Teaching for Implementation: Designing Negotiation Curricula to Maximize Long-Term Learning

Abstract

Most negotiation students – and their instructors – aspire to develop negotiation skills that they can transfer to real-world contexts beyond the classroom. Instructors can maximize the likelihood of long-term learning through transfer-oriented curriculum design. Curriculum design elements likely to support lasting and flexible learning include (1) articulation of clear, performance-oriented goals; (2) careful selection of a range of learning activities that promote schema development and adjustment, activities that promote behavioral skill development, and activities that reinforce explicit theoretical understanding; (3) provision of multiple opportunities for constructive feedback from a variety of sources, and (4) the facilitation of self-reflection and meta-cognition.

Keywords: negotiation, curriculum design, adult learning, adult education, schemas, learning transfer

JEL Classification: I20, J53, K00, K10, K49