If you are a professor reading this you might be thinking, am I really going to take advice from a student? I would advise taking this advice, it’s like showing the car to a mechanic and telling it something is wrong. He would have to do so much searching and diagnostics to figure out the problem when the mechanic could have simply asked the end user what problems they were experiencing.

There are many people out there that believe in this conspiracy theory. That school systems are set up the way they are to create followers and workers. That is complete rubbish, no institution wants to damage and destroy creativity. It simply is a consequence of the way our classrooms are set up to accept the large population that we live in today. Professors wake into the classroom with their plan, their subjects to cover, their way of running a class, their standards, their grading scale, so on and so forth. Notice a pattern, professors set up classes to their judgment of standards and ethics. Disregarding what environment would be suitable for students. The price to pay for that is a classroom that few people do well in and the rest of students need to conform and adapt to the way of the class to succeed. This is what people mean when they say that college “turns you into someone you are not”. You constantly find yourself adapting and forming into different habits to succeed. It’s also why middle schools and high schools are blamed for killing creativity. They don’t intentionally kill creativity, but simply the way the classroom is set up makes it difficult for students to express their creativity. There is no secret organization that plans for kids to lose creativity and becomes followers in the workplace.

So how should we as instructors change the classroom to accommodate for the creativity of students? It’s simple, we do absolutely nothing. Let the students do it themselves.

We teach students information about various subjects and numerous scenarios of improbable situations when the biggest thing we should be focusing on is group work.

Having group work will create synergy when 2+2=5. Students working together will help bring their own creativity into the workplace and will allow them to learn the way they want to.

A vision of the classroom. Encourage group work. Have students work in a group of 4-5 students. More than 5 and you will end up with a group that creates a distracting environment. Too little and you overload students with work to do. On the first day of class. Inform the students about their group. Don’t let students chose their own group as it will cause favoritism within a group. After assigning groups on the first day, have students write down at least 12 things that they think an effective group must have to succeed. Things like communication, respect towards group members, completing workload, deadlines, making it to meetings, etc. And five things that group members have experienced working with previous groups that lead to the demise of groups, or things that need to be avoided to create an effective group. After they write down 12 good things and 5 bad things about groups. Have the groups pass their paper down to the next group and the next group should cross off 3 things from the list of 12 that they think isn’t that important that a group needs. After they do that, have them pass it on to the next group, where they will also knock three things off, and pass it to the next group until it reaches the original group who created the document. There should be three things that a group needs to be successful and five things groups need to avoid. Have the students discuss what they have been left with and how they are going to make sure that they abide by the three positive things groups need and five things to avoid. And have students in the group sign the paper and hand it in. By doing this you are gelling the group together, they will introduce themselves to each other and reach a consensus that everyone agrees on.

A lecture is up to you to do, I recommend avoiding teaching off PowerPoint slides, and instead using PowerPoint very lightly with explanations of terms. But all practice should be done on the board. A couple of in-depth problems should be plenty. Do them on the board while asking for students input. The last 15-20 minutes should be for the students. Give them one big problem that encompasses what the entire lecture was about. Have them work on the problem in their groups. Groups cannot leave the classroom until the problem is completed.

Homework should be required. Inform students of the possible resources they must complete homework. This includes but isn’t limited to learning labs, email (talk about this further throughout the blog), asking teammates, etc. Don’t make homework to long, because students will get annoyed and lose concentration as well as motivation in the classroom.

This is a good opportunity to teach students on how to send formal emails. Make it clear that badly written emails will be subject to public exposure where you will highlight what is wrong with the email. You do not need to teach students how to write a professional email. The fear that you implanted in them with exposing badly written emails will force them to send formal and clear emails.

Don’t call them absent days, treat the students like the professionals they are going to become. Call them “vacation days”, just like the vacation days that you are eligible from in the workplace. If a student needs a vacation day, they must provide notice for you at least 1 hour prior to beginning of class. This excludes test days as those should be solidified. Any student that must miss a test because of something planned should be docked 20% or ineligible to take the test. It’s the students responsibility to plan ahead and be aware of upcoming significant dates.

There should be 4-5 projects throughout the semester (same amount as projects as members in a group). Every project a new member of the group can become a leader. Every member must go through a leader phase to demonstrate leadership qualities. Leader shouldn’t be responsible for the technical portion of the project, but should steer the group towards the right path and ensure the group is on course to completing the assignment as well as reducing and picking up the slack the members might fall short of.

Obviously, some teams will fail, students will separate, and conflict will occur. The group needs to overcome that and you as the instructor or CEO of the classroom should hold mandatory monthly meetings with the group where they can publicly talk about any complains, progress of projects, and direction the team is going to. Also, give them the right to anonymously report group members who are not performing up to par and hold private sessions with that individual. If the individual does not listen after both warnings, consider talking to the group about potentially dropping this student from the group. This obviously will see the student miss team projects and will cost them points throughout the class.

The result is this class should simulate the workplace. And that’s what you want in a course like accounting. Obviously if you are in a different field of study. I recommend taking this advice and applying that to your own industry. Whether it be Chemistry, Biology, Statistics, math. The lot. It would be far too impractical to create scenarios for each subject as I am not on the same level with different subjects as accounting. However, I can give you the tools to prepare for these classes no matter what the subject might be. I would like to hear from instructors who take this advice and ways that they change it in order to unleash the full potential in the class. Remember, this class should be revolved around students and not what is more convenient for instructors. But the intrinsic rewards of knowing more students are passing and understanding the material will more than compensate for that. And remember instructors, you rock!