Not Everything Important Is Taught in the Classroom: Using Cocurricular Professional Development Workshops to Enhance Student Careers

How Content in Business Schools Is Misaligned With the Actual Managing Process

As far back as the 1930s, researchers were concerned about quality of courses being offered in business schools and whether these courses were adequately preparing students to be business leaders and not just technical experts (Bossard & Dewhurst, 1931). After World War II, there was a wave of business schools hiring practitioners (e.g., consultants) which led to a focus on imparting practical skills (Pierson, 1959). The recognition that business students needed practical skills for their careers is one reason for establishing the MBA as a professional degree with a practical focus (Gordon & Howell, 1959).

Despite the proliferation of MBA and undergraduate programs that exist today, the question of whether what is being taught in business schools is what industry and the world needs still looms. Some believe that business schools offer little value to society because they fail to provide business leaders with ethical and moral training (Parker, 2018). While others suggest that business schools can add value if they are more attentive to what employers and other stakeholders are telling them. For example, a 3-year study on the future of management education and development, commissioned by the AACSB, revealed a need for business schools to plan how they can ensure the skills students are learning align with the societal challenges (Porter & McKibbin, 1988).

How the Theories/Models Taught Are Misaligned With the Actual Managing Process

The perceived incongruence between what students are taught and what they need in their careers suggests that business schools are not offering the value they are promising. For example, Pfeffer and Fong (2002), reveal that business graduates perform no better (and in many cases worse) than nonbusiness graduates when asked to complete workshops as new hires. The study reveals three failed assumptions by business schools: first, that good teaching results in good learning; second, that students are motivated by grades and other external rewards; and third, that using cases and lectures are sufficient for ensuring student learning. These assumptions are based on what professors deem valuable that can, at times, ignore the perspective and needs of students. For example, the assumption that using cases and lectures is adequate for student learning ignores the wealth of research that shows that experiential learning is critical to student learning (AACSB, 2018; Kolb, 1984; Pfeffer & Fong, 2002; Skinner et al., 2016).

Livingston (1971) criticizes teaching with cases because it teaches students to strive for a right answer determined by someone else, rather than learning how to identify and solve real problems through experiential exercises. Livingston (1971) concludes that the curriculum content and theory/models used in business schools are misaligned with the actual managing process. A more recent study on MBA curricula at various schools in the US confirms that skills and competencies being taught, such as managing logistics and using technology, does little to help managers with managing people or making decisions (Rubin & Dierdorff, 2009).

Mintzberg (1973, 1975) is famous for attesting that, if business schools wish to address the misalignment between the theories/models and methods being used and the skills needed to be effective managers, they need to understand that the intangible skills required for managing cannot be taught through cognitive learning (e.g., book learning). Instead, Minztberg suggests the best way to these intangible skills is on the job. However, he acknowledges that learning on the job also means that managers may learn skills that are specific to certain contexts and which may not always transfer to other situations. To ensure managers can grow and learn despite being potentially limited to the context they are working in, Mintzberg continually promotes communication among managers as a way of sharing knowledge gained in the field.

Mintzberg’s (2004) key point is that management is more akin to art that involves a blend of interpersonal skills, insight and analysis, all of which is difficult to teach in a classroom. He suggests business schools can get closer to helping students if they find ways for students to practice skills and receive immediate feedback on their performance to simulate real world experience. Simulations and other types of experiential learning are effective for teaching management skills because students go beyond recall of knowledge to both apply knowledge and develop skills (Datar et al., 2011).

Finding ways to make courses more experiential has proved difficult in the past because course-based curricula was often designed and delivered based on the preferences of professors, which, in the past, were often not focused on the needs of industry (Rubin & Dierdorff, 2011). In our experience, faculty often assume that students will learn many of the skills needed in their careers (e.g., how to run an effective meeting and market using social media) through on-the-job training and therefore do not teach these professional skills in the classroom. In our opinion, this idea leads to missed opportunities for better preparing students for the workforce.

Our suggestion to implement cocurricular PD workshops stemmed from discussions about finding creative ways to teach students the skills they need but are not learning in the classroom. The idea of implementing cocurricular PD workshops challenges the paradigm that only course-based learning is valuable for students and that nothing worthwhile can be taught through cocurricular learning. Building legitimacy in our college for cocurricular PD workshops required a shift in perceptions of workshops as learning environments.

Curricula in business schools focus on class-based learning, where students are exposed to content throughout a semester or term and then evaluated on their ability to demonstrate they have learned the material. Although we agree that courses offer a deeper learning opportunity than a workshop, we argue there is still considerable value in augmenting the curriculum with workshops that teach the professional skills we know students need to learn to be effective in the workplace. In our experience, PD workshops are an ideal place for students to gain these skills for multiple reasons. First, since PD cocurricular workshops involve a short time frame, confusion around learning objectives is minimized. Second, these workshops are also easier to adapt to changing student needs and can be applied to skills needed across all majors without having to repeat skills in each course (e.g., learning Excel). Third, workshops also allow the opportunity to apply and practice content covered in coursework.

While it is likely that a number of institutions are developing and delivering experiential learning workshops, only a few examples of successful cocurricular PD workshop type activities have been documented. One example is the cocurricular activity known as the Chase Charlie Races (Judge et al., 2011), a cocurricular activity that combines community-centered service learning with experiential learning by asking students to plan and manager a series of community races aimed at promoting fitness. Sports management students reported that their learning and career direction was positively affected by this cocurricular activity.

In another cocurricular PD example (Nguyenvoges & Lyons, 2017), a public Southeastern University offered students week-long guided visits to a series of governmental and nongovernmental organizations in Washington, DC. During the week students got to meet officials and professionals in these organizations through a series of events and workshops. These activities, which were not part of the regular curriculum, were intended to foster the development of global citizenship. The aim was to help students understand intangible ideas such as how interconnected and interdependent the world is and their identity as citizens in the world. Overall, the authors observed a positive effect of these workshops on improving global citizenship in students (Nguyenvoges & Lyons, 2017).

Despite the high impact noted by the authors in the above examples, there are few examples of such cocurricular PD activities documented. The fact that the type of activities and workshops are rarely documented suggests that cocurricular PD experiential workshops may be overlooked in many colleges as an important approach to student development. We believe the lack of attention by scholars in this area is one reason we noted a lack of cocurricular PD workshops being offered in our own college.

Implementing Cocurricular PD Workshops in Our College

Our experience of implementing cocurricular PD workshops in our college is that workshops are ideal for addressing student concerns about the relevance of what they learn in courses and how this will apply in their future careers. For example, we found that our students are interested in learning how to conduct themselves in a professional setting (e.g., how to run a meeting), ultimately with the goal of boosting their social capital by demonstrating knowledge of skills usually only developed once a person becomes part of professional practice. We also found that our students know many of the skills they will need in their future careers and that they see high value in learning these skills prior to entering the professional world.

Although our students showed high interest in the idea of cocurricular PD workshops, building legitimacy for these workshops in our college involved broadening the mind-set of faculty beyond the belief that nothing valuable can be taught outside regular course-based learning. The most predominant reason we heard for seeing almost no value in cocurricular workshops was due to the inability to evaluate student learning. We were careful to explain that we did not see these workshops as replacing course-based learning, but instead we felt that these workshops augmented course-based learning by offering students the opportunity to gain confidence in skills not prioritized in the classroom but needed in the workplace. Also, just as people in the workplace often seek PD workshops based on their own evaluation of the skills they need to be better at their jobs, we saw our students capable of a similar assessment.

The idea that students can assess what they are learning in a workshop environment was demonstrated in a study of undergraduate physiology students, who, after taking a course and then attending the American College of Sports Medicine annual meeting, actively related the course work to the event and reported their learning was enhanced as was their confidence (Reich, 2014). Other examples of students’ perceptions being used to assess their learning include using the perceptions of physical therapy students to determine the learning gains from a new exercise called the one-minute paper (Anderson & Burns, 2013) and student perceptions of whether video conferencing offers a good learning experience (Clarke. 2015).

Student perceptions have also been used to justify and develop important streams of learning, such as service learning (Lee et al., 2018). Often, students completing service-learning projects appreciate hands-on learning opportunities and connections with the community (Hughes, 2002) and perceive that their critical thinking abilities and other job skills have been improved (Joseph et al., 2007). The importance of measuring student perceptions has also been established in areas other than service learning, such as participation in a personal selling course (Mich et al., 2014), the effectiveness of video conferencing for learning (Clarke, 2015), and the impact of experiential learning in teaching nursing (Burnard, 1992).

Regardless of the value students placed in our cocurricular workshops, implementing these workshops required a well thought out process to foster legitimacy among faculty about the ability and the importance of these workshops for preparing students to enter the work force. Primary steps involved gaining support from leadership and ensuring the workshops were housed through a formal initiative within our college. Next, we outline the key principles that guide our work to implement these workshops.

Ensuring Legitimacy by Engaging Leadership for Oversight and Strategy

To implement cocurricular PD workshops, we leveraged a college-wide initiative mandated to create multiple experiential learning opportunities for enhancing student experience and skill building. This college initiative, which received funding from a donor, was started in response to the increasing demand on business schools to be more responsive and accountable for ensuring students are job-ready (David et al., 2011). The initiative was led by one of the authors of this paper as the Director of Experiential Learning who oversaw a portfolio of experiential activities that enhance experiential learning in our college. An oversight committee met four times a year for planning, reviewing progress reports, approving experiential learning funding for professors and choosing the cocurricular PD workshops to be offered each term. The initiative also was supported by hiring of students into positions titled Experiential Learning Liaisons (ELLs) to market experiential learning to students and community partners and support the Director (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Formal structures to support workshops.

The legitimacy of the initiative was enhanced by having the oversight committee approve the annual strategy and budget for the initiative, topics for the workshops, funding awarded to professors and new directions. The oversight committee was set up to reflect the typical responsibilities of a board of directors in an organization. The committee adhered to guiding principles and had key roles and responsibilities that were similar to fiduciary duties for a governing board. At each meeting the chair of the committee reviewed the roles and responsibilities of the committee to ensure that members understood the expectations of their position.

The committee was composed of the Dean, two Associate Deans, one Department Head, two faculty noted as experiential learning champions, the CFO for the college and the Director of the student cooperative employment and career center. Reporting to an oversight committee composed of senior leaders and other key individuals allowed the Director of Experiential Learning to reassure faculty that all initiatives, including topics for PD workshops, had input and support from this group. Having senior leaders on the oversight committee also provided a mechanism to ensure that all components of the initiative aligned with the college strategy and that any data or feedback collected could be filtered up to Senior Leaders (see Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

Example of the yearly strategic plan.

Having a formal strategic plan for the initiative also strengthened its legitimacy because it demonstrated a path forward for the initiative that aligned with the teaching and learning focus of the college. At the beginning of each year, the Director of Experiential Learning would propose a strategy for the committee to review. The strategy for the initiative included a marketing strategy aimed at students and community partners, a standardized process for tracking experiential learning opportunities and communicating with community partners, and a process for funding experiential learning activities. At the end of each year, the Director produced a report that went to the donor and senior leaders on outcomes in each area of the strategy. Once a year, the Director also presented the strategy at Faculty Council.

Overall, embedding formal governance structures to support and guide the initiative was integral to the success of the cocurricular PD workshops because it provided a mechanism by which these workshops could be taken seriously by faculty and students. The workshops were, therefore, able to be developed from a legitimate platform outside of the curriculum processes. The legitimacy of this platform hinged on continually communicating to faculty that the cocurricular PD workshops were part of a college-wide experiential learning initiative with direct oversight by senior leaders. Most important, this legitimate governance structure helped ensure that faculty and students did not immediately dismiss the importance of these workshops thereby offering an opportunity to improve the perceived value of cocurricular learning.

Standardized Approach for Structure and Learning Objectives in Each Workshop

Each workshop was run in a similar fashion to workshops that business professionals might attend, as the focus was on continuous learning in an environment where everyone must assess for themselves what they have learned and how this learning will help their careers. The focus on self-reflection and the fact the workshops occurred in a limited timeframe with almost no opportunity to follow up, required that we take a prudent approach for designing the workshops.

We designed each workshop to ensure that students still had an opportunity to learn and practice skills not taught in the classroom, despite the time constraints. For this reason, we created a standardized approach for all presenters to follow to ensure that learning objectives were met. The Director and the ELLs met with each presenter to explain the standards for the workshops and assisted in building the workshop when necessary. The standardized approach and expectations of each workshop are outlined next (see Figure 3).

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Figure 3.

Components of professional development (PD) experiential workshops.

First, each workshop had to provide students with context and basic information required to understand the workshop. This could include best practices, leading research, and/or stories based on the personal experience of the presenter to ensure students had a deeper understanding of the topic at hand.

Second, students had to be provided with a hands-on exercise that was relevant to their future careers. Examples of these exercises include simulations, applied individual exercises, and group problem-solving exercises. Having all workshops include a hands-on exercise was in keeping with the idea that the effectiveness of experiential learning is based on the idea of teaching practical skills by making students do more than just recall information (Datar et al., 2011). The workshops, therefore, ensured students had to both apply knowledge and develop skills. This approach supported the needs and motivations by students to learn and apply skills that would assist them in their careers in some capacity.

Third, all workshops had to provide an opportunity for socialization and effective teamwork. Skills developed outside the classroom through cocurricular activities can help prepare students for their careers by enhancing their ability to work with others. As discussed above, research has shown that when students engage in experiential learning that includes a reflective component it enhances their interpersonal skills (Skinner et al., 2016). These PD experiential activities provided a unique opportunity for social development while enhancing practical skills. For example, in many of the workshops, students had to work in teams to complete exercises in a timely manner.

Last, since we did not employ a formal, summative assessment following these workshops, it shifted the attention of students away from the idea of being graded to learning from an experience. Having students work in teams during the workshop also created a communal experience similar to how colleagues collaborate on projects in the workplace.

Discussion

Our experience leading these workshops highlights many insights around the importance of valuing cocurricular learning in business schools. Given the budget constraints and competitive landscape that most business schools face, cocurricular learning may offer an inexpensive and effective mechanism for helping business schools better prepare students for their careers. In our case, the cost of running each workshop was minimal, both in terms of dollars and resources, which removed barriers for the college and faculty to try the workshops. Below we outline a variety of lessons we learned about how implementing cocurricular PD workshops can assist business schools to create a positive and effective learning environment for students.

First, by designing these workshops to complement the theoretical focus of many college courses, we challenged the paradigm that all important topics are taught as part of curriculum. The implementation of these workshops augmented many of our courses because the focus was not on analysis, but rather on learning through engagement. We designed each workshop to simulate how people learn in a professional context. We wanted students to learn in the same way that people in the workplace learn in PD workshops. In these types of workshops, the focus is not on being evaluated but rather on taking part and openly practicing a skill. Our experience is that students feel that taking part in an experience in this manner increases their confidence levels. A few students suggested that not having to worry about grades made it easier for them to focus on doing and learning the skills being taught for their own sake. There is an opportunity for future research to explore if the perceived confidence level of students from these workshops is long lasting and if it transfers over into better skill development.

Offering cocurricular PD workshops also emphasizes the importance of listening to students about their perception of learning. In our approach, we ensured that workshop topics are informed by student focus groups and workshop feedback. Including student involvement in the choice of workshop topics was important as it validated the perspective of students throughout the process and brought forth ideas in line with student needs. Having workshop topics based on student input greatly informed our approach and took us in directions we had not intended. We learned that most students preferred to learn skills not taught in traditional college-level courses but that still augment or enhance their classroom experience. Specifically, students wanted more exposure to the practical side of theories taught in the classroom. For example, learning how to create a visually appealing advertisement using photo editing software is not usually covered in a traditional course, but this skill complements knowledge of the theories of persuasion that explain why ads are effective that are taught in class.

Student feedback also revealed slight differences in how undergraduate and graduate students viewed these workshops. For example, results from our feedback questionnaires revealed that MBA students assign greater value to the discussion component of workshops and scrutinize the presenter’s credentials more than undergraduates. This suggests a slightly different approach is needed when designing workshops for graduate students. First, presenters need to be recognized experts in their field able to offer insightful knowledge about the business world. Second, workshops for graduate students require more time for discussion where students can test their knowledge and have the opportunity to ask insightful questions. Overall, only by seeking and listening to student feedback can such nuances be discovered.

Of course, for this type of initiative to be successful at other schools, faculty and administrators must at least be open to the idea of student-led cocreation of programs. In our experience, input from students about potential topics also offered an important signal to our college about what should be included in the curriculum. For example, while we might not think that digital photo editing should be included in a business school curriculum, it is important to note that students do not see this skill as separate from other business skills. This discovery reinforces our position that business schools should stop privileging curricular learning and be open to cocurricular learning as an equal partner in preparing students for career-readiness and workplace skill development.

Student feedback on these cocurricular PD workshops can also provide a mechanism to test student reactions to new ideas for courses before extensive resources are deployed to run a full course. For example, the fact that students see applying skills such as photo editing as relevant to their career in business prompted discussions about whether such skills sets should be offered as part of the core business curriculum or at least as an elective. Feedback from these workshops continues to prompt discussions at the college level around why students think certain topics are valuable and how this information can assist with curriculum planning.

Another important approach we took in implementing cocurricular PD workshops was to incorporate the workshops into a formal governance structure. Without support from senior leadership and a governance structure that included an oversight committee, we would not have been able to establish legitimacy for these workshops. Having an oversight committee with senior leaders ensured that we could manage the process of designing and implementing the workshops. It also meant we could strategize effectively about how to market and promote the workshops to faculty and students. For example, the committee decided that faculty and staff should be made to feel welcome at all workshops without any pressure to attend. We decided on various mechanisms to communicate this message which included a carefully crafted Dean’s message, an e-mail from the director of the initiative and a presentation at faculty council. Last, as discussed above, having an oversight committee facilitated discussion about feedback from students about what they value.

The idea of ensuring faculty and staff were invited into the process was partly so they could witness the learning themselves from these courses. We hoped that this would promote discussion about whether certain topics should be included in courses. From this experience, we discovered that one of the benefits of cocurricular learning is that it allows business schools to examine what is being taught in courses in a nonthreatening manner because faculty are not being asked to change course but instead are being asked how workshops may augment the learning in their courses.

Another positive outcome that we witnessed when implementing these workshops was bridging the gap between faculty and staff. Workshops were attended at times by both faculty and staff, which fostered an inclusive culture where faculty, staff, and students were taking part as equals in the workshops. We also found that, while some experts were recruited from outside the college, several internal experts (faculty and staff) were able to offer many of the courses. In one case, one of the information technology staff delivered the digital photo editing workshop, which further assisted with breaking down the barrier between faculty and staff by offering staff a new level of legitimacy by recognizing their expertise. Our experience from having staff lead workshops was that it fostered respect for the expertise staff bring in the same way faculty earn respect when presenting their research. We feel that this experience benefitted the relationship between faculty and staff and our overall culture.

Conclusion

Overall, by examining student perceptions, we can conclude that cocurricular PD workshops are an effective and innovative tool for schools to use when meeting the call to be more responsive to, and accountable for, student success in the professional world. We have outlined how business schools have struggled for decades to accurately teach students the skills they will need in their careers. While we have only offered a few examples of cocurricular PD workshops, we hope we have shown how these types of workshops can provide an additional learning approach that bridges the gap between students and their future careers. This professional knowledge—how to succeed in the professional world—is difficult to transfer to students in traditional college courses. Cocurricular workshops can be one positive step toward addressing the gap between the competencies that are potentially still missing in business curricula today.

Our experience suggests that cocurricular workshops also offer students an experiential opportunity to learn skills without the pressure of grades, much like the professional workshops people attend into their careers. Student input and feedback is integral to both designing workshop topics that students feel will add value to their careers and for discussions about potential curriculum changes. Such discussions are only possible if a college is willing to integrate the planning and discussion of the workshops into formal governance structure (e.g., committees) within the college. In our experience, these workshops are an excellent tool for breaking down barriers between faculty, staff, and students because all attend these workshops as equals with a focus on life-long learning in the pursuit of knowledge.