The way we teach today’s students needs to change if we’re to help them to solve tomorrow's problems.

The way we teach today’s students needs to change if we’re to help them to solve tomorrow's problems.?

Let me explain.

A business school is a mind gym

I believe that going to business school is like joining a gym; you’ve got to sweat to get results. Attending a gym won’t make you fitter if all you do is sit drinking cappuccino in the café whilst watching other people exercise.??It’s the same with business school: you’re not there to hone your skills in cut-and-paste. Downloading model answers doesn’t make you smarter. Exercising the brain ‘muscle’ is what matters, and that requires commitment and effort.?

I love creating pedagogical interventions that makes it impossible for my students to stare at the artwork in their coffee froth expecting to get smarter simply by being in the presence smart people. Creating something that has exactly the right level of challenge to make it fun, difficult, accessible and rewarding to engage in is what makes me run to work in the morning.

Why case-study teaching doesn't often work

As an MBA student I coined the phrase ‘club 25’ since I found myself digging through 25-page case studies that were 25 years old.??For instance, I was taught using the ‘Shouldice Hospital’ case which was written when I was four years old. The updated version of the case (2004) is still used. Let’s be honest, a first-year undergrad would struggle to understand the relevance of a case written the year she was born about a boutique hospital in Ontario. Yet many of the most popular operations management cases were written before the majority of undergraduates were born.?

This experience meant that when I became a professor, I was acutely aware of the issues faced by students: the business world moved on and many of the cases gave answers to problems that were solutionised 25 years ago. I should say that I am not against case teaching per-se; it has many benefits. Case teaching creates interactivity and discussion, promotes group working, and facilitates learning-by-doing. However, I felt that my business school had become a pedagogical monoculture and that case-based learning had crowded out other approaches to teaching.?

A while back I was asked to teach the ‘Kristin’s cookies’ case which was written in 1990. Whilst I was thinking about how to run my class, I lazily typed ‘Kristin’s cookies case solution’ into google and was served up over 2,5 million results. It left me wondering how many students would methodically work out a solution, when there was a SlideShare version waiting for them? I need to be honest and say that I used one of the many case answers available online to structure my debrief. I did so in the knowledge that my students would probably be accessing the same resources to present ‘their’ solution. It left me wondering who was kidding who?

The innovation engine kicks into life

Cognisant of the limitations of case-based teaching, when I joined faculty at Warwick Business School, I focussed on developing innovative pedagogical approaches. Looking back, I was driven by the desire to provide opportunities for students to excel and to be rewarded for hard work. I wanted to lace my teaching with hidden ‘a-ha!’ moments which would widen my students’ eyes with delight when they found them. Think of hidden Easter Eggs in the world of computer gaming; that’s what I wanted them to discover. I wanted them to understand that the business world is complex and lacks clear-cut model answers that can be downloaded from the web. Rather that management is a deliciously messy world where solutions to tricky problems are often politically contested and socially constructed.?

I remember clearly sitting in departmental meetings with colleagues, none of whom wanted to teach project management since it was irrelevant to their research and perceived as rather dirty. Having worked as a project manager, delivering multi-million-pound IT systems, my eyes lit up – all I could think of was the opportunity it gave me to innovate and create something awesome.

I was the first person at Warwick University to create a pedagogical app that ran on a smart phone – for which I was presented with a ‘Teaching Excellence’??award. I was also the first to use podcasts. I needed access to the University’s education account to upload them for access via the Apple eco-system. I still remember being told by the University’s marketing team that I had to stop making podcasts of my lectures, since they wanted the channel for their exclusive use. My content – whole lecture courses in project management – wasn’t what they wanted or needed. It took 15 years and a pandemic for the university to realise that uploaded content which students could view remotely was a good thing.

Changing lives, challenging minds

Over the years, I was fortunate enough to receive many ‘outstanding teacher’ awards at Warwick for my work. Since then, I have won ‘Professor of the Year’ at Hult International Business School and have a track record of high student feedback at the 20 or so schools I have taught at. Whilst it is nice to receive these awards, what continues to motivate me is not the external validation but rather the belief that I can change lives and challenge minds through teaching.

I’ve created many process improvement games and repurposed existing ideas to make them relevant to students undertaking business school degrees. One game won me the ‘Teaching Innovation Award’ at the European Operations Management Association conference. It’s not often that you get to stand in a room in front of 600 of your peers to be told that your work was the best there. I’ve also been presented with two “Highly Commended” awards for my work at the same conference, much to my frustration!?

My latest offering is ‘Capatonia’, a game that allows students to experience what it is like to provide electricity to a grid which is transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables. It was co-developed with industry partners and allows participants to understand the challenges of saving our planet.?

I like it because it is highly relevant and engaging. To do well requires smart thinking, focus and hard work. I also like it since it’s not possible to download a model answer. Competing against numerous other teams, you need to respond to the events as they unfold, meaning each game is different. I believe that it is this kind of teaching which will educate tomorrow’s leaders and will create graduates who are able to solve tomorrow’s problems.

Coffee anyone?

If you’ve read this far, connect with me via a message; I’m curious about you how this article landed. Maybe we can meet over coffee? I promise to have an honest chat about how to make education awesome, rather than lick froth off my fingers whilst watching you do all the work.