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Simulating Action-Based Learning

Kathleen Sutcliffe Management & Organizations

Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks Management & Organizations

Kathleen Sutcliffe and Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks created a simulated MAP experience for first-year MBA students. (MAP is the seven-week action learning project that Michigan MBA's undertake at the end of their first year.) Sutcliffe and Sanchez-Burks' students worked in groups to evaluate a set of proposals related to performance evaluation at India's famous Aravind Eye Hospital. Students viewed video interviews shot by a 2004 MAP team and analyzed survey data from Aravind to produce recommendations that were grounded in theory and in data—just like a real IMAP team would. This exercise in authentic problem solving was done with all 400+ members of Sutcliffe and Sanchez-Burks' M&O core class in the fall of 2004.