Beyond Simulation: Treating the Classroom as an Organization

Abstract

No matter what style of teaching is used, the classroom is an organization. An in other organizations, goals must be set, decisions made, work allocated, and members recruited, motivated, controlled and rewarded.Whether or not the instructor chooses to make explicit the parallels between other organizations and the classroom, issues such as leadership, structure and control still must be handled and how they are handled will have great impact. Students probably learn as much from our classroom managerial behavior as they do from the content of our teaching. Because of the correspondence between what we teach and how we teach, we have a marvelous opportunity to exploit the organizational parallels and illustrate our subject matter with our behavior.

Using Student-Centered Cases in the Classroom

“…Like others who argue for treating the classroom as an organization (Cohen, 1976), we stress that the class should serve as a learning laboratory in which students and faculty alike can practice improving leadership skills. We are aware of the challenges of this approach and have also found that students sometimes experience it as disorienting (see Mezoff, Cohen, & Bradford, 1979).…”

The Shadow Side of Teaching Classroom as Organization

“…Essentially, CAO creates a functioning organization; every student is an active participant with responsibilities that reach across the organization and the professor becomes the senior manager. As described by Cohen (1976), the objective of the CAO: …is not to simulate an organization, but rather to create genuine organizational issues for students, to put them in the position of an organizational member who must deal with such problems as: how does work get allocated; how does one work with others who bring different expertise to tasks; how does one influence and motivate subordinates, peers and superiors; how does one cope with ambiguity in solving difficult tasks which do not have any obviously correct single answer; how can disagreements among coworkers be resolved; and how will decisions be made. (p. 14) While proponents of CAO indicate they would never go back to a teacher-centered classroom, our recent experience in the CAO community suggests it has not become widely adopted since its initial description by Cohen (1976).…”

“…CAO is best described as an heutagogy: "the study of self-determined learning … an attempt to challenge some ideas about teaching and learning that still prevail in teacher centered learning" (Hase & Kenyon, 2000). Different models of CAO vary in the degree to which students are responsible for content delivery, classroom facilitation, and assessment of work (e.g., Balke, 1981;Bright et al, 2016;Cohen 1976;Cotton 1976;Goltz, 1992;Lawrence, 1992; McDonald, Spence & Sheehan 2011; Oddou, 1987;Romme, 2003;Sheehan, McDonald & Spence, 2009). Learning emerges from students engaging in Kolb's (1984) The alluring promise of CAO, it's "persona", is transformative learning (Mezirow, 1994) and student engagement.…”

Constructivist Meta-practices: When Students Design Activities, Lead Others, and Assess Peers

“…Other CAO designs arrange students into a formal organizational hierarchy with managers and subordinates. Student managers grade their subordinates, who in turn grade the managers (Cohen, 1976;Gardner & Larson, 1988).…”