Prayer: a transformative teaching and learning technique in project management
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Date
2015
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to report the perceptions of students taking the Master of
Project Management Programme at the University of Botswana regarding their transformative
experience called “prayer”. The term “prayer” was coined because of it being the first learning activity
of the lecture; and at a conceptual level, to convey reverence towards the gift of learning. “Prayer” as
a learning and teaching technique involves each student identifying material containing project
management concepts or issues which they present to a class of peers using any appropriate means
followed by discussion and peer assessment. The material presented may be an article from
a newspaper or magazine. It may be a personal documented story or a story told around a picture,
artefact, poster or video relating to a project management issue.
Design/methodology/approach – Students’ perceptions were obtained bymeans of a self-administered
questionnaire containing open-ended questions. Content analysis was used to analyse the responses.
Findings – The results of the study indicated that “prayer” provided students ingredients of
transformative learning. It also proved to be a worthwhile technique for inculcating some of the
graduate attributes articulated by this university and for incorporating adult learning principles.
Research limitations/implications – The technique can be used to compliment traditional
techniques in teaching and learning in project management training. The limitations of the results
are due to the self-reporting nature of the approach and the fact that the technique has been tried on
one group.
Practical implications – There is a possibility that the technique can be extended to other disciplines
such as business administration where students examine cases in the public domain to illustrate concepts
learnt in class.
Originality/value – The originality lies in its packaging of a technique the think is worth sharing
among project management educators. This is because the learning activity described engages
students simultaneously in research, review, presentation, and communication as well as reflection,
collaborative discourse and self and peer assessment.
Description
Keywords
Project management, Learner-centred pedagogy, Postgraduate education, Project leadership, Project training, Transformative learning
Citation
Joseph K. Ssegawa Daniel Kasule , (2015),"Prayer: a transformative teaching and learning technique in project management", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 8 Iss 1 pp. 177 - 197. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-06-2014-0050