Constructivist Pedagogy For The Business Communication Classroom

Abstract

Business education and learning has become formidable and challenging over the last few years. A traditional learning environment is bereft of active learning where students only try to memorise terms and concepts and is unable to apply them to the real corporate world. It was found in the business communication classes that students fail to comprehend basic business terminology and communication practices and concepts related to organizational administration and functioning. In such a state of nescience, there was a need to enable the students to maximise learning through knowledge construction in authentic environments that employs the context in which learning is relevant. A suitable teaching method which needs to be dependant on variables such as target audience and content (Gulbahar, 2006) was designed for the business communication classroom that undergrids the theory of constructivism (Piaget, 1963). Constructivism lends to learning that is action-based where learners construe or make interpretations of their world through interactions in the real-world. Students were actively engaged in making sense of different concepts and terms through workplace interactions and observations. This paper therefore describes an example that builds a dichotomy between knowledge and “learning by doing” which was integrated into the business communication curricula in a tertiary educational system of Oman. Qualitative paradigms, such as semi-structured interviews with students, employee feedback, student portfolios were used to evaluate student’s cognitive domain.