Developing maritime cadet organizational awareness and leadership through participative action-learning projects

Le résumé fourni par la source

Maritime academies are now being asked to prepare cadets for jobs that demand more than technical competence. Organizational awareness, collaboration, and the ability to work through unfamiliar problems increasingly matter to leaders on commercial ships. This paper reports on a pilot action-learning project at the California State Polytechnic Maritime Academy in which 83 senior deck cadets participated in a short-cycle organizational improvement project, embedded within their capstone course. The project challenged cadets to identify strengths and resolve issues restricting the training ship's operational effectiveness. The cadets studied organizational effectiveness literature, gathered survey evidence, interpreted it collaboratively, and produced 71 recommendations to the training Captain. Of these, more than half were taken forward as quick wins. The paper describes the design of the intervention and identifies the pedagogical mechanisms that appeared to do most of the work: a five-phase action-learning process, skilled faculty facilitation, and active leader role-modeling. The pilot case is not yet a proof of educational impact. It is offered as evidence that participative, evidence-based action-learning can help cadets develop a systems-level view of the training ship, while also developing a professional voice within hierarchy. We suggest that a participative pedagogy of this kind can complement traditional maritime instruction without undermining command.

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