Charity Fundraising Project: A Team-Based Project for Developing Problem-Structuring Skills

Abstract

Increasingly, graduates of business schools will face business and organizational situations with a high degree of complexity and ambiguity. In this context, teaching and learning strategies need to develop students’ abilities in problem structuring and complex problem solving. This article describes a team-based project set to teams of four or five students, who are required to design and deliver a fundraising event for their chosen charity. The goal of the fundraising activity is to raise as much money as they can in a 24-hour period. Using ideas from problem-based learning (PBL), students learn frameworks and tools to increase their confidence in these situations. This article describes this activity and will be of interest to teachers of final-year undergraduate and master’s programs looking for a fun and inspiring activity to do with students.

Keywords

charity fundraising problem-based learning problem structuring consulting skills complexity ambiguity team working

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Banning

K. C.

(2003). The effect of the case method on tolerance for ambiguity. Journal of Management Education, 27, 556-567.

Checkland

(1999). Systems thinking, systems practice. Chichester, England: Wiley.

Checkland

Poulter

(2006). Learning for action: A short definitive account of soft systems methodology, and its use for practitioners, teachers and students. Chichester, England: Wiley.

Driscoll

(2007). Practising clinical supervision: A reflective approach for healthcare professionals (2nd ed.). Edinburgh, Scotland: Bailliere Tindall Elsevier.

Fraser

S. W.

Greenhalgh

(2001). Coping with complexity: Educating for capability. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 323, 799-803.

Gibbs

(1998). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford, England: Brookes University.

Hamer

L. O.

(2000). The additive effects of semistructured classroom activities on student learning: An application of classroom-based experiential learning techniques. Journal of Marketing Education, 22, 25-34.

Huber

(2003). An experiential leadership approach for teaching tolerance for ambiguity. Journal of Education for Business, 79, 52-55.

Illeris

(2014). Transformative Learning and Identity. London, England: Routledge.

10.

Kim

Lin

Qiu

(2015). Experiential learning: Being a real-event planner. Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism, 15, 382-401.

11.

Lategan

Williams

(2019). Student learning and employability: Immersion in live events. In Beeton

Morrison

(Eds.), The study of food, tourism, hospitality and events (pp. 133-143). Singapore: Springer.

12.

Lin

Kim

Qiu

Ren

(2017). Experiential learning in hospitality education through a service-learning project. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, 29, 71-81.

13.

McDonald

(2000). Festival and event management: An experiential approach to curriculum design. Event Management, 6, 5-13.

14.

Moon

J. A.

(2004). A handbook of reflective and experiential learning: Theory and practice. London, England: Routledge.

15.

Moscardo

Norris

(2004). Bridging the academic practitioner gap in conference and events management. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 6(3), 47-62.

16.

O’Mahoney

(2013). Management consultancy (2nd ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

17.

Rippin

Booth

Bowie

Jordan

(2002). A complex case: Using the case study method to explore uncertainty and ambiguity in undergraduate business education. Teaching in Higher Education, 7, 429-441.

18.

Rittel

H. W. J.

Webber

M. M.

(1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4, 155-169.

19.

Robertson

Junek

Lockstone-Binney

(2012). Is this for real? Authentic learning for the challenging events environment. Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism, 12, 225-241.

20.

Saleh

(2016). Crisis management: The art of success and failure: 30 case studies in business & politics. Minneapolis, MN: Mill City Press.

21.

Savin-Boden

Major

(2004). Foundations of problem-based learning. Maidenhead, England: McGraw-Hill.

22.

Schön

D. A.

(1983). The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic Books.

23.

Smith

G. F.

(2003). Beyond critical thinking and decision making: Teaching business students how to think. Journal of Management Education, 27, 24-51.

24.

Sprinkle

T. A.

Urick

M. J.

(2016). Alternatives to the movie sandwich habit: Practical approaches to using movies to teach leadership and power. Management Teaching Review, 1, 105-119.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.03 MB