Effectively Serving The Needs Of Todays Business Student: The Product Life Cycle Approach To Class Organization

Abstract

We illustrate a class organization process utilizing the concept of the Product Life Cycle to meet the needs of todays millennial student. In the Introduction stage of a business course, professors need to build structure to encourage commitment. In the Growth stage, professors need to promote the structure through multiple, brief activities that can keep the attention of business students. In the Mature stage, professors need to use the structure to stabilize engagement levels and learning rates but be willing to make adjustments to prevent apathy in the course. Finally, in the Decline stage, professors need to dismantle the structure while allowing opportunities for utilizing materials for future business courses and addressing todays millennial students need for achievement and sense of entitlement with the course grades. The value is that this paper illustrates an approach to aid professors in organizing business courses that can be utilized in a variety of courses to better serve millennial students.