Poster “Utilizing technological ecosystems to support graduate students in their practicum experiences” in TEEM 2018

Abstract

The TEEM 2018 Conference was held in Salamanca (Spain) from October 24 to October 26, 2018. The Doctoral Consortium track was organized as a poster session. This is the poster corresponding to the paper “Utilizing technological ecosystems to support graduate students in their practicum experiences”.

This article (which form part of a doctoral thesis) explores mentoring that uses 21st century technologies and its implications for learning. The paper outlines how mentoring, enabled by technology, supports the growth of students and their social, academic and practical dimensions through the creation of informal partnerships with mentors. Additionally, it describes how online mentoring assists learners on their path towards an academic practicum semester and which components of online mentoring they need to apply. Given this educational and social context, a mentoring program may improve the skills of future professionals in the field of marketing by improving and stimulating the acquisition of transversal competencies with the support of other specialists and students in the same field of training. The program is intended for students of the fifth and sixth semester of the Marketing Program of the University of Manizales (Colombia). To do this, we propose a pre-post, quasi-experimental study linking different instruments for collection of information using quantitative and qualitative methods. Furthermore, this ongoing mentoring program in its various forms is attractive to the educational field as well as to corporate businesses that have acknowledged the potential import and efficiency of online mentoring programs. When the study is applied, its characteristics, responsibilities and practices will be also discussed, highlighting the analysis, design, development and evaluation to improve the process.