Implementing Mental Models: Extending Insight and Whole Person Learning

Abstract

We extend the concept of insight learning from Hoover, Mitchell, and Wu (2012), a form of experiential education that utilizes a process of multi-dimensional whole person learning (Hoover, 2007). The insight learning process seeks to engage students more fully in the learning process with the goal of changing or elevating mental frames. We include a further illustration of insight learning in the form of a simulation exercise that can be utilized to introduce concepts of a particular mental model (Transaction Cognition Theory) to students; this model has been tied to improving performance in a firm. We also inform the whole person learning model and the insight learning model by considering the importance of the order of the insight learning process in helping students to achieve the goal of changing existing mental frames.