Learning from Our Students: Teaching Strategies for MBA Professors

BEING AN MBA INSTRUCTOR can be a satisfying as well as a frustrat-ing experience, but instructors can avoid becoming discouraged if they know and apply some important teaching strategies. By learning and adapting during a combined 30 years of teaching MBA students, we admit that we have faced significant challenges and have had to adjust to each MBA class that we have taught. By teaching, observing, and lis-tening to MBA students, however, we believe that our students have taught us how to be better teachers. We offer four teaching strategies that have made the difference between success and failure in the MBA classroom. Learning From Our Students For many readers, the concept of learning from students may be a sur-prise. Sometimes, it is painful: We have felt that we were just “hanging on and surviving the experience. ” This was in part because the caliber of our students and the organizations they represent combine to pro-duce individuals who are actually engaged in a real-world application of what we provide them. Learning by doing creates a sort of testing lab-oratory for class information that provides us with immediate feed-back. It is our reaction to these trials that can enhance learning by both the student and professor (Barker, 1995). At other times, the learning was enriching and offered the possibil-ity for professional growth. We will be the first to admit that we have been humbled because of what our students have taught us and the realization that we still have much to learn as professors. Some of the ideas that we have gained relate to general suggestions concerning atti-tude, classroom demeanor, and the importance of instructor prepara-tion. More specifically, our teaching experience has taught us what to include in course outlines and has also provided us with strategies issues related to grading (Stowers & Barker, 2003). In addition, we have learned effective ways to schedule classes and activities and to dissemi-nate materials. Finally, we have developed approaches to deal with the numerous challenges we have encountered.