I found my family!!
Amongst various tools used at Cranfield, the most often talked about is the Learning team. A very carefully crafted combination of individuals that bring diversity in their background, education, age and career, the learning team is the most critical step taken by the school towards the education of each student. And to top it all, each learning team has an assigned tutor.
At 0900 hours on this Tuesday morning, I found my new family. Andrew Cox (Britain), Charlie Sincock (Britain), Jumoeke Omotesho (Nigeria), Mahesh Raghavan (India), Maria Herrera (Columbia) and myself. And the diversity reflected in the background as well – besides me, we had a Marketing expert, an ex-Army Captain, a Project Manager, an Oil Industry maintenance specialist and an IT expert from banking industry. Our lives on earth so have ranged from 25 to 39 years long and together we speak over 7 different languages. During our first team meeting, we got to know some facets of each others’ personality.
Then the air crash happened!!!!
In a simulation exercise, our plane crashed in a desert somewhere in Africa but with Cranfield’s amazing grace, all six of us passengers (like other learning teams) survived. The pilots didn’t. We had 15 different items as part of salvage and had to choose our priority list. So off we went again to our syndicate rooms (dedicated places for each team to hold their meetings) to finalize the list. And it was during this discussion that it suddenly struck me – my learning had already begun. It was interesting to hear each of us share his/her reasoning as to why one item should be prioritized over the other. Despite having an expert in our team (the Army captain), we did not simply follow his list. Instead, to my surprise, I found him a patient listener.
All teams re-assembled in the lecture room post discussions and then we were shown the video of what a specialist from the forces had to say. It was mighty interesting to hear his explanations and priority list. The game plan was simple – first each individual wrote down his/her own priority list, then the team’s and finally compared them with the recommendations of the specialist. Well, the idea of the exercise was not to make us specialists in desert survival, but to highlight how a team operates better than any one individual.
Post lunch and administrative briefing on laptops, we then went through quick lectures by Richard Kwiatkowski on learning teams and by Ruth Bender on an introduction to Case studies. As one keeps meeting the equally diverse faculty, one can’t help being amazed at the resources the Cranfield SOM has. And I felt proud as I thought – “I shall be learning from such a rich pool of resources. It is bound to be a magnificent experience for me!!”
At 0900 hours on this Tuesday morning, I found my new family. Andrew Cox (Britain), Charlie Sincock (Britain), Jumoeke Omotesho (Nigeria), Mahesh Raghavan (India), Maria Herrera (Columbia) and myself. And the diversity reflected in the background as well – besides me, we had a Marketing expert, an ex-Army Captain, a Project Manager, an Oil Industry maintenance specialist and an IT expert from banking industry. Our lives on earth so have ranged from 25 to 39 years long and together we speak over 7 different languages. During our first team meeting, we got to know some facets of each others’ personality.
Then the air crash happened!!!!
In a simulation exercise, our plane crashed in a desert somewhere in Africa but with Cranfield’s amazing grace, all six of us passengers (like other learning teams) survived. The pilots didn’t. We had 15 different items as part of salvage and had to choose our priority list. So off we went again to our syndicate rooms (dedicated places for each team to hold their meetings) to finalize the list. And it was during this discussion that it suddenly struck me – my learning had already begun. It was interesting to hear each of us share his/her reasoning as to why one item should be prioritized over the other. Despite having an expert in our team (the Army captain), we did not simply follow his list. Instead, to my surprise, I found him a patient listener.
All teams re-assembled in the lecture room post discussions and then we were shown the video of what a specialist from the forces had to say. It was mighty interesting to hear his explanations and priority list. The game plan was simple – first each individual wrote down his/her own priority list, then the team’s and finally compared them with the recommendations of the specialist. Well, the idea of the exercise was not to make us specialists in desert survival, but to highlight how a team operates better than any one individual.
Post lunch and administrative briefing on laptops, we then went through quick lectures by Richard Kwiatkowski on learning teams and by Ruth Bender on an introduction to Case studies. As one keeps meeting the equally diverse faculty, one can’t help being amazed at the resources the Cranfield SOM has. And I felt proud as I thought – “I shall be learning from such a rich pool of resources. It is bound to be a magnificent experience for me!!”
posted by Sandeep Gupta at
9:10 pm
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