{"id":1474,"date":"2025-09-02T09:37:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T13:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/?p=1474"},"modified":"2025-09-04T11:13:59","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T15:13:59","slug":"why-i-stopped-starting-class-with-content-and-what-happened-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/teaching\/why-i-stopped-starting-class-with-content-and-what-happened-instead\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Stopped Starting Class with Content\u2014and What Happened Instead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facultyfocus.com\/articles\/effective-teaching-strategies\/why-i-stopped-starting-class-with-content-and-what-happened-instead\/\">Full article here<\/a>. Excerpts below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me tell you something no one wants to admit: content is boring.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There. I said it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s not that the ideas themselves aren\u2019t important\u2014it\u2019s that we\u2019ve turned teaching into a conveyor belt of information. Slide decks. Learning objectives. Case summaries. I did it for years, starting every session with the clean, structured logic of \u201cwhat we\u2019re going to cover today.\u201d And every time, I could feel it: the emotional temperature of the room dropping by a degree with each bullet point.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then one day, I threw it all out. I walked into my classroom and started with a question I didn\u2019t know the answer to.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhy do organizations love change, but hate their changemakers?\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The room blinked back at me. One student tilted their head. Another smiled. Someone raised an eyebrow. Then: silence.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in that silence?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Engagement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Paradox Effect<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That one question\u2014unresolved, unanswerable, alive\u2014did more to wake up my students than any HBR case ever had.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It turns out, paradoxes are rocket fuel for learning. They don\u2019t just activate the intellect\u2014they ignite curiosity. They create a space where both students and teachers can explore, not just explain. In&nbsp;<em>The Art of Change<\/em>, I call this the&nbsp;<em>Paradoxical Mindset Cycle<\/em>\u2014an approach that doesn\u2019t resolve contradiction, but uses it as an engine for insight.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since then, I\u2019ve started every class not with content, but with creative tension.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>..<strong>. Try This in Your Class Tomorrow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you want to test this out without overhauling your syllabus, here\u2019s a quick plug-and-play format:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>End with a return question<\/strong>: \u201cWhat\u2019s still unresolved?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Choose a paradox<\/strong>\u00a0related to your next topic. Make it messy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Write it on the board<\/strong>\u00a0as the only thing visible when students walk in.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Have students pair up and discuss<\/strong>\u00a0both sides for five minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Map responses<\/strong>\u00a0publicly\u2014no editing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Introduce the content<\/strong>\u00a0as a way to explore the tension, not solve it.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Full article here. Excerpts below. Let me tell you something no one wants to admit: content is boring.\u00a0 There. I said it. It\u2019s not that the ideas themselves aren\u2019t important\u2014it\u2019s that we\u2019ve turned teaching into a conveyor belt of information. Slide decks. Learning objectives. Case summaries. I did it for years, starting every session with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-teaching"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kathryn Byrnes","author_link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/author\/kbyrnes\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}