Stoney Brooks supervises students Dominick Amari, left, and Darius Gallaher on a class project. continued from page 5
When I was an undergraduate in the 1970s, the professor’s role was as a purveyor of knowledge. Students took notes and studied them in order to repeat them back via exams. In business classes, there were case analyses and projects, but the professor was still viewed as the information guru. The Internet created a seismic shift. No longer were students limited to information a professor dispensed. A world of information was available at a click of a mouse. It has become more important for the professor to be a facilitator and a coach than a fountain of knowledge. Today’s professors need to engage students using group discussions, role-play exercises, simulations,
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debates, and other methods. The best professors will leverage students’ technology skills and incorporate laptops, tablets, and phones in class activities instead of outlawing devices. Working with campus learning specialists to build involvement into my marketing class, I began by halving my lecture time and then each semester trimmed my lecturing further. I reduced my reliance on examinations in performance assessment. The more I immersed students in the subject with activities, the less time they had to play with their technological toys. They learned course content by putting it into practice, as someone learns about music playing an instrument instead of taking music appreciation classes.
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ur experience with the Dale Carnegie Course in Jones College has brought this new instructional model into focus. Acquiring knowledge of the human relations principles Dale Carnegie developed is only one component. The instructor motivates students to develop the skill of putting the principles into
PHOTO BY KIMI CONRO
business problems they could bring back to their companies. They did not want me to lecture and preferred to use class time on projects, team exercises, case discussions, and other hands-on activities. I provided course content electronically so they could access it before class. Once in class, they would apply the content in the high-involvement activities I had designed for them.