Empowerment Teaching: Creating “Mobile” Learning in an Online Experiential Learning Theory Environment

American public universities are under increasing pressure to recruit, retain, and graduate students (Bowen, Chingos, & McPherson, 2011; DesJardins, Kim, & Rzonca, 2003; King, 1993; Spight, 2013). This presentation will show how an Honors online experiential learning theory writing intensive course coupled with Face-to-Face office hours and advising provides an effective and caring framework to implement an empowerment teaching and advising curriculum for students from diverse backgrounds. The embedded scaffolded and intentional caring and engaged pedagogy in this course supports and enhances critical thinking, academic capital, writing skill acquisition, emotional intelligence, and models information fluency. This builds on an information literacy learning cycle, thus providing the stepping stones for student success. In this course, using an empowered teaching and advising model, students connected with one another in an online environment, with hybrid elements, turned praxis into theory and back again in an iterative and sustainable life-cycle that has potential to be applied in many academic pathways, and beyond. Students were introduced to academic and life core resilience skills such as growth mindset (Dweck, 2014), “not yet but soon,” and scholarly performance based on an inside-out (Sinek, 2009) approach, which students have self-reported via survey has led to better college coping skills.