Traditional academic testing is an established practice to measure what students have gained from the stated course objectives. Those types of tests are a reflection of what the instructor feels is important or what the instructor told the students to retain and memorize. Where is the value of this ritual for the student? Where is the value to the bank that is making the investment in the individual’s development?
GSBC’s Experience & Action Journal
At the 2024 GSBC Annual School Session, we piloted an initiative for first-year students to cultivate what the individual learned and challenged the students to consider how to apply their takeaways to their organization. We then encouraged them to create actions items for development. At the start of the session, the students were granted access to a digital workbook, which introduced GSBC’s Experience and Action Journal. The Journal provides the students with the proper prompts which were unique to each of their courses. The prompts assist the students in reflecting on what they learned that was important to them.
Here are notable quotes from first-year students’ Experience and Action Journals:.
“Coaching takes listening. It is very difficult not to immediately move to solutions.”
“Empowered to take alignment of mission, vision and values back to the bank. Returning from GSBC ‘fired up’ to inspire the bank to regularly visit and embody them.”
“Need to learn more about lender liability and how the bank manages the risk.”
“My area of focus…is cash management. I need to continue strengthening my understanding of the laws and regulations around cash management services such as wire transfers, ACH and check fraud.”
“Reversing the direction from tech decision making that suits the core to tech decision making that suits the customer.”
“Would like to better understand risk assessment process and the corporate governance process.”
“Several strong C&I lenders in my group. They had very different ways of analyzing the credit than I had been exposed to.”
“Nice to be in a collaborative group where ideas from multiple backgrounds came together to form one solution.”
“Want to use this model as a quarterly training in the bank based on actual loans.”
Why the Shift from Traditional Assessments
Students work on the Journal throughout the school session and are encouraged to discuss the prompts with classmates and their assigned peer group. This guidance increases the number of takeaways and development ideas.
With GSBC’s Experience and Action Journal, there is no “right” or “wrong” answer. Journals are not graded, but they go through a “completeness” check. The value is the opportunity for the student to discern what was learned and how to apply it to the institution. This is very much an action driven approach.
Conversations with the CEO
The final section of the Journal asks students to identify three things to discuss with their organization’s CEO. This tees up an opportunity to engage executive management in the student’s education. Here are a few notable conversation starters from students’ journals:
“Better understand expectations for level of capital and why the bank’s is high.”
“Appetite for understanding the bank’s strategic plan and how to get involved.”
“Learn more about succession planning and how current and future leaders can work together towards a common goal.”
“ALM and how he goes through the decision process of making changes at the bank.”
“What ways has senior management started to address and plan for up-and-coming Gen Z, young millennial banking styles/desires?”
This type of engagement is fundamental for the student’s development and insightful for the organization as it identifies its future leaders. The key advantage to educating working professionals is that they come with experience and return to a functioning organization. This level of model presents a valuable opportunity to allow students to share experiences, learn from each other and engage in their organization when they return.