I have been enrolled in an MBA program for the last few years and it\u2019s been quite a ride. One that has sparked significant growth for me personally and ultimately\u2014I hope\u2014professionally. \u201cLeading Organizational Change and Culture\u201d is my most recent and second last course in the program.<\/p>\n
During the first week of the course, my professor shared with the class that an important part of the class would be done through\u2026GROUP WORK! I was shocked! The whole program was centered around my<\/em> own individual learning, geared to my<\/em> own time as a working professional. How am I going to work together with four other people who live all over the globe? We are required to have weekly zoom meetings and create assignments as a group. Our first assignment ended up resulting in a lower grade than what I had hoped. Why? Because, in my opinion, one of my teammates didn\u2019t pull her weight!<\/p>\n I started to lament to my kids about this problem\u2026and to my surprise, they had no sympathy! Sofia basically laughed at me and said, \u201cWelcome to my world<\/em>.\u201d<\/strong><\/span> She, then, went on to quote (perhaps even a bit sarcastically) what she is sure my professor would have said to validate group work: \u201cThat\u2019s what it will be like in the real world\u201d<\/em> and \u201cIt\u2019s a global world out there and we need to be able to figure out how to collaborate.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n My experience as a student and my ensuing discussions with Sofia illuminated an ongoing challenge I know many of our students (as well as their parents) face. Our teaching and learning are moving more towards collaboration, creative problem solving, enterprising, and focusing on group communication etc. It\u2019s true\u2014most of my own work experiences in the real world come in the context of teamwork. Anything accomplished in terms of projects, change leadership, and important decisions are usually accomplished in the context of a team coming together to produce something.<\/p>\n I would suspect I am not alone.<\/p>\n Putting my parent hat on, I am, at times, frustrated by ACS\u2019 push towards a different type of learning that highly values group work. My mind moves towards thoughts like: \u201cIt\u2019s not fair that my kid is painted with the broad group brush by her teacher\u201d<\/em> or \u201cYes, it\u2019s the real world but my kid is still learning the fundamentals of life and isn\u2019t ready to \u2018confront\u2019 the laggard.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not alone here\u2013 actually I know I\u2019m not alone because I\u2019ve heard this from other parents<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n How about when we have to drive our kids all over town, so that they can meet in their groups (outside of class) only to realize that one of the members couldn\u2019t make it, so they have to do it all over again the next day! Yet\u2026somewhere in my bones, I can appreciate my children having to go through these growing pains of group work because I know they are navigating and learning important skills.<\/p>\n I also look at what students produce at Presentations of Learning (POL) nights and other exhibitions of learning and I am blown away by our kids\u2019 ingenuity and entrepreneurship! The projects they produce, and the ideas fostered are far-reaching, thoughtful, and enterprising! It sparks hope that our world will be a better place as these kids continue to grow up!<\/span><\/strong> Often, this learning is done in the context of groups.<\/p>\n So\u2026wearing all three of my hats:\u00a0 as a student in my MBA program, as an Executive Director at ACS, and as a parent who is nurturing kids through this stage of life, I am a bit torn by this whole topic. However, there is one thing that I know is crystal clear:\u00a0 working with others builds relationships, building relationships promotes community, and community is a hallmark of ACS, even with all the bumps and bruises along the way. And I believe God has His hand in it all.<\/p>\n I guess I just convinced myself\u2026bring on the group work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been enrolled in an MBA program for the last few years and it\u2019s been quite a ride. One that has sparked significant growth for me personally and ultimately\u2014I hope\u2014professionally. \u201cLeading Organizational Change and Culture\u201d is my most recent and second last course in the program. No Sympathy Here During the first week of […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":4887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-4885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-project-based-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4885"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=4885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Growing Pains<\/h2>\n
Root of It All<\/h2>\n