For our shortened week this week, Nikolai and I challenged our students to create as much value as possible using on post-it notes during a one hour stretch of time. Some may have taken the meaning of only using post-it notes more literally than others …. And over the next few days, you can see each student recount his or her experience working through the project on our class blog.
More interesting for me was the student reaction to this assignment. You can watch the slides here to see how it was announced because it was just like the slides tell it.
First, confusion. Then, some other emotion ranging from anger to disbelief to not caring. But then you started to see everyone’s mind starting to fly. And by the time Nikolai and I walked out of the classroom, all of the groups were developing ideas left and right.
After the assignment was complete, we took video documenting the students initial responses to the assignment.
Possibly more interesting were some of the students’ worst ideas before they chose the one they did ….
From an instructor’s point of view, I think this assignment worked out great. To understand why, we need to take a step back to delve farther into the structure of the course.
First, up until this point, we have been traditional learning methods to get everyone on relatively the same platform from which to learn. Our first lectures include: an introduction to the course, lessons on writing and presenting, and a primer of the internet and social media.
Moving forward, students will be learning from a series of live cases taught by real-world professionals who are learning to deal with the forces of the internet and globalization everyday. Our challenge to them is to question popular thought and to read between the lines – to see the forces at work and see how they can leverage their creativity to create new and innovative solution.
This project was designed to get those creative and problem solving mindsets moving – pushing them out of the traditional learning mindset.
Second, this class is almost entirely group driven. During the semester the students have to complete two different group projects designed to provide opportunities for hands-on learning by doing.
This assignment forced group interaction and assimilation very quickly and gave the students the opportunity to learn their group’s dynamics in a fun setting.
So what did everyone learn? Did they learn? Anyone think this project was crazy? I’ll let students have the final word …
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