Teaching Tension:
Shaping You, Shaping Us
In university teaching two beneficial teaching principles stand in apparent tension. Supporting formation of professional identities is great to encourage ownership of the material. Meanwhile, developing a learning community is great to encourage peer learning. The more individual focus is emphasised, the harder it is to cultivate a learning community. I am thinking of ways to resolve this opposition.
A great principle for university teaching is to work with the notion of emerging identities: shaping you. Who do you want to be professionally? Business schools open a doors to a lot of career pathways. In courses like innovation management (my class), different participants can take different learnings depending on, for example, whether they see themselves as the creative brain, the regimented executor, or the cold-blooded analyst. If students bring in their own project ideas in class, that helps to encourage formation of identities because they can bring the material under the umbrella of for example, the family business whose problems they want to solve. The principle of formation of professional identities is great because it can encourage involvement through ownership of the topics. That is on one hand.
Another great principle for university teaching taking steps to create a learning community: shaping us. Rather than a one-to-many broadcast from the teacher to the mass of students, using the shared vocabulary from the material, through activities like peer-feedback to work on a joint project. Having a client company for the class helps formation of a learning community because everyone can learn a bit about the industry, context, and problems. Conscious development of a learning community is great because participants can learn from each other and get engaged from the shared effort. That is on the other hand.
I am looking for models to resolve this paradox because I believe there are ways other than choosing one over the other. Asking what role do you play in a common project seems like one way to go about it.