Facilitating a new course

This semester I am facilitating a new course entitled Transforming Business. To transform business, the students and I decided we must begin by transforming ourselves. As we considered how education is typically conducted, we realized that to prepare students to be future business leaders, we need to reconsider how we educate. As a result, we in the course have been collaborating to transform the course into a learning community. We started by rearranging the seating into an open circle. We employ name tents to help us get to know each other. This has had a dramatic impact on the class dynamics. No one sleeps or texts in class. Everyone is more engaged. There is no packing up early as class nears the end of the scheduled time. In fact, students are not in a hurry to leave. And when students arrive to class, the room is filled with energy as students are talking with each other. We are all getting to know each other. This is in contrast with the typical class where students arrive and go to their seats and text, sleep, read, or daydream before the start of class.

In our class sessions we have been exploring how we may transform the college education process. We have invited outside guests to join us in these working sessions. We also would welcome comments on this blog. I will share more about our findings in subsequent posts.