School of Business Helps Develop Participant-Centered Learning Techniques Through Faculty Training Across Cairo

KCC organized and hosted a Faculty workshop titled “participant-centered learning: the Harvard way” in October. The center invited professors from different public and private universities, including Cairo University, Ain-Shams University, British University in Egypt, Misr International University and the American University in Cairo. The workshop aimed to improve and develop participants’ teaching styles and help them explore innovative teaching methods. This is part of KCC and the school’s pledge of achieving real transformation and creating a tangible impact on society. 

Aliaa Bassiouny, associate professor of finance and Nellie El-Enany, assistant professor of organization studies who both attended the Harvard Business School Global Colloquium on Participant-Centered Learning (HBS GloColl) during Summer 2018, delivered this workshop. Bassiouny and El-Enany shared lessons learned from Harvard about participant-centered learning and case-based teaching methods. They also shared their personal teaching experiences in reflection on Harvard’s training. The workshop was interactive; where participants were given different reading exercises and requested to reflect upon through role – play and group discussions.

14 faculty members from different universities attended the workshop. Participants came from diverse business disciplines including management, marketing, international business, finance, accounting, operations management, human resources and management of information systems.

Feedback was generally positive; with a lot of the faculty members highlighting the added value of the workshop and how more participant-centered learning techniques should be integrated into the teaching methodologies. They especially commented on how beneficial it was to learn more about case studies’ usage and showed interest in attending more intensive training about case usage and case development.

The event was viewed as "A fruitful workshop delivered in a participant-centered learning style.” According to Ola Mamdouh, assistant lecturer of operations management, British University in Egypt, who also commented that “using cases as a teaching method empowers the student and gives him a sense of ownership of their learning." while Neveen Ahmed, assistant professor of finance, AUC School of Business, dubbed it, "an excellent workshop that provided us with top-notch training in case studies.”  

“This workshop is one of the many activities KCC is embarking on to foster the culture of case studies be it case usage or case development,” Engy Magdy, KCC assistant director.