When I first transferred to OSU in the spring of 2023 I took a flute class that I loved and found extremely beneficial. There were a lot of aspects to this course that created an effective learning environment. The instructor tied in a lot of meaning to why playing the flute could be beneficial to one’s life. He made material fun and digestible in a progressive manner, allowing us to start small and work our way up, practicing each little part. There was constant feedback which helped to gain consistency and confidence in my playing. This class was extremely engaging and effective. I feel like I just about became an expert at the flute by the time I was done with the class. There was a lot of hands-on learning that took place, I was able to make adjustments on the spot as feedback came in. Additionally, I was able to take this class with friends which created a sort of collaborative work environment as we were able to encourage each other and help each other out.
In contrast, I also took a sociology class that same term that felt a lot less effective. It’s not that the content wasn’t interesting, it’s just everything felt so dense and rushed. The instructor mainly used PowerPoint presentations, that they read off, and then would assign a lot of reading assignments. There wasn’t any direct application going on with the material we were learning. The information wasn’t necessarily put into a digestible manner either It was just kind of thrown at us. Additionally, assignments and tests took a long time to be graded so it was hard to get feedback on things we might need to improve on as we were going through the class.
When looking at the article The Making of a UPS Driver and their approach to training we can identify why my flute class was considerably more beneficial when compared to my sociology class. My flute class shared similarities to UPS’s hands-on earning method, where active practice and feedback was emphasized.
Sources:
Swift, M. (n.d.). W6 Lecture 1 – Developing Training Programs. HRM. MGMT.
Hira, N. (2007). The Making of a UPS Driver. CNN
