What Works at Work: Six Lessons for the Classroom

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to help teaching faculty discover ways to improve the design and delivery of their courses. University faculty can learn much about the practice of teaching from their human resources development counterparts in business and industry who are responsible for designing and conducting training programs for working adults. The primary emphasis of the article is therefore directed toward specific training techniques and how they have been applied in actual training and classroom situations. The article's basic structure is organized around "lessons." Every lesson is followed by one or more suggestions for its application.T his paper is about what human resources development (HRD) and industry trainers can teach college and university faculty about the business of learning. It is a brief compendium of collected HRD wisdom that I have come across and incorporated into my teaching practices since first discovering HRD on a sabbatical leave in 1990. Since then I have read extensively in the area of training and personal development, received "train-the-trainer" training, and been on both ends of the training experience, as presenter and participant. Collectively, my HRD experiences have had a profound impact on my approach to university teaching, the essence of that impact being a paradigm shift from teacher-centered to instructor-led, student-centered learning. I have not abandoned the lecture, which prior to 1990 I used almost exclusively, but the approach I use today combines the "traditional" role of lecturer with my "new" function, that of creating optimal learning environments.The main purpose in writing this paper is to help others discover ways to improve their teaching. Consequently it is light on research and heavy on practical application. By placing the primary emphasis on specific training techniques and how they have been applied in actual training and classroom situations, the intent is to provide techniques for improving both the delivery Kim Harris is an associate professor of agribusiness management in the

A Model for Teaching, Assessment and Learning in Engineering Education for Working Adults

“…Whenever courses have face-to-face sessions between the instructors and the students, the student would engage in active learning activities. With the judicious use of project work, case studies, online quizzes, resource-linked tasks and assignments and more questioning during face-to-face sessions the program is dedicated to helping engineering students to become more independent and self-directed learners [1] [14].…”