Brain Food
MGT 3300: “A Management Approach to Organizational Behavior” is one of eight courses that Tameka Vasquez included in her article on “Courses that feed your brain” published on October 5, 2009, in The Ticker, Baruch College’s student newspaper.
Ms. Vasquez says that students “find themselves especially attentive, although it is required for most of them.”
My students taking MGT 3300 are attentive, engaged, and eager to learn as much as they can. One student had to very reluctantly withdraw from the class after he found out he would not get credit for taking the class since it was outside his major. He complimented me on being ”humble and cooperative”—words that I will remember.
“I love your lectures” wrote one of my students included in an e-mail to me. “I love this class,” commented another student who is being challenged to demonstrate her public speaking abilities.
It’s rewarding as a member of the faculty at the Zicklin School of Business within Baruch College to hear these words. What is more rewarding is to see the growth of my students on their diet of ”brain food.”
Why are students so engaged? The topics resonant with their own experiences of working at retail shops, financial services companies, pharmacies, food stores, etc. Topics, as Ms. Vasquez points out, which include ”individual attributes, workforce diversity, motivation, leadership, organizational culture and organizational change.” Topics that students know learning these will benefit them on every part of their career path.
Mine is an interactive class. The technology in the classroom is limited to a PC, a projector and access to the internet that I use. The interactivity comes from conversations, comments, interchanges of ideas.
There are 31 students in my class but during each one-hour fifteen-minute session I call on each person at least once. I want to hear their voices, I want to understand what they know and think about a topic, I want to share my relevant experiences and I want to learn from their experiences.
A diet of “brain food” is good for us all.