Management Education

A new model for management education will have to be forged for various reasons mainly to be able to educate professionals for success in an environment that is fast-paced, constantly changing, culturally diverse, technologically dependent, and media influenced. Traditional models are ineffective in educating, teaching skills and concepts for leadership within actual work environments.

The American Association of School Administrators offers the following new definitions for the 21st century:
1) Schools - Schools will go “from ‘buildings’ to nerve centers, with walls that are porous and transparent, connecting teachers, students and the community to the wealth of knowledge that exists in the world.”
2) Teacher - From primary role as a dispenser of information to orchestrator of learning and helping students turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom.
3) Learner - "In the past a learner was a young person who went to school, spent a specified amount of time in certain courses, received passing grades and graduated. [1]

Most common traditional learning methods used in management education provide learning experiences that are inadequate. To make them satisfactory we will have to make changes such as to start using teaching methods that challenge all students, forces them to learn to work both independently and interdependently. Sometimes students are collaborating with people around the world in various projects therefore will have to learn to work dependently as well.
As for the curriculum, it should not be textbook based but thematic and project-based. Skills and content are not taught as an end in themselves, but students learn them through their research and application in their projects. Textbooks, if they have them, are just one of many resources.
Students should use the technological and multimedia tools that are available to them now to design and produce web sites, television shows, radio shows, mini-documentaries, oral histories, and even mini-films.
A management course should be created in a way for a student to be able to express their view about important issues. They should be given the opportunity to create projects using multimedia and deliver these products to real-world audiences. In this way students would realize that they may be able to make a difference in the world in the future. They learn what it is to be a contributing citizen, and carry these citizenship skills later in their lives.

[1] http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/What_is_21st_Century_Education.htm