exercises. If process is over emphasized in the design of a learning pro- gram, simulation, or experiential learning exercise, the ex- perience can be enjoyable, but relatively meaningless. This is especially true if “meaningful” is taken as significant in scope and lasting in impact. ABSEL scholars, when de- signing a learning experience, must include balancing pro- cess and content considerations as design considerations. Too much content can lead to a potential of cognitive over- load (Teach, 2010), while too little content or too much emphasis on process can lead to a simplicity trap (Cannon & Friesen, 2010). Management education is directed toward student ac- quisition of managerial skills, whether those skills involve intellectual growth though enhanced conceptual skills, broadened affective capacities through emotional maturity, and/or the development of behavioral skills that can be exercised at will. However, gaps in the measured effective- ness of management education persist. As D’Abate, Youndt and Wenzel state, “Despite the reality that business departments and schools focus on the professional develop- ment of their students, how well we prepare them for the ‘real world’ of business has been questioned” (2009:527). For example, in addition to the often cited Pfeffer and Fong PROCESS AND CONTENT INTEGRATION IN AN EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING GUIDED INTERNSHIP PROGRAM J. Duane Hoover Texas Tech University Duane.hoover@ttu.edu Robert C. Giambatista Lehigh University Rcg204@lehigh.edu Joann Klinker Texas Tech University Joann.klinker@ttu.edu mailto:Duane.hoover@ttu.edu mailto:Rcg204@lehigh.edu Page 287 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, volume 39, 2012 (2002) and Mintzberg (2004), Ashkanasy (2006) has made a recent plea for management education to have a better alignment with management as it is practiced in the ‘real world’ and in ‘real organizations’. A more specific gap in this regard is found in the area of internships, despite the widespread adoption of intern- ships in business schools in particular and in higher educa- tion in general. For example, Narayanan, Olk and Fukami (2010) found only 22 published studies dealing with intern- ships. The authors have found only one recent ABSEL pa- per focusing on internships (McManus & Feinstein, 2008). Narayanan, et al also observed that “the literature on intern- ship experiences is largely descriptive and anecdo- tal” (2010: 4), and they noted that they could find no in- ternship study that simultaneously addressed the roles of the student, the university and the host organization. D’Abate, et al (2009) also note a paucity of internship liter- ature, pointing out that AACSB’s publication BizEd has had “numerous authors write that practical, experiential learning activities are necessary to give students first-hand skill development, insights, and knowledge they cannot get from the classroom alone” (2009: 527). They also quote Navarro (2008: 108) as calling for students to engage in “real-world problem solving” after he surveyed 50 top business schools and concluded that most business schools do not include experiential learning in their core curricula (Kayes, 2002). “Thus, the charge for business schools is to tie more directly these potentially powerful experiential learning experiences to their core curricula and to help de- velop appropriate, meaningful internships for their stu- dents” (D’Abate, et al, 2009: 528). The Guided Internship Model was designed to address these issues. First, the program described here is a three- year project that involved a skill acquisition and retention study of students serving as high school principal interns in a local Independent School District (ISD), the ISD itself, and joint/multidisciplinary research conducted by a College of Business (COB) and a College of Education (COE) in a large university in the southwestern United States. The Guided Internship Model, utilizing a dual process and con- tent coaching strategy, is designed to contribute to the liter- ature relative to effective internship programs, responding to Hooijberg and Lane’s (2009: 483) statement “Few em- pirical studies have, however, explored what it is that coaches do that leads participants to improve their perfor- mance after an executive education program.” Finally, the implementation of the Guided Internship Model, utilizing techniques and frameworks conducive to whole person experiential learning (Kolb, 1984; Boyatis, Cowen & Kolb, 1985; Kolb & Kolb, 2005; Hoover, Giambatista, Sorenson & Bommer,2010, Micklich, 2011) also serves as a model for the enhancement of cultural intelligence (CQ) (Earley & Ang, 2003; Earley & Peterson, 2004; Ng, Van Dyne & Ang, 2009). THE SETTING AND SUBJECTS The American high school is central to the long-term social and economic health of the United States (Carnevale & Desrochers, 2004). The burden of effectively managing high schools, especially in those school systems that em- phasize decentralization and school autonomy (Ouichi, 2003), falls heavily upon the high school principal. There remains, however, a growing discontent relative to the quality of principal preparation nationwide (Levine, 2005). While Ouichi (2003) makes a strong case for more decen- tralization in school systems and more autonomy for princi- pals, a question remains as to whether or not principals receive enough education focused on managerial skills to effectively utilize such autonomy if it were given to them. This problem is perhaps more critical in the urban high school setting, or in high schools in areas of poverty or with a majority minority population. Balfanz and Legters (2004), for example, note that a majority minority high school is five times as likely to have difficulty promoting students to the senior class level as a majority white high school. Schools with these patterns have been labeled as “dropout factories” (Balfanz, 2007). These concerns relative to the managerial preparation of high school principals for urban high schools led to a project focusing on the efficacy of the high school principal internship. The research was funded by the Communities Foundation of the State, the Wallace Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and directed a multi- disciplinary team to design and implement an enhanced high school principal internship program that would em- phasize the acquisition and demonstration of managerial skills while the student interns worked full-time as Assis- tant Principals in urban high schools. The yearlong internship of the program that was de- signed was called the Guided Internship Model. The re- search project and program implementation was accom- plished utilizing a multidisciplinary team of faculty mem- bers from the College of Business (COB) and the College of Education (COE) of a large southwestern United States university. Upon completing the program, the students re- ceived an MBA degree and a Masters of Educational Lead- ership degree. The local Independent School District (ISD) also participated actively in the research project. The student intern subjects, 15 in total, came through the program over a three-year period in annual cohort groups of five. All of the interns selected for the program were successful full-time teachers in the ISD who were interested in becoming high school principals. All of the subjects could be described as successful mid-career pro- fessionals, ranging in age from the late twenties to the late forties. Nine were female and six were male. Eight were white, and seven were persons of color, four Hispanic and three African-American. They were chosen to participate in the program through a rigorous selection process from a large pool of applicants. Page 288 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, volume 39, 2012 The sequencing of the 15-month program began with each cohort taking a summer school MBA core curriculum course entitled “Executive Skills” that utilized an experien- tial learning methodology. Each cohort was simultaneously enrolled in a COE course under the Educational Leadership banner entitled “Democratic Leadership for High School Principals”. Starting in the fall of the school year, the co- hort continued their COB and COE coursework, but they also took full-time employment in intern positions in urban high schools in the ISD as Assistant Principals. The internships involved full-semester assignments as functioning Assistant Principals. The fifteen interns worked at a different high school during the spring semester in or- der to increase the variety of their on-the-job experiential learning in the ‘real world’ school environment. This also allowed them to work with two different high school prin- cipals as direct supervisors as well with different adminis- trative teams, and thus to experience differing leadership styles. During the nine-month school year, each individual student also worked with a COB faculty member and a COE faculty member functioning as their coaches in the Guided Internship Model. THE GUIDED INTERNSHIP MODEL AND PROCESS AND CONTENT COACHING Prior to the program being established in the ISD, while prospective program applicants were being inter- viewed, one theme that emerged from the discussions made an impression on the interviewers. It was the extent to which students embraced the fact that they would be work- ing directly with COB and COE faculty members who were experienced in the areas of managerial skills and education- al system administrative knowledge. When pressed further on this point, students mentioned that they had been suc- cessful teachers for years, and had aspirations for adminis- trative positions for some time as well. However, they had held back on applying. Intern # 3 (intern numbers were assigned randomly) said that she found “the whole process to be just too scary.” Intern # 5, a successful male teacher, said that he saw the whole thing as “a sink or swim propo- sition.” He went on to say, “If I am going to be jumping into the deep water, I would like to have a life preserver or two along for the ride.” This information reinforced our own beliefs that there can be a disconnect between how principals are prepared for the job and the realities of prac- tice. Based on student feedback and our own perceptions, the program designers decided to not only put an additional emphasis on coaching in the internship program, but to also differentiate the nature of the coaching behaviors that would be available to the interns in the Guided Internship Model. In this regard, we were essentially modifying what had been a somewhat nebulous process by adding the rough equivalent of Academic Learning Outcomes (Hornyak, Lawlor & Snyder, 2011). Before the coaching models are described, we think it is important to explain why the term “coach” was chosen over alternative descriptors such as instructor or mentor. In order to recognize the maturity of our interns and to chal- lenge their sense of professionalism, we chose to adopt a model conducive to education for adults and transformative learning (Mezirow, 1991). Similarly, we chose a philosoph- ical model of andragogy over pedagogy (Forrest & Peter- son, 2006). The andragogical approach “focuses on the adult learner and creation of an independent, adaptable individual. Underpinning andragogy are four assumptions regarding learning: a self-directing self-concept; use of experience; a readiness to learn; and a performance- centered orientation to learning” (Forest & Peterson, 2006: 113). In such a setting, we felt that the traditional model of a university instructor ‘talking down’ to a student was inap- propriate. Likewise, mentoring is often seen as more di- rective and tends to gravitate towards areas such as career planning and career development. On the other hand, “Coaching involves skill development” (Blanchard & Thacker, 1999: 309). Furthermore, coaching “helps manag- ers to gain perspective on their dilemmas and transfer their learning into organizational results; it increases their lead- ership skill and effectiveness” (Cummings and Worley, 2009: 451). The differentiation that was made in the Guided Intern- ship Model relative to coaching behaviors was in con- trasting “coaching relative to process” from “coaching rela- tive to content”. The reader will remember that the 15- month guided internship program began with the students taking two courses in the summer school session. The course from the COB was an experiential course that fo- cused on executive level managerial skills. The course from the COE was a survey course that focused on democratic leadership. Both of these courses were used to establish a process/behavioral skills baseline (the COB course) and a content/administrative philosophy baseline (the COE course). The remainder of the 15-month program applied and extended these baselines into full fruition in the on-the- job administrative roles of the student interns functioning as Assistant Principals in urban high schools. The COB faculty member functioned primarily as a Process Coach, while the COE faculty member functioned primarily as a Content Coach. Of course, it is impossible for a Process Coach to ig- nore content, as it is for a Content Coach to ignore process. Both the interns and the coaches recognized, when dealing with real problems in real time, that the academic differen- tiation between process and content was arbitrary to some extent. Nevertheless, this differentiation allowed the stu- dents to have a targeted source of personal coaching given the nature of the challenges they were facing as Assistant Principal interns. For example, if the issue revolved around ISD policies or best practices for administering discipline to students, the interns looked to their Content Coach, a former school administrator who had previous experience in such matters. On the other hand, if the job challenge involved political or strategic matters such as how to com- Page 289 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, volume 39, 2012 municate to their supervising Principal problems they were having with a work colleague or a teacher, they were able to turn to their Process Coach, an organizational behavior faculty member with previous managerial experience. The process vs. content differentiation was also useful in shaping the nature of the coaching behaviors and educa- tional programs that were undertaken by the Process Coach faculty member and the Content Coach faculty member in the Guided Internship Model. The Process Coach utilized a student interaction and feedback system based on concepts of whole person experiential learning. In this framework, the interns’ diagnosis of the challenges they faced, as well as their reaction to those challenges, was captured utilizing a breakdown of the intellectual, emotional, behavioral, and future focus aspects of the situation. This approach, de- scribed in more detail in the paragraphs below, parallels the position taken by Ng, et al (2009: 513) that views “learning as a holistic process of adapting to the world that requires the integrated functioning of the total person, which in- cludes the thinking, feeling, perceiving, and behaving, as well as interactions between the person and the environ- ment.” The Content Coach built the program’s content dimen- sion on concepts from the educational leadership field. Fol- lowing the pattern outlined by Bess and Goldman (2001: 425) “academic or practitioners (of educational leadership) characteristically use rhetorical, inspirational, or even mor- alistic language, reflecting beliefs that education is both benevolent and mission-driven.” In this case, the focus cho- sen was democratic leadership. Kochen and Reed (2005: 68) use this definition--- “Democratic leadership requires individuals to adopt a collaborative approach that includes a sense of community with both internal and external stake- holders.” Establishing such democratic values allows schools and their administrators to develop social capital through mechanisms such as trusting relationships, net- working, and collaboration (Crispeels, 2004). Klinker (2006) identifies more specific parameters of democratic leadership to include responsiveness (she sees responsive- ness as the job description for the principalship), equality combined with altruism, and respect for civil and political freedoms. In order to measure the degree to which the interns were internalizing and actualizing democratic leadership in their Assistant Principal roles, a series of written assign- ments was utilized by the Content Coach. Interns were asked to self-reflect and report through scripted weekly written assignments. For example, a typical assignment would focus on a democratic leadership component, such as responsiveness, and how well the intern had handled challenges utilizing the democratic leadership model. The script for responsiveness would then include a report of three problems they had confronted that week--- a report on decisions or actions producing a positive response, a report on decisions or actions that produced no significant re- sponse, and a report on a problem that they had ignored, as well as why they had ignored it. These reports produced a large qualitative data set that included a collection of success experience reports, chal- lenges remaining reports, and situations ignored reports. This data set was collected for all interns and then com- piled and content analyzed by research team members for patterns that fell into categories, as well as for relationships and linkages between categories (Berg, 2001). The Con- tent Coach responded in writing to the weekly reports in order to give timely feedback, reinforce constructive out- comes, and to make suggestions and adjustments where needed. Researchers also conducted periodic group and individual discussion sessions on a face-to-face basis that were characterized by two-way feedback. We feel that the dual coaching perspective that was utilized in the Guided Internship Model, coaching efforts focused on process combined with coaching efforts focused on content, constituted effective coaching. These self- serving perceptions were reinforced by positive feedback from other members of the research team, as well as key members of the ISD, including the District Superintendent. In short, we felt that the Guided Internship Model met the criteria outlined in one of the key propositions set forth by Hooijberg and Lane (2009: 488), that effective “coaches contribute to participants having more specific action plans and getting participants to commit to those plans, which subsequently leads to performance improvement.” Some other aspects of the Guided Internship Model, as implemented in this research, also deserve some mention. Using the 10-month long academic school year as the time frame for the internship experience eliminated concerns expressed by Thach (2002) about lack of time to execute the program, just as the active support of the ISD eliminat- ed concerns about lack of host organizational support. Some scholars (Judge & Cowell, 1997) feel that coach- coachee chemistry is vital to coaching success. In this area, we can use self-report data to confirm that the relationships between both the Process Coach and the Content Coach were very positive for 14 of the 15 participants. However, one intern essentially refused to participate in the coaching process. This person, concerned that admission of any problems would show up in the permanent ISD personnel files, refused to admit that there were ever any problems to discuss. This produced a lack of behavioral data such that the coaching process was severely hampered. A final place that coaching processes can break down occurs when the coaching role moves from helping, listening and being open to the coachee’s ideas and perspectives to the coach being dictatorial and controlling. Since we designed the Guided Internship Model to reflect assumptions of a high degree of adult learner autonomy, we felt that this was not a problem in this program. Page 290 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, volume 39, 2012 CULTURAL AND EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING ASPECTS OF THE GUIDED INTERNSHIP PROGRAM We find that some excellent work that has been done in the area of cross-cultural management education and the concept of cultural intelligence has application in our Guid- ed Internship Model (Mintzberg & Gosling, 2002; Yama- zaki & Kayes, 2004; Early & Ang, 2006; Ng, Van Dyne & Ang, 2009). While we do not want to stretch the analogy too far, there are scholars in the education disciplines who view the challenges of urban high schools as challenges in cross-cultural education much as management scholars look at the cross-cultural challenges of international busi- ness. The urban high school environment can be impacted by conditions of poverty, majority minority student popula- tions, language and communication barriers and even dete- riorating infrastructure. Moreover, these phenomena can function to overlap and reinforce one another, producing cultural forces that yield the “dropout factories” mentioned earlier (Balfanz, 2007). As a result of these insights, we also challenged our high school principal interns to trans- form the culturally derived experiences encountered in their internships into enhanced leadership effectiveness. In order to illustrate our approach in this regard, we draw heavily from the conceptual framework put forth by Ng, et al (2009) because aspects of their cultural intelli- gence (CQ) model closely parallel the way we approached urban high school administrative challenges and the devel- opment and retention of previously acquired managerial skills in that environment. Ng, et al (2009) adopt the model of cultural intelligence (CQ) based on the CQ model devel- oped by Earley and Ang (2003). The CQ model is summa- rized by Ng, et al (2009: 514) as follows: The conceptualization of CQ is based on Sternberg and Detterman’s (1986) framework of multiple intelli- gences, which integrates different perspectives of intel- ligence to propose four complementary ways of con- ceptualizing individual-level intelligence: (a) metacog- nitive intelligence refers to awareness and control of cognitions used to acquire and understand information; (b) cognitive intelligence refers to knowledge and knowledge structures; (c) motivational intelligence acknowledges that most cognition is motivated and thus focuses on the magnitude and direction of energy as a locus of intelligence; and (d) behavioral intelli- gence focuses on individual capabilities at the action level, An important part of the Guided Internship Model is that the classroom experiences not only preceded the ‘real world’ full-time on-the job work experience, but also de- veloped two important metacognitive systems that were transferred directly from the experiential classroom into the workplace relatively intact. One framework was the ongo- ing challenge to effectively implement the five managerial skills addressed by the assessment center dimensions uti- lized in the experiential executive skills course; the other is the whole person experiential learning framework of analy- sis described below. We feel that these two frameworks addressed the question of activating the metacognitive learning dimension. In addition, the fact that these cohort groups were extremely proud to have been selected from a large pool of applicants, and determined to justify the deci- sion, more than adequately addressed the question of moti- vational intelligence. Cognitive intelligence and behavioral intelligence were components of the whole person experi- ential learning model adopted for this study. This whole person experiential learning model not only closely parallels the Sternberg and Detterman (1986) model, it also taps into aspects of the CQ model. This ap- proach was utilized not only in the classroom experiences (Kolb, 1984; Kolb and Kolb, 2005; Hoover, et al, 2010), but also as the mechanism to develop a system of effective and clearly delineated student feedback and two-way com- munication with their coach. Specifically, the student re- ports to their guided internship Process Coach were de- signed to reflect a whole person experiential learning per- spective of their on-the-job work experiences and challeng- es. Each report was to contain the answer to these four questions: 1) What are you thinking? 2) What are you feel- ing? 3) How are you behaving (or not behaving if the goal directed behavior is blocked)? and, 4) What are you going to do next? It should be noted that the feedback model also con- tained a required dimension of stakeholder assessment. For example, if the challenge described was in dealing with a troubled student with attendance problems, the analysis would not only require the intern to report his or her feel- ings (question # 2), but also the relevant feelings of the student, the student’s parents, other school administrators, etc. The students knew that the answers to the four ques- tions, as divided in the reports, were an artificial and arbi- trary delineation of more complex human behaviors. How- ever, the framework was an easy way to surface multiple aspects of the challenges being addressed in the report. An important addition to our model is therefore question # 4, which we labeled as the Future Focus dimension. To an- swer the question of “What happens next?” students were required to readdress and integrate metacognitive, cogni- tive, emotional, motivational and behavioral components. In summary on this point, while we did not set up this study as a test of CQ in urban high school settings, we do feel that our approach greatly enhanced each intern’s chance to include a set of CQ related potentialities in their behavioral/ skill repertoire. Lastly, it should be noted that the reporting format described here, and as utilized in the Guided Internship Model, is easily adaptable to settings such as distance learning and internet classes. Once students master the ter- minology and parameters of the reporting framework, di- rect contact with the student is not only unnecessary, it can Page 291 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, volume 39, 2012 even be dysfunctional. Our cohort groups were so busy with their full-time jobs and their heavy class loads, that not only did they often not have time for face-to-face meet- ings, they preferred not to have them. This was not a design parameter of the study as it was originally conceived, but one that evolved out of the realities of the busy workplace as an educational setting. Students were dealing with prob- lems in real-time, and they preferred to engage in joint problem solving with their coaches in real-time as well. This concept, focused feedback in a real-time mode, with instructors as coaches and learning facilitators reinforcing defined managerial skills, has the potential to make dis- tance learning and internet classes preferable to traditional classroom settings with the professor functioning in the role of sage. WHOLE PERSON EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CONTENT MODULES The skill development data utilized in this program were obtained from student data in an MBA course focus- ing on executive skills taught at a major southwestern uni- versity. The executive skills course is an experiential course utilizing whole person-based experiential learning methodologies. Experiential exercises are presented as course modules, with each exercise focusing on specific skills. Every experiential module was designed to maxim- ize the benefits of whole person learning by including: 1. the establishment of a cognitive framework for the exercise, including the rationale for its inclusion and its potential importance to the student, 2. exercise components designed to elicit emotional reac- tions including elation and a feeling of success upon execution of the skill or frustration and continued de- termination upon failure to manifest the skill during the exercise, 3. behavioral involvement either through direct participa- tion in the exercise via skill practice or observation via vicarious learning of those attempting and/or practic- ing the skill, and, 4. discussion of different behavioral manifestations at- tempted by students and how these related to success and failure of skill application QUALITATIVE RESULTS: STUDENT SATISFACTION Much of the research on internships has focused on measures of intern satisfaction with their internship experi- ences (Rothman, 2007; D’Abate, et al, 2009; Narayanan, 2010). In a similar vein, we have qualitative data as to the level of student satisfaction. For example, from Intern # 5-- - “I feel the team/group activities and projects were invalu- able and very enlightening and have contributed to further developing and expanding my personal philosophy of man- agement.” In addition, from Intern # 2--- “The strategies for personal effectiveness really seemed to speak to me. If I can better appreciate my strengths, it will allow me to have a positive effect on my self-esteem.” Finally, during a meeting where the topic was how to assume a managerial role, one cohort group excitedly made this statement--- “We feel that we are part of the leadership team on our campus.” The two coaches accumulated a considerable amount of time with the interns, both in group settings and in indi- vidual meetings. A number of written communication ex- changes were also conducted with each intern. After as- sessing the tone of these meetings and the overall demeanor of each cohort, we have come to the conclusion that 13 of the 15 interns were very satisfied with the Guided Intern- ship program and its outcomes. It should be noted that for the other two interns, we would score as one being ‘neutral’ and one being negative. We should also mention that both of these individuals applied for a permanent Assistant Prin- cipal position in the ISD, and were turned down for the position. This failure to obtain a position may have pro- duced a ‘sour grapes’ mindset that affected their satisfac- tion levels with the program. There are also student reports of satisfaction with the coaching process. For example, from Intern # 2--- “The meeting with you (the Process Coach) later that week opened my eyes and shed some light on some tactics, sug- gestions, and ideas that would be of use in the second Iliad (the assessment center).” Intern # 2 also stated that he felt that the same skills he had used in the assessment centers would translate to his role as an Assistant Principal. Intern # 11 recorded a written statement that sums up the nature of the assessment center experience in the Executive Skills course, and how the insights and skills obtained from the assessment center and the experiential learning classroom translated into managerial and personal effectiveness: “When I went through the (assessment center) the first time I was so surprised. I was in a room with many bright men and women who were very initiative moti- vated. They would begin the meeting, start discussion, agree or disagree, and wrap it up. I was so shocked at the level of initiative that people had. I was so wrong about myself. Here I was, a successful classroom teacher, always initiated everything on a daily basis and I was just sitting down and doing nothing. I learned that I only initiate in areas I am comfortable with and I shut down when I feel intimidated.” In subsequent coaching sessions with Intern # 11, she chose to set a personal goal to seek out areas where she felt uncomfortable, and to deliberately and skillfully exercise initiative in those settings. By the end of the 15-month pro- gram, she was one of the more assertive interns in her co- hort. When she took the assessment center for the last time, not only did she not sit passively in the group meeting ses- sions, she chose to lead the conversation. Page 292 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, volume 39, 2012 It should be noted that the Guided Internship coaches consistently utilized a model of self- efficacy (Bandura, 1997) when identifying and discussing targeted managerial behaviors. This approach was taken in an attempt to offset the phenomenon observed by scholars such as Rubin and Dierdorff (2009: 208) that “behavior competencies indicat- ed by managers to be most critical are the very competen- cies that are least represented in required MBA curricula.” In summary, the qualitative results of the Guided In- ternship Program are supportive of program effectiveness. Student interns reported not only increased confidence in their abilities to exercise efficacious managerial skills at will, they also provided numerous stories and examples where, in fact, that had done such a thing while operating as Assistant Principal interns in the ‘real world’ ISD. CONCLUSION The adoption of internships is widespread in business schools, and has broad-based application in higher educa- tion in general. However, as D’Abate et al (2009) and Na- rayanan (2010) point out, only a small number of studies examine internships in regards to their educational efficacy or in terms of examining specific internship components or approaches. We strived to address this shortfall by design- ing and implementing a Guided Internship Model for As- sistant Principal interns in an urban high school setting. Our results indicate that a whole person experiential learning pedagogy is effective in the acquisition of mana- gerial skills for mid-career professionals in a classroom setting. By utilizing a combination of process coaching and content coaching, we demonstrated that the skills so ac- quired, as well as the educational philosophy needed for effective implementation, can be identified and reinforced utilizing a program such as the Guided Internship Model. 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Academy of Management Learning and Edu- cation, 3: 362- 379. http://ABSEL.org http://ABSEL.org http://ABSEL.org http://ABSEL.org Table of Contents Volume 39, 2012 Designing the Training Challenge Follow The Leader: Are we Teaching our Students to be Thinkers or Followers? Two Free-Rider-Accepting Methods of Organizing Groups for a Business Game Additional Benefit Through Competency Models Assessing Brand Portfolio Normative Consistency & Trends With The Normative Position of Brands & Trends Package Modeling the Impact of Marketing Mix on the Diffusion of Innovation in the Generalized Bass Model of Firm Demand Play it Forward! The Design and Development of a Forward Contract Simulation Positioning the Company: Increasing Profits in Social Networks Merger of Companies in Business Game Exercise Towards a Knowledge-Based Approach for Autonomouse Trading Agent An Exploratory Study of the Impact of a Simulation Exercise on the Managerial and Personality Traits and the Decision Making Styles of Marketing Students Should the Concept of Potential Customers be the Foundation of Demand Theory in Business Simulations? Teaching Sustainability Experientially Drawing Upon Experience and Research to Improve Future Communications Improving Assessments of Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) Over Time The Effect of Affective Domain Characteristics on Behavioral or Psychomotor Outcomes Gossip? No, Not Me! An Experiential Exercise Student Advisement Using Gantt Charts: An Experiential Exercise in Management Theory Practicing Teachers as Digital Game Creators: A Study of the Design Considerations Designing and Solving Crossword Puzzles: Examining Efficacy in a Classroom Exercise Difficult Times Call for Innovative Measures: Microfinance as Experiential Learning in Higher Education Catalysts, Client Services, and Community Change: Interdisciplinary Collaboration in a Nascent Microfinance Initiative Build A Business . . . In An Hour or Less: Getting Closer to Reality into the Classroom Smart Goals: How the Application of SMART Goals can contribute to achievement of Student Learning Outcomes The Use of Data in "Live" Cases to Encourage Systems Thinking and Integrative Analysis: An Exercise Linking Human Resource Programs and Financial Outcomes in Real Organizations Experiential Education as a Process of Changing Mental Frames by Inducing Insight Learning Process and Content Integration in an Experiential Learning Guided Internship Program Good-bye Discussion Thread: Creating a Community of Inquiry in an Online Master's Program Fiction as a Constructivist Tool for Learning Process Consultation in an Online Environment: Shaping the Context, Introducing the Dialogue Can Simulations Provide a Better Experience? A Capstone Application Modeling a Modest Proposal for Increasing the Efficiency of Academic Reserarch Dissemination Experience GEO: A Massively Multiplayer Game SysTeamsGames Three Games for Management Simulation SimVenture - A Start-Up Business Simulation Stellarbucks Simulation Developing Games Using Strategy Maps and Balanced Scorecards Strategy Dynamics Models - Powerful But Simple In-Class Games Simulating Scenarios for Financial Statement Analysis A Valuation Model of the Simulated Firm Writing the Land: An Interdisciplinary Experiential Approach On the Estimation of the Probability of Meeting Financial Commitments: A Behavioraial Finance Perspective Using Business Simulations