Often, classroom teachers are asked to teach lessons and internalize them. But the real problem is if teachers do not know why they are teaching a lesson, or where the lesson originated, they cannot pivot, adapt, or tweak the lesson to meet the in-the-moment needs of the students in front of them. So, if younger and even experienced generations of…

Effective teamwork is a crucial transferrable skill for students' learning experience during their studies and future careers. Understanding the making of effective teams, how teams differ from mere groups of individuals, and the potential value and challenges of diversity for team performance is essential for students as current and future team…

In this classroom activity, students consider geographic context--features like mountains, rainforest, and rivers--in order to assess their influence on transport mode selection, speed, weight limit, and cost. Cost of transport, in turn, has significant effects on the local economy. Students will learn that people in a place must import anything…

In this classroom activity, students read about the storage and movement of plant nutrients in the hot and rainy climate near the equator. Then they use that information to evaluate six statements about forestry and farming in the Amazon rainforest. The purpose is to show that the rules that govern the movement and storage of nutrient elements are…

Studies have revealed the challenges facing management and the role the manager has with respect to facilitating team development. This exercise builds upon the knowledge a management student gains via textbook and/or classroom lecture concerning the stages of team development and offers real-world examples of the challenges facing managers when…

Few academic disciplines have undergone the academic scrutiny that history has since the end of the Second World War. A growing consensus among historians has emerged to the effect that, if history is to be revitalized, it will require recognition of the disconnect between popular and professional, as well as an embracing of innovative methods of…

This work reports on the implementation of a self-contained data-literacy exercise designed for use in undergraduate classes to help students practice data literacy skills such as interpreting and evaluating evidence and assessing arguments based on data. The exercises use already developed data-visualizations to test and develop students' ability…

Faculty often report limited student engagement in their economics courses. This deficiency makes it challenging for educators to excite students about our field, a situation that could have ripple effects in terms of the number of students who graduate as economics majors. For students, the lack of classroom engagement makes it unappealing to…

Undergraduate courses on small-group communication often cover group roles, group conflict, and conflict management styles. Although these concepts are valuable to learn, merely memorizing them does not address the practical skills students need to employ conflict management strategies when situated in group conflict. This activity provides a…

Research skills are essential for lifetime learning. Content analysis is an excellent research method to introduce and practice at the undergraduate level. Utilized by academic and industry researchers alike, content analysis involves higher order critical thinking skills for organizing and interpreting complexity. This article outlines a…

We present a case-based role-play exercise that effectively simulates a crisis students must manage. In the exercise, a farm equipment manufacturing company has decided to redirect its product line, and this change requires laying off a significant portion of its workforce. Students must grapple with the fact that a local news report will be…

Leading organizational change is a daunting aspect of leadership. However, effectively leading change enables positive individual and organizational outcomes. Herein, we present a case-based classroom exercise to teach students about organizational change, demonstrate different aspects of the change process, and teach how to overcome resistance to…

This article describes an in-class exercise that can be used when teaching zoning law to a Real Estate Law or Legal Environment of Business undergraduate course. The exercise requires students to utilize Salt Lake City's zoning code to locate the best site for a restaurant chain given certain locational and operational requirements, and to…

Motivation is a fundamental component in management and organizational behavior courses. At the same time, it can be a complicated topic for teaching and learning due to the number of popular models and theories. The activity described here is a simple and fast way to illustrate the components of two of the most important and practical motivation…

The last day of a course is often viewed as awkward, abrupt, and even antithetical to a course's aims. More often than not, prime opportunities for reflection, reinforcement, reconciliation, and closure are typically subsumed to administrative tasks and end-of-course exhaustion. This paper summarizes the scant end-of-course literature, reviews the…