Abstract
This article reviews andragogy as the philosophy resident in the broad arena of experience-based learning. Beneath the umbrella of experience-based learning lie the specific classroom orientations of student-centered learning, problem-based learning, and classrooms as organizations. These orientations contribute to the creation of autonomy-supportive classrooms that focus more fully on student experience as a means to greater learning. The exhaustive review of the literature on student experience in teaching environments is the foundation for claims to fuller integration of this approach and discussion that focuses on the student as the original reason for the existence of the classroom. The article closes with a call for more student-focused andragogy, its relevance for Millennial learners, and recommendations for educators.
Keywords
Introduction
It is not uncommon to hear of managers’ perceived irrelevance of their management studies to their postcommencement work experience (Mintzberg, 2004; Porter & McKibbin, 1988). Given these concerns, this review is a call to educators to bridge what transpires in the classroom at both undergraduate and graduate levels with the professional work world students will soon inhabit. A. Y. Kolb and Kolb (2005) called for educators to enhance the presence and process of experiential education as a medium through which students’ learning styles could be addressed. Their call was for a broader and deeper appreciation of learning that considers the learners, thus making it more salient and meaningful for their development. This is particularly relevant for Millennial students and their learning styles. As a response, this article reviews andragogy (Knowles, 1980, 1984) as a philosophical foundation to help understand the classroom environment’s contribution to greater student learning and engagement through the use of experience-based learning (EBL; Andresen, Boud, & Cohen, 2000). Variations of EBL include student-centered learning (SCL), classrooms as organizations (CAO), and problem-based learning (PBL). These three approaches reflect broad interpretations of EBL, which defies being reduced to a set of clean and tidy strategies or recipes (Andresen et al., 2000). The result is intended to help the reader gain a broad understanding of the value of experience-focused education, which is then interpreted through the lens of autonomy-supportive (AS) classrooms. AS classrooms call for greater emphasis on student experience and student involvement in education. In sum, andragogy is treated as the broad philosophical umbrella under which EBL and the three identified orientations function. These three orientations manifest the principles contained in Knowles’s work on andragogy and offer educators new avenues by which they might create more sustainable and relevant learning environments for their students. Sustainable and relevant learning is at the heart of AS classes. Finally, this article interprets the AS learning environment in terms of the Millennial generation, as this is the new and entering class of students with whom we must craft meaningful learning experiences. These relationships are illustrated in Figure 1.
Diagram of relations among constructs.
Although this review relies on a broad literature, there is a significant presence of articles from the Journal of Management Education (JME). This makes sense as it is the premier journal concerned with EBL for management educators. Beatty and Leigh (2010) identified the unique topics for each of three pedagogy journals, including JME, Management Learning (ML), and Academy of Management Learning & Education (AMLE). JME’s unique topics included “exercise, experiential, environment, team, pedagogical, activity, project, and tool” (p. 377). This is compared with “academic, faculty, leadership, science, success, future, and the United States” (p. 377) for AMLE and “literature, reflection, debate, practitioner, managerial, and the United Kingdom” (p. 377) for ML.
Andragogy
Knowles (1980, 1984) defined andragogy as the art and science of helping adults learn and presented it as an alternative to pedagogy, which literally means the art and science of educating children. These terms are often used synonymously, although inaccurately. Knowles made the following assumptions about adult learning: (a) adults need to know why they need to learn something, (2) adults need to learn experientially, (3) adults approach learning as problem solving, (4) adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value, and (5) as an adult’s concept of self becomes more oriented toward being an independent person, she is more self-directed in her learning.
Lindeman (1926) (influenced by Dewey), who preceded Knowles, claimed that the modern adult learning process is backward, where the subject matter and teacher often take precedence, leaving the learners and their experience in an underrated second place. This results in too great of a focus on someone else’s experience and knowledge. Andragogy’s assumptions reframe the educator’s perspective and provide a fresh approach to student-focused initiatives. Indeed, some (Forrest & Peterson, 2006) call for wholesale substitution of the word pedagogy with andragogy on the premise that it more accurately captures the essence of what higher-education professors are attempting to accomplish. Andragogy serves as an organizing construct underlying the practice of SCL, CAO, and PBL. The fundamental premise is that classroom activities reflected in the practices of SCL, CAO, and PBL incorporate andragogy’s five assumptions and aid in creating AS classrooms (Reeve, Bolt, & Cai, 1999), which better serve Millennial learners.
Arguments for the Integration of Practice and Theory
A practice-based interpretation of learning was one of two broad trajectories at the heart of the reintroduction of ML in 1994 (Fox, 2009). This “turn” (p. 371) occurred at a time when there was a concurrent shift toward the inclusion of more qualitative studies in the social sciences. This was followed by DeFillippi’s (2001) opening comments in ML that called for more education driven by project-based reflective practices. The broad topic of practice and interaction in the learning task beyond mere lecture was then addressed by Arbaugh (2005a) in the June 2005 edition of AMLE. Further support for the inclusion of adult learning principles in the construction of learning environments was provided by Roglio and Light (2009), who declared their value and drew attention to “instructional strategies, collective learning, and curriculum design” (p. 156) in executive education. Further still, Whetten (2007) has called for more PBL, application of material to on-the-job settings, contact with practicing managers, reflection, and greater interaction between students, peers, and the instructor. Last but far from least, Armstrong and Fukami (2009) have corralled the writings of some of the greatest management scholars on the planet in a collection of essays addressing the whole of management learning education and development. Given this rich foundation for engaging in activity beyond the limits of the textbook, the following literature review offers more specific support.
Raelin (2007) echoed the call for greater integration of theory and practice and implored us to “pay . . . special attention . . . to the processes that encourage more knowing-in-action and their outcomes” (p. 496). This, he said, will aid in better understanding the teacher’s role in relation to students’ learning. Mintzberg and Gosling (2002) provided research geared toward bridging the domains of education and practice. They wrote about confronting the multiple borders to “get beyond “students,” beyond “globalization,” beyond “teaching,” and beyond the “business functions” (p. 64). All this transcendence was in service to reflecting “thoughtfully on experience” (p. 64). Charlebois and Giberson (2010) also talked of borders in their work with Marketing students and a two-semester project that incorporated in-class case competition during the first semester with international experience for the winners during the second semester. Other examples include Marshall (2008), who bridged the divide between the theoretical and practical for consulting engineers; Romme, Georges, and Putzel (2003), who helped students apply organizational behavior concepts as they learned them (see also Putzel, n.d.); and Nadkarni (2003), who explored the differences in the mental models of students through implementing variations of the traditional lecture/discussion format, an experiential format, and a hybrid version of the two.
The integration of thought and action has clear practical implications for the effectiveness of our classroom efforts. The magnitude of the work of some of those cited above as great thinkers in management education cannot be denied and foreshadows what is to come in business education lest we, the educators, choose to relegate ourselves to the equivalent of the rotary dialed phone. The studies also set the stage for the authors reviewed in the EBL section below. The reviews of research in the three focus areas are intended to provide support and examples of where EBL practices have been conducted. They also provide numerous outlets for action that fosters healthy conditions for the AS class to emerge and offer the readers concrete examples that they may want to consider in creating their next course.
Experience-Based Learning
There are numerous models of EBL (Boud & Pascoe, 1978a, 1978b; Dewey, 1938; D. A. Kolb, 1984; Weil & McGill, 1989). An early version proposed by Boud and Pascoe (1978a, 1978b) identified three critical elements that must be present for a learning environment to be considered experiential. These include (a) some level of learner control, (b) some reflection of the real environment in the learning environment, and (c) self-involvement of the learner. These three criteria create a simple metric by which anyone who wants to implement EBL in his or her classroom can measure his or her efforts at setting the stage.
What does EBL offer the management learning agenda beyond what is currently provided through more traditional content/lecture formats? Navarro (2008) surveyed the top 50 MBA programs in the United States and found that although there has been a call for reform toward a 6-point ideal, with experiential learning as Point 2, that ideal for many programs remains more of a “normative construct than a positive reality” (p. 109). In response, Hoover, Giambatista, Sorenson, and Bommer (2010) reported on a 5-year experientially based whole-person learning approach oriented toward developing skills in communication, leadership, teamwork, decision making, and planning. Others have reviewed specific experiences and their contribution to learning. Baker, Jensen, and Kolb (2005) studied conversation as the very vehicle of experiential learning; Wyss-Flamm and Zandee (2001) studied conversation in terms of finite and infinite games (Carse, 1986); and Lerner (1995) helped students understand typical group role types in their experiences of working in groups. Gilson (1990) undertook further research on conversation and interaction and suggested that the instructor’s ability to create an environmental context that encouraged effective classroom dialogue also served to facilitate student experience, learning, and development. Gilson claimed that this interaction was particularly important in undergraduate settings, where development can be “nurtured or fettered” (p. 79) by the classroom experience that is in part crafted by the instructor. Gilson quotes Gallos (1988), who said, “we should not assume that our students are already the autonomous, independent, and responsible individuals that we would like them to be; in fact, major studies of students during college years . . . tell us that they are not” (p. 74).
Reframing students’ experiences as learning tools can provide a personal context for the more traditional activities of a classroom. This bridge building can aid in connecting the lived experience of students to their yet-to-be-lived experience of working in their careers postgraduation. Employing students’ experience connects well to Boud and Pascoe’s (1978a, 1978b) three elements above, where students maintain some level of learner control, their experience has elements of the real environment in the learning environment, and they feel personally involved in the project and process. Given Boud and Pascoe’s (1978a, 1978b) three elements of experiential learning environments, SCL, PBL, and CAO qualify as focus areas available for consideration. Although these three provide more specific examples than the general term EBL, they stand as broader interpretations than those cited by Andresen et al. (2000), which included “internships, work placements, on-the-job training, excursions, adventure and wilderness trips, studios, laboratories, workshops, clinicals, practicums, case study approaches, action research, role plays, hypotheticals, and simulations” (p. 231) as various contexts. As a result, SCL, PBL, and CAO cast a solid foundation for anyone who considers implementing an EBL approach to his teaching.
Student-Centered Learning
SCL focuses on student opportunities, activities, and responsibilities that are driven by what attracts the students and what they are curious about (Estes, 2004). This approach takes the place of more traditional approaches to learning characterized by teacher- and content-driven initiatives. Rogers (1983) defined an important precondition for the instructor of SCL as “a leader or person who is perceived as an authority figure in the situation, is sufficiently secure within herself and in her relationship to others that she experiences an essential trust in the capacity of others to think for themselves, to learn for themselves” (p. 188). SCL is predicated on this “essential trust” and focuses more on what the students do and why they believe they are doing those things and less on what the teacher does. This helps develop independence and motivation (Biggs, 1990, 1999; Shuell, 1986) and helps students see their contribution to the learning enterprise through planning, interacting, and learning assessment (Cannon, 2000).
Creating meaning for students is a challenge in many classes. A student-centered approach helps students focus on topics that are relevant to their needs, lives, and interests, thereby connecting them to what is salient in their lived experience (McCombs & Whistler, 1997). When approached from this perspective, students become stakeholders in the learning process who can collectively address the diverse interests and learning styles present in their classrooms. As a result, students experience themselves as competent problem solvers (Aaronsohn, 1996), which leads to greater levels of confidence in their abilities and less attribution of successful outcomes to luck (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 2000).
A student-centered approach requires a change in teaching methods. No longer can the class activities and focus be determined solely by the teacher. Teachers must consider students’ needs and interests and be available to how those change across semesters. McCombs and Whistler (1997) found that when classes take this approach, there is an increase in motivation, actual learning, and performance. Retention is also increased since students process material through multiple avenues of apprehension and do not just passively receive information (Silberman, 1996).
Some specific writing on student-centered education was offered by Bilimoria and Wheeler (1995), who provided “guidelines for implementing a learning-centered classroom” (p. 410). They suggested that teachers (a) reconceptualize education as driven by learning; (b) provide opportunities for self-directed learning; (c) reshape the authority relationship in the classroom, (d) adopt a relational learning approach; (e) pay attention to the context, inputs, and processes of learning; and (f) foster lifelong learning. Ramsey and Fitzgibbons (2005) focused on learner-centered education in their discussion of “being” with students in the classroom as opposed to “doing” something to students. These authors encouraged teachers to give up some control and join students in their learning. Their philosophy states, “We’re here to learn together and you (the students) are as much a source of our learning as I (the teacher)” (p. 337). Addressing the specific task of exams, Buskirk, Kruger, and Hazen (1995) asked students to articulate exam questions that have grown out of their connection to and natural curiosity about the material. This approach “recontextualizes content in terms of student interests that are broader and deeper than the need to survive a course” (p. 459). Buskirk (1991) also used student experience to build sensitivity to culture in organizations through effective interpretation of organizational symbols and their impact on students’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Brown and Murti (2003) created student partners in their classes, who then have a voice in the design and construction of the course. This leveraged their experience as learners.
These articles begin to reveal the shared authority for the design and delivery of a course. They suggest that a partner model of learning may be more effective than the bank account model (Freire, 1970) so broadly employed.
Service Learning
Service learning stands as a special case of SCL. In this environment, students have the opportunity to serve others, often through participating in nonprofit organizations that benefit the disenfranchised in some form. The September 2005 issue of AMLE was devoted to reviewing service learning from multiple viewpoints to broaden and deepen the perspectives of this experiential approach. Interviews with three well-known and respected thought leaders in their fields were included in work by Taylor (2005) as provocative invitations to reflect on service learning, which has also been the topic of numerous other studies that attempt to showcase its potential (Berry & Workman, 2007; Brower, 2011; Kenworthy-U’Ren & Peterson, 2005; Larson & Drexler, 2010; Salimbene, Buono, Lafarge, & Nurick, 2005; Tucker, McCarthy, Hoxmeier, & Lenk, 1998; Vega, 2007; Wallace, 2005).
Service learning provides a convenient and other-oriented segue between the classroom and life beyond the campus. This work helps bridge the university to the community and provides opportunities for students to begin to consider the real practicalities of life after graduation. Too great a focus on service learning, however, may lead to “service learning fatigue” as students may begin to feel overburdened with these responsibilities, which begin to feel like little more than free labor. In this sense, it is incumbent on teachers and administrators to be wise in their use of this approach to SCL such that the benefits do not become obscured by yet another “service learning opportunity” for students, thereby alienating them from the connection between higher education, industry, and the less fortunate.
Service learning aligns with the description of SCL offered above, even though the intended beneficiary of the student’s work is someone outside the university. The work that students participate in is often determined jointly by the staff at the service site and the student, thus leveraging the student’s responsibilities and what attracted the student and his or her curiosity.
Problem-Based Learning
PBL has its origins in science and medicine (Carroll, 2005; Coombs & Elden, 2004a) and has been heralded as the antidote to unmotivated students and silo approaches to education (Duch, Groh, & Allen, 2001). Marincovich (2000) sums up nicely what is required of teachers who consider employing PBL:
It is easy to overlook the many ways in which PBL goes against the grain of faculty and postsecondary educational life. While faculty are devoted to their discipline, eager to dispense knowledge, and content-oriented, PBL asks them to be student-centered, guiding rather than directive, and process-oriented. (p. 3)
In this way, it is reminiscent of the case method, which has its roots at Harvard. Duch et al. (2001) give credit for this movement to Dewey (1938) and Piaget (1972) and cover the topic from the administrative, faculty mentoring, and implementation perspectives. Gibson and Finnie (working paper, 2011) claimed that PBL integrates past and current learning, connects practice and theory, and bridges the functions of business, thereby reducing the silo effect of organizations. Of particular significance were Gibson and Finnie’s claims that PBL aids in preparing students for the increasingly ambiguous nature of the work world, as compared with the relatively structured experience many have in higher education. Indeed, as educators, our efforts at helping students confront this difference may assist in addressing Freud’s idea that neurosis is the failure to deal with ambiguity.
PBL moves beyond disciplinary knowledge through engaging in learning from a problem focus. Students encounter multiple business disciplines in understanding the nature of the problem and the web of issues that inhere. The categorical lines of traditional business discipline–based learning are suddenly blurred as students meet the interconnected nature of business functioning. This confronts the usual distinctions among disciplines that are often delivered in traditional business education (Bridges, 1992).
PBL is an interactive process where instructors serve more as facilitators and coaches rather than in their traditional roles as all-knowing dispensers of wisdom. PBL is active and experientially based, with the learner located at the heart of the effort (Barrows, 1996; Boud & Feletti, 1997; Samford University, n.d.; University of Delaware, n.d.). The approach allows for some choice within a range of topics that students may pursue. Gilbert and Foster (1998) discussed various tasks that avail themselves of this approach, including the “problem explanation . . . study . . . discussion . . . and action tasks” (p. 245), and how these might be managed through in-class dialogue. Stinson and Miltner (1996) offer specific guidelines for PBL cases.
A special edition of the JME (Coombs & Elden, 2004b) was dedicated to PBL. Contributors reviewed numerous outlets for the use of PBL—including how it can address cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions of learning (Brownell & Jameson, 2004); attention to the context where it is used and cases that illustrate that (Sherwood, 2004); its relevance to students’ work, school, and personal lives (Miller, 2004); extensions of PBL beyond the borders of the classroom in ways that are similar to service learning (Kloppenborg & Baucus, 2004); a critique of factors critical to successful PBL implementation (Peterson, 2004); and the use of PBL in unstructured problems, particularly as it applies to graduates’ use of such in industry (Bigelow, 2004) and understanding the response to the tsunami that struck the shores of Sri Lanka in 2004 (Jayawardana & O’Donnell, 2007).
One of the unique dimensions of PBL is its interdisciplinary focus. Projects addressed in this way open the boundaries of what may be considered relevant. This necessarily increases the potential ambiguity and the data that students may need to consider in conceptualizing problems and generating solutions that would be viable beyond the contrived environment of the classroom. Here, the solutions need to be viable in ways that consider systemic elements of business, industry, government, and other stakeholders. Through this effective approach, solutions reflect the world students will soon join, where there often are fewer guidelines as to how to proceed. That it mirrors the real world increases its relevance in the classroom.
Classrooms as Organizations
Many authors have reinterpreted the classroom as an organization, complete with the time, resource, relationship, and role demands common to traditional organizational life. Indeed, the editor of AMLE called for more of this research as a legitimizing force in management education (Arbaugh, 2008). The central theme in CAO literature involves connecting the theory-driven activity of the classroom with its corollary in the applied setting, hence an active pursuit of Lewin’s (1951) claim of good theory’s practicality.
What About Theory?
Comments at a meeting of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (1999) suggested that business schools “be more proactive and partner with business leaders in their communities . . . and . . . to make their curricula more relevant” (p. 12). This issue has been the topic of inquiry much earlier in work by Wren, Atherton, and Michaelsen (1980), who showed that the theoretical–practical balance varies regarding level of instruction, subject area, institutional variables such as size, and instructor variables such as age, rank, and managerial experience outside academic institutions. Follow-up work by Buckley, Wren, and Michaelsen (1992) addressed professors’ managerial experience and its contribution to their classroom effectiveness. More recently, Watson and Temkin (2000) addressed criticism levied against business schools for teaching focused on “lofty theory” (p. 763), and Christensen and Carlile (2009) encouraged teachers to partner with students in the very creation of theory in the classroom. In this way, teachers are not the sole fount of knowledge but, instead, join collegially with students in creating and developing theory through the use of cases. This unites both theory and practice, which are so relevant for both environments and helps close the gap between them.
In the Classroom
There are numerous authors who have implemented various approaches to the CAO model. Some noteworthy examples include Cohen (1976) and others (Mezoff, Cohen, & Bradford, 1979), who treated the classroom as an organization that is “subject to analysis using the conceptual tools available in the course” (Cohen, 1976, p. 13). By so doing, Cohen hoped to generate organizational issues that were every bit as real as those students will encounter in organizations after college. Weil (1988) built on Cohen’s work by giving students the authority and “responsibility for planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling their class” (p. 54). Mazen, Jones, and Sergenian (2000) used weekly reflective comments from students regarding their class experience as a means of creating a learning organization in the moment and one amenable to modification and refinement in service of their learning. Gardner and Larson (1988) addressed equity, student attitudes, and abilities that inevitably occur in organizations and how they are related to what Mezoff et al. (1979) discussed. Further examples include creating competing but interdependent organizations within a class (Barry, 1989), forming apprenticeships (Hannah & Venkatachary, 2010), integrating technology management education with knowledge acquisition and skills development (Mustar, 2009), addressing diversity issues (Tschirhart & Wise, 2002), incorporating mock interviews into the structure of the course (M. Marks & O’Connor, 2006), and creating high-commitment workplaces through modeling such in an MBA class (Lawrence, 1992), thereby leveraging Bandura’s (1977) work on social learning theory. While these authors provide a broad and general set of cases of CAO, specific elements relevant to the CAO approach are reviewed below.
Team Experience
The increasing role of teams in organizations and higher education cannot be denied. A special issue of JME (Kalliath & Laiken, 2006) was dedicated to the development and use of teams in management education. Results of this approach include learning how to function in work groups that use personal characteristics (Alie, Beam, & Carey, 1998); increases in self-confidence, marketability, and research and presentation skills; and the value of learning to work well with others through the team experience (Ashraf, 2004; Hansen, 2006; Lerner, 1995), which has been shown to be a differentiating competence in Goleman’s (1995) work on emotional intelligence.
Team teaching has been used as an experiential bridge between the classroom and the “real world” by Wenger and Hornyak (1999). They described their efforts at team teaching and interpreted the process and experience of accomplishing the learning objectives through the lens of Bloom, Hastings, and Madous’s (1971) taxonomy of learning. This hierarchy included, in order of increasing complexity, “knowledge distribution, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation” (Wenger & Hornyak, 1999, pp. 312-313). Michaelsen, Watson, Cragin, and Fink (1982) and others (Michaelsen, Bauman Knight, & Fink, 2004; Michaelsen, Jones, & Watson, 1993) have successfully experimented with semester-long teams to manage the ever-growing population of students in their classes. These classes created sufficient experiential data to illustrate theory, which was a powerful teaching tool.
CAO and Relationships
Relational significance was addressed by Friar and Eddleston (2007), who developed a networking exercise for students to practice this skill in the classroom, and Baldwin, Bedell, and Johnson (1997), who reviewed social network theory (Granovetter, 1973; Milgram, 1967). Connections were drawn between the results of Baldwin et al. and a study at Bell Labs by Kelly and Caplan (1993) that showed the most significant distinction between stellar and average performers was the former’s sophistication in using networks.
Simulations and Games
Simulations and games can mimic real life and have been explored by many (Bell, Kanar, & Kozlowski, 2008; Knobloch, 2005; Verzat, Byrne, & Fayolle, 2009). Examples include the Organization Game (OG; Frost, Mitchell, & Cawood, 1985; Miles & Randolph, 1979; Paul & Barbato, 1985; Salas, Wildman, & Piccolo, 2009) and Managing an Organization (MO). Oddou (1986) compared MO with OG and found that MO better reflected the open-system kind of interaction facing actual firms. Shannon, Krumwiede, and Street (2010) used a computer-based simulation to teach lean manufacturing principles, and Schumann, Scott, and Anderson (2006) have used simulations to teach ethics. A variation of games in the form of challenge course activities has also been used to teach ethics (Goltz & Hietapelto, 2006) and deepen students’ appreciation of theory in the organizational behavior classroom (Anderson, 2007; Boggs, Mickel, & Holtom, 2007; Stecher & Rosse, 2007), as well as their personal understanding of their motivation (Levy, 2007).
Teams, simulations, and games offer value to the teacher and students by connecting the classroom to the larger practical experiences of organizational life, with far less organizing and effort than may be required to access real-world organizations and secure commitments from their busy managers. This approach to interpreting CAO offers the instructor many opportunities that extend the ideas of a course to their practical outlets.
Real-World Experience and Applications
Truly integrating students into the real-world milieu was at the heart of many authors’ intent. Examples include the creation of companies by students complete with products and customers (Miller, 1991) and involving university administration, where community partnerships were established with business leaders, who developed mentoring relationships with the students (Woiwod, 2002). Michaelsen and McCord (2006) have integrated an experiential component into their junior-level core business courses. Inspired by Miller (1991), Michaelsen and McCord integrated the principles in three core courses, with an intensive hands-on experience where students had the “opportunity to practice using basic business concepts . . . [be] exposed to concepts from three core business disciplines, and . . . develop interpersonal and interaction skills in a work-like setting” (p. 239).
Further evidence of the integration of learning and real-world environments is reflected in research on decision making in a legal firm (Gold, Thorpe, Woodall, & Sadler-Smith, 2007), project management (Hardless, Nilsson, & Nulden, 2005), the effect of emotional openness and sharing with mentors and supervisors (Yongmei, Jun, & Weitz, 2011), and gaining tacit knowledge and its connection to D. A. Kolb’s (1984) learning model (Armstrong & Mahmud, 2007). Ng, Van Dyne, and Ang (2009) explored the connection between experiential learning and cultural intelligence in the development of global leader competencies. They proposed a model that integrated D. A. Kolb’s (1984) learning cycle in ever more effective approaches to leading within cultural contexts. Particular industry tools such as TQM (total quality management) have been applied to educational venues by Meisel and Seltzer (1995) and others (Drexler & Kleinsorge, 2000). Connecting the classroom to the financial planning profession (Goetz, Tombs, & Hampton, 2005), understanding the dynamics of team leadership and leader–member exchange (Graen, Chun, & Taylor, 2006), and understanding the particulars of information management (Heim et al., 2005) are other examples of bridging experience to learning.
These studies tell us that the significance of experience and exposure to elements of the world students will soon occupy holds great relevance for their future and concurrently maintains the relevance of higher education as they matriculate. In this way, it is an act of self-preservation for instructors as they attempt to maintain their significance and provide learning experiences that are meaningful from the practical perspective as well as the theoretical. The challenge, then, is for instructors to discover their creativity in how they deliver their material, such that it taps students’ curiosity about how the two are related.
Online Environments
As higher education continues to see an increase in nontraditional students, online teaching environments will play a greater role in the percentage of students we, as instructors, meet. The experience that these students bring into the classroom makes it even more important that we are able to connect what we read and write to the lived world in which they work. This has been shown to be true across levels of education by Arbaugh (2000, 2010a), who has provided specific recommendations for educators depending on who they are teaching. Online learning will become ever more relevant as educators consider the needs of the Millennial generation. This population will be specifically considered in a following section of this article, underscoring our need to take their learning processes seriously.
State-of-the-art of online and blended learning was offered by Arbaugh et al. (2009) and furthered in writing by Arbaugh, Desai, Rau, and Sridhar (2010). Although there has been an increase in research on online and blended learning environments overall, these authors call for more discipline-based research that tests concepts and is published in nonpedagogical journals. These authors also suggest that more research with particular attention paid to differences between online and blended environments, characteristics of instructors, and research beyond the borders of the United States would advance our understanding of how this medium contributes to learning.
Particular emphasis on graduate business education was offered by Arbaugh and Benbunan-Fich (2006), who addressed the ever-growing presence of online MBA education through an analysis of objectivist versus constructivist, and individualist versus social lenses. Their work revealed that a combination of objective teaching techniques with collaborativist learning experiences where student groups worked with teacher-provided facts and concepts resulted in high student-perceived learning. Although this system may initially appear teacher centered, there is great freedom within student groups for social interaction and collective determination of their response. This approach maintains the student-centered element, where students are liberated to make sense of the facts collectively and yet are not given total control of the classroom. The teacher maintains the elements of structuring (also known as scaffolding: Hmelo-Silver, Duncan, & Chinn, 2007) the class. This is consistent with all three approaches as many decisions on how to conduct the course and implement SCL, PBL, or CAO approaches are made prior to the beginning of the term or students entering the class, which necessarily puts the teacher in an authority position. Hence, the success of this form is contingent on how the online environment is managed and the presentation of self by the teacher. Research by Strang (2011) also supported a more structured approach to online MBA discussion boards, where Socratic questioning and conversation theory were applied to the test group versus the control group, who used traditional peer interaction. The test group earned higher grades, and their interactions were rated higher than the control group. Thorpe and Edmunds (2011) and others (McLaren, 2004) offered support for the use of technology and claimed that it enhanced learning and better served students as they moved among their activities. They claimed that the technology enhanced learning and helped build student skills, roles, and interactions as students transitioned between school and work.
Arbaugh (2005a, 2005c) and colleagues (R. B. Marks, Sibley, & Arbaugh, 2005) have provided an analysis of the critical elements of a successful online MBA course experience for students and faculty. In related writing, Arbaugh (2005b) reviewed work by Duffy and Kirkley (2004) dedicated to learner-centered education practices. His review revealed support for an interactive online experience, as has research by Brower (2003) and Rollag (2010). Further distinctions of the online experience particularly related to teacher behavior were examined by Arbaugh (2010b), who discovered that the frequency and duration of instructor login negatively predicted student learning. Furthermore, it was found that instructor presence (formal instructor activity) and immediacy (informal instructor behavior) accounted for little of the student’s learning, thereby relieving instructors’ angst about how they contribute to or detract from students’ attitudes toward online learning.
In Summary
It is not enough to expect that students will become enamored with the details of the discipline to which we, as professors, have dedicated our lives. Indeed, if we are to maintain any relevance in the larger project, it is incumbent on us to “meet the client where the client is.” Most students will not go on to pursue a PhD. Instead, they are interested in what they can learn that will serve them tomorrow and for the next 45 years of their career, not their 4 years of education as undergraduates. If we are so smart, it should not be that difficult to find the nexus between theory and application. What creative outlets might we discover where we can show students theory’s relevance and applicability? That is the challenge to the academy today, especially as it is coming under fire from so many fronts, as mentioned above (Mintzberg, 2004), to justify its existence as a requirement for career success.
Clearly, there are many ways to incorporate practical organizational elements into a class experience. The central theme amid all efforts is to more accurately create and model the increased immersion students will experience on graduation. Students experience increases in responsibility and involvement on their entrance into the workforce. Classes that attempt to initiate this form of involvement introduce students to their contribution to the creation of that experience. These forms of learning bridge the dependent roles reminiscent of students in traditional classrooms with the independent activity required of new employees.
SCL, PBL, and CAO offer avenues to create more meaningful learning experiences for students. Although similar in their emphasis on student involvement, they differ in significant ways. SCL is a teaching form that is driven by what the students are interested in, what excites them, what draws their curiosity, and an understanding of what they are doing and why they are doing it. It is incumbent on the teacher to ferret out these details from students and respond accordingly with opportunities for students to learn in environments and through activities that serve their intuitive curiosities. This approach differs from PBL, where the focus of the learning is on the constellation of problems and problem symptoms that may transcend the discipline in which the class is housed. In this way, the learning is situated within the larger context of the industry that may be segmented in higher education’s historical pursuit of discipline-specific knowledge. For instance, salespeople may have difficulty getting enough products for customers, which may be the result of manufacturing limitations. These limitations may be caught up in the details of accounting and the subtle balance that is often necessary between accounts payable and accounts receivable, which affects the ability of the purchasing department to acquire adequate raw materials as needed by the manufacturing department. Both SCL and PBL are further differentiated from CAO, which leverages the dynamics and processes of a classroom experience in ways that bridge it with similar dynamics in industry organizations. In other words, CAO interprets the classroom as another form of organization complete with the unique challenges and opportunities resident in organizational life. In some ways, CAO treats the classroom as a microcosm of industry, with all the attending strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of a going concern. Despite these differences, all three approaches provide a laboratory of sorts for students to actively participate in as a medium for their learning, and all transcend the simple and traditional sage-on-the-stage (Markel, 1999) model. All three approaches call on us to engage differently and serve students in a facilitative role that may conflict with the training many of us received in our own education. It is this change in the nature of the role and relationship of student and teacher that is most meaningful and impactful for students as we now construct environments and atmospheres that feel different to students and undoubtedly also to us. This change in being (Ramsey & Fitzgibbons, 2005) is the matter from which the AS classroom is created.
Autonomy-Supportive Classrooms
The literature on AS (Reeve et al., 1999) classrooms suggests that a teacher’s style, the way in which he or she interacts with students, and the relationships and atmosphere that develop affect students’ learning and development. Deci, Nezlek, and Sheinman (1981) studied the effects of fourth-grade teachers’ styles on their students. They identified a personality trait described as an “orientation toward control versus autonomy” (Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, & Ryan, 1981, p. 643). A general definition of control and autonomy is that “behavior is . . . controlled when it is regulated either by external contingencies or introjected demands, and it is autonomous when it is intrinsically motivated” (Black & Deci, 2000, p. 742). Deci, Nezlek, et al. (1981) concluded that teachers with an orientation toward autonomy enhanced their student’s intrinsic motivation and self-esteem. Deci, Schwartz, et al. (1981) constructed a survey to measure this orientation, which proved valid when students’ ratings of their teachers aligned with the results of the survey. The students who were taught by autonomy-oriented teachers were assessed as more intrinsically motivated with higher self-esteem. Patrick, Skinner, and Connell (1993) offered a more detailed description:
Autonomy refers to the connection between volition and action; it is the extent to which a person feels free to show the behaviors of his choice; nonautonomous behaviors include both compliance and defiance, which have in common that they are reactions to others’ agendas and not freely chosen. (p. 782)
By comparison, Deci, Spiegel, Ryan, Koestner, and Kauffman (1982) explored the impact of controlling teachers on students’ intrinsic motivation and self-esteem. They discovered that the more controlling a teacher, the less motivation and self-esteem students experience. Similar results were discovered by Flink, Boggiano, and Barrett (1990).
deCharms (1976) has shown that an AS style is teachable and has done so with inner-city schoolteachers. Reeve (1998) has also shown that an AS style is teachable and that those with a personal predisposition to be supportive assimilated the techniques of this approach more readily than did those with a control-oriented style. His research was predicated on work by Deci and Ryan (1985) as well as others (Pelletier, Séguin-Lévesque, & Legault, 2002), who showed that students benefited when teachers were supportive. It is important to note, however, that environmental variables can contribute to a controlling teaching style (Deci & Ryan, 1985). These variables may be some form of controlling event in the teacher’s environment, such as pressure to achieve a particular outcome.
Work by Reeve, Jang, Carrell, Jeon, and Barch (2004) connected AS teaching style with engagement, which has to do with behavioral and emotional intensity (Connell, 1990; Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Fiedler, 1975; Koenigs, Fiedler, & deCharms, 1977; Wellborn, 1991). Engagement is a construct that is similar in its behavioral dynamics to autonomy in that it is characterized by a “person’s active involvement such as effort and positive emotion or through a person’s voice and initiative in trying to take personal responsibility for their behavior” (Reeve et al., 2004, p. 148). Black and Deci (2000) studied the performance of college students in an organic chemistry class and the effects of the teacher’s AS approach. Their work showed that students performed better in those classes where they engaged with teachers who reflected this approach, which resulted in the students behaving from an intrinsically motivated position. This was interpreted in terms of self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985).
Recent research by Reeve and Jang (2006) further supported the contribution of an AS approach with preservice teachers who were randomly assigned to pairs in the role of either student or teacher. Instructional behaviors displayed by the teacher that were rated as AS were correlated to perceived autonomy by the students. These behaviors included (a) listening, (b) creating time for independent work, (c) giving the student opportunities to talk, (d) giving praise as feedback, (e) offering encouragement, (f) offering hints, (g) being responsive to questions and comments, and (h) acknowledging the student’s perspective and experiences. A finer cut of the dynamic was shown by Driscoll (2005), who found that teachers who monitored their level of control and were able to moderate it based on student performance offered learners choice and the opportunity for self-appraisal. This attention to the teacher–student relationship was also supported by Rasku-Puttonen, Eteläpelto, Arvaja, and Häkkinen (2003), who showed that it enabled the teacher to move toward or away from highly structured activities in service of the student’s performance in teacher–student discussions.
AS research mirrors the approach described in the EBL and related literature above. In all cases of AS classrooms, a less controlling approach by the instructor contributed to greater engagement and intrinsic motivation by students. The work of these authors can be directly applied in understanding the nature of the learning environment described in the sections on SCL, PBL, and CAO above. The relevance of this section on AS is in providing a uniting interpretation of the fundamental dynamics of those approaches. In those three sections, I have discussed numerous philosophical foundations and the ensuing practical activities intended to manifest those philosophies in the classroom. The descriptions of AS classrooms capture the essence of what is attempted through those activities and philosophies and serve as an integrative and uniting device.
Millennial Students
Much has been written regarding the characteristics of the Millennial generation and how they differ from earlier generations of learners (Carlson, 2005; Elam, Stratton, & Gibson, 2007; McAlister, 2009; Monaco & Martin, 2009). Millennials are characterized as “special, sheltered, and team-oriented” (Pattengale, 2008). Pardue and Morgan (2008) and others (Beard & Dale, 2008) have described them as “technologically competent, optimistic and group oriented . . . [with a] propensity for multitasking, reliance on electronics, and need for immediate feedback” (p. 74). Given these adjectives, researchers have been drawn to investigate how Millennial students might learn differently than previous generations and how best to serve them (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010). Beyers (2009) has investigated and proposed differences between learners and teachers, where learners may be operating at a more sophisticated level of information management than their teachers, who may still be functioning in the “textbook” (p. 226) era. Research that compared learners across three decades was completed by Stewart (2009), who, despite differences in styles, claimed that there is much to be said for maintaining academic standards even when there may be some loss of comfort for both teachers and students. Related work by Dillon (2007) and others (Carlson, 2005) reflected on the needs of the techno-savvy, time-insensitive learners and their learning style, which led her to call for more simulation-type learning projects in place of traditional, text-based learning. Lee and Breitenberg (2010) encouraged educators to employ holistic thinking, active-learning methods, visual media, and problem-solving approaches to effectively address the needs of their students. In a similar vein, Considine, Horton, and Moorman (2009) have inquired into Millennials’ media literacy and its impact on this generation’s interest in subject matter and their ability to learn. Of particular interest is research by Proserpio and Gioia (2007), who have addressed the virtual generation and their needs and propensities for learning. They offer concrete suggestions for how these can be addressed with virtual tools such as “hyperlink navigation . . . communication technologies . . . [and] simulations or games” (p. 75), thereby leveraging technologies that Millennial students have matured with and with which they are familiar. They advocate the use of online tools as media through which instructors can better meet the learning processes and practices of Millennials. These authors close with the statement that “interactivity and user involvement are the key elements in success” (p. 79). This aligns perfectly with the main theme of this article, which calls for greater integration of the student in the learning project so that it is more student and less instructor driven.
AS and Millennials
AS classrooms and the three approaches to EBL integrate well with the characteristics of Millennial students. Wilson (2004) has identified numerous recommendations, including enriched student–faculty contact since this population has enjoyed strong relationships with involved parents and teachers and does well when this relationship is nurtured. Working in groups and on teams is a common experience for this group of learners; hence, teachers who attend to the dynamics of reciprocity and cooperation in their classroom organization may better serve their learners. Wilson claimed that Millennials are active learners. In this sense, they benefit from discussion, group projects, and shared problem solving, which attend to their interest in group work and reflective activities. Frequent and constructive feedback, providing sufficient time on classroom and learning tasks, offering clear but challenging expectations for students that require critical thinking, and incorporating diverse learning approaches and ways of gaining knowledge were also encouraged. Additional suggestions from Junco and Mastrodicasa (2007) on how best to serve this population include the following:
Explain issues such as academic integrity, intellectual ownership, cheating;
Provide clear expectations, detailed instructions and explicit syllabi;
Provide time management, study skills and conflict resolution training;
Plan opportunities for parental involvement;
Provide internship opportunities;
Provide cutting-edge technology, interactive web services and an infrastructure for virtual communities; and
Offer additional technological support for first-generation students. (p. 86)
These ideas are similar to Wilson’s (2004) claim that students need something more and beyond simple lectures. They need to be involved in the learning process in ways that help make the learning relevant to their lives. When asked, “How do students learn best?” 42% responded with “active participation and group work” (Wisniewski, 2010, p. 60). This further cemented the differences and needs of the new generation, as did research by Payne and Holmes (1998). Buttner (2004) explored students’ sensitivity to teacher behaviors. Consistent with the above recommendations for inclusion, students preferred to have their perspectives heard and recognized.
By incorporating greater focus in the curriculum on participation, interaction, and the external world, we may stem the tide of what has recently been discovered as the narcissistic tendencies of business students (Westerman, Bergman, Bergman, & Daly, 2012). These authors discovered significant increases in narcissism among business undergraduates compared with psychology undergraduates, which resulted in higher levels of problems for organizations. Given this phenomenon, business faculties have the opportunity to respond by modeling appropriate behavior. These authors suggested that we model “non-narcissistic professional behavior” (Westerman et al., p. 24) as that is what is most desirable in students’ future workplaces. The authors referenced earlier work by some of them (Bergman, Westerman, & Daly, 2010) that summarized recommendations for how we might respond, thereby mirroring in a subtle way the environments students will soon join. In general terms, they suggested increased interpersonal sensitivity and the ability to appreciate others’ perspectives as skills that can be developed and rewarded through the use of many of the experiential frames reviewed in this article. These include teamwork, multiple feedback sources, role-playing, speakers from industry, use of cases, and responses from faculty that focus on interpersonal relationships and communication.
The role of experience for the Millennial generation, and in light of the AS classroom dynamics, underscores the significance of SCL, PBL, and CAO as salient methods by which instructors might create more meaning, value, and learning in the business classroom. This is particularly important given the emerging nature of the current and future business environment as one characterized by “Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck” (Collins & Hansen, 2011). Students’ preparation for success in that world can be catalyzed through cleaner distinctions and connections between higher education and the worlds they will enter on graduation. Business is routinely considered a place where the pace of change is rising at an ever-increasing rate. If business students are not exposed to change before they graduate, they will almost by definition enter it behind the curve. Teaching students in ways that leverage and integrate business and management experiences as vehicles of the learning process will help enable students to enter the flow of that raging stream, replete with its “constant whitewater” (Vaill, 1989), in ways that enable them to contribute from their first day on the job.
Conclusion
The dynamics of an AS classroom and teaching style relevant for Millennial students mirror those necessary to implement the three approaches to learning: SCL, PBL, and CAO. All require teachers to give up some control, thereby making room for the presence of AS dynamics. A fuller exploration of Reeve and Jang’s (2006) instructional behaviors, given what has been covered in the three approaches, justifies further ink.
Listening: This act is diametrically opposed to what often transpires in the traditional classroom. Here, the teacher talks (lectures) less and listens to students more.
Creating time for independent work: Teachers will need to be less directive in their actions. This creates space for creativity (and error), which contributes to learning that is owned by the student instead of that which is delivered by the teacher.
Giving students opportunities to talk: Aligned with the listening theme above, this requires making time and space in the classroom to hear the thoughts, ideas, opinions, and, dare I suggest, feelings of our learners.
Giving praise as feedback: Aligned with appreciative inquiry notions (Cooperrider, 1990; Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987), doing so will generate (Bushe, 2007) more of what learners and teachers want.
Offering encouragement: Encouragement is different from giving the answer. Here, the teacher supports the learner in his or her quest for knowledge. The teacher maintains an open and quite possibly ambiguous stance regarding what she believes is important and relevant as students struggle with their questions. A noncondemning posture is critical here and echoes the praise element above.
Offering hints: Suggestions that guide rather than provide answers from the all-knowing sage is the theme here. Provocative questions that stimulate independent critical thinking are important as students claim their knowledge.
Being responsive to questions and comments: Being available to students’ concerns in a dialogic process is important so that students do not feel abandoned in their learning. Subtlety without offering up what may be believed to be Truth is helpful. Although students are unlikely to benefit from being set adrift on a rudderless ship, we can serve them by “remaining in place” (Kegan, 1982) as teachers and remind them that we have not abandoned them.
Acknowledging the student’s perspective and experiences: SCL, PBL, and CAO require that teachers respect and acknowledge students’ ideas, thoughts, feelings, and relationships as they move through the uncharted waters of the experience that the teacher has opened up for them. Judgment of their ideas may well be taken as judgment of the self. Any wafting sensations of this experience can undo the very thing we are trying to stimulate.
These eight behaviors bridge the mechanics of the varied activities and exercises with our dispositions as instructors. What we do and who we are influence the potential creation of a synergistic learning environment and better outcomes for our students, which can only be achieved by yielding to Rogers’s (1961) encouragement to trust our experience. The relationships among SCL, PBL, CAO, AS classrooms, and the needs of the Millennial generation become even clearer when we complete the circle of inquiry by reconnecting to the assumptions of andragogy that opened the article. They include the following:
Adults need to know why they need to learn something.
Adults need to learn experientially.
Adults approach learning as problem solving.
Adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value.
As an adult’s self-concept becomes more oriented toward being an independent person, the person is more self-directed in his or her learning.
Engaging in student–teacher dialogue not characterized by omniscience but, instead, as a partner in inquiry, as included in the design of the three approaches, clearly changes the nature of the relationship between teacher and learner. In this sense, students are andragogically more likely to understand why they need to know something and about its relevance to their lives (Assumption 1). SCL, PBL, and CAO leverage experience as a central element in their effectiveness (Assumption 2). Problems are at the very heart of PBL and may be central players in the other domains (Assumption 3). The learning facilitated through SCL, PBL, and CAO provides immediate value for learners in understanding current issues in their work and lives (Assumption 4). All three treat the learner as an independent person free with the autonomy and responsibility to pursue that learning that is most meaningful for them (Assumption 5). In these ways, SCL, PBL, and CAO respond to the five assumptions of andragogy and help create AS learning environments that best serve today’s entering generation of students. The theory behind these approaches combines to reinforce a tried and true adage coined by Lewin (1951): “There is nothing so practical as a good theory” (p. 169). As educators, we would be wise to take his advice in meeting students where they are with practical interpretations of theory that are meaningful in their experience and in our interactions with them.
Recommendations
Clearly, one’s teaching approach is not an either/or proposition. As Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006) discuss, providing clear instructional guidance is an important element in teaching. This structure however, rarely reflects the world as we know it from having lived in it. Hence, combining structure with scaffolding, whereby teachers offer “coaching, task structuring, and hints, without explicitly giving students the final answers” (Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007, p. 100) in experiential settings can create some broad, open terrain where students can construct meaning by themselves and with others. Although the two positions of heavy structure and minimal guidance represent the polarities of the spectrum, some integration might be the most effective approach, as students need to have some “clay” (theory and instruction) from which they “throw their pot” (practical experience). Dictating the shape and contours of their pot, however, should be left to each particular student while immersed in the art studio (read management milieu), which falls short of the call by Sweller, Kirschner, and Clark (2007). These authors recommend that educators provide “learners with all information needed including a complete problem solution—either prior to a task or just-in-time during a task” (p. 117). We as teachers, luckily enough, have the opportunity to participate in both arenas. We have the knowledge and credentials to provide foundations in the theory and thinking of our disciplines. However, just because a finance professor can describe how to calculate the net present value or internal rate of return of a given business proposition does not mean that professor ought to dictate or provide a set of rules on how to consistently interpret the results of those calculations. That, even in the quantitative arena of finance, is where the art of teaching enters the equation, so to speak. It is in engaging the permeable boundaries between disciplines and the analysis, decision making, conversations, and hunches that the greatest learning can take place. “Dealing with a fuzzy chaotic world devoid of any sort of order” (Armstrong & Fukami, 2009, p. 9), normally furnished by the tidy dimensions of classroom life, is where we have the greatest opportunity to facilitate knowledge generation that transcends any linear, lecture-driven approach. Indeed, we as faculty may need to get out of our own way and quite possibly the students’. When are we adding value and when are we fostering false dependencies in students, thereby creating the illusion of the “one best (or only) way?” It would be handy if there were a rubric we might use to make these decisions, but then that would be falling prey to the very objectivist approaches that I am saying are a good start but not enough. The tools of the discipline are a good place to start but a poor place to stop in our teaching and learning. This is where teachers can enter the conversation with those very questions that facilitate the AS classroom. This is where the art of teaching emerges. Provoking students with reflective questions for which there are rarely neat and orderly answers is the true role of an educator. Asking students to explain the thinking that led to decisions contributes to their understanding and our knowledge of their facility with ideas and concepts. The value of the teacher can truly manifest in fostering the abilities of critical thought. This, by definition, extends beyond the limits of simply discussing what is contained in the text.
Finally, how might we muster the courage to stand close to the edge, an edge where even we may tremble at the prospect of not knowing what will be learned or how a class session or term will turn out? Giving over the control and unleashing the potential of the unknown may likely be met with similar levels of courage in our students. Maybe now is the time for “a little less talk and a lot more action” (Hinton & Stewart, 1993).
Implications and Future Research
Given what appears as a great opportunity, it makes sense to begin more fully integrating teaching and practice with research that advances all three. This introduces Lewin’s idea of theory and practice to Boyer’s (1990) four domains in the scholarship of teaching and learning—discovery, integration across disciplines, application to problems in the lived world, and teaching—where all four unite in serving future professionals. Armstrong and Fukami (2009) concurred in their reflections on our CAO, thereby echoing much of the central message of this article. In sum, the future of the field is contingent on our ability to construct a connection between what we do and how it mirrors the content of our discipline. We must reduce the silo nature of management education as that does not reflect the nature of the worlds students will join. We must integrate practical knowledge with theory to solve meaningful problems in the learning agenda, which then carry that meaning over to the offices students will soon occupy. Given that our work is in the field of management, we must engage reflexively with it. Hence, what we do and how we participate in it is the very thing itself: The what of our field is the how of our classrooms—we are what we do. These areas can be the future research agenda for many years to come as we break free from only content and add process issues to the rich dialogue of scholarship of teaching and learning.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the editors, Dr. Fukami and Dr. Bilimoria, and the anonymous reviewers for the JME, who offered their guidance and insight on this project. Their contributions helped push this article beyond what could have been crafted by my hand alone. I am very grateful. I would also like to thank the reviewers for the 2011 Western Academy of Management meeting for their thoughts on an earlier version of this document, which were quite timely in meeting the deadlines for this contribution to JME.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.