Dear colleagues,
Thanks to Charlie Wankel for introducing me to the discussion list. I would
like to add a few words.
I have been teaching in the business school for twenty years, with varying
'success'. In the 90s we - a group of colleagues working in the same
department - have made a move away from the more traditional teaching
practices (lecturing etc) and started to learn new ways of doing it. This
has meant a change in research, teaching and our roles as 'experts' in
relation to practicioners. In general, this move has made all these
activities more meaningful. And the students have welcomed the new practices.
Key ideas in the new mode have been the methods of shared learning,
learning by acting, learning various skills (especially interaction and
communication skills; and not only the skills of sitting still, taking
notes, reading and writing), and co-operation between teachers (vs. the
competitive individuals pattern). In terms of content, we have started to
teach (and study) 'developmental work' (practices in and approches to
organizational renewal etc). One, outworn lable for our current style of
research could be 'action research' (especially participatory action
researc), meaning that I mainly study such areas of social life in which I
am personally involved. This has naturally resulted in new ways of writing,
and to formation of new networks of collaboration.
All this is propably very familiar to many of you. I assume these trends
are rather international. As is the resistance to these trends by those who
are happy with the other institutionalized practices.
Although we are broud of our little achievements, we have also confronted
various problems. I hope this discussion list will be a place to share
experiences of these achievements and problems. I am willing to tell about
the ways in which we work, once I learn to know what are themes that you
find interesting.
To take an example of our current problems, I would like to take up one
recent experience. In a course on Organizational renewal, I am working with
the 'new methods' and students like it a lot. But when I try to combine the
methods with the expectation that the students would also learn to read and
use more critical text on management fads (e.g. BPR, TQM), they motivation
fades away. They seem to be happy to experiment with new activities but
they are not willing the go into a more fundamental questioning of what is
happening in the working life. Have you experienced similar things? How are
you working with this dilemma? Do we have to abandon some of the best
values in critical academic work in favour of entertaining the students
with new classroom practices?
I am sorry, if these questions only repeat what you have already treated in
your previous discussions. As a newcomer to the list, I have no historical
touch to you conversations. But hopefully time will cure this lack of touch...
Keijo
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Keijo Räsänen
Professor, Organization and Management
Department of Management
Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration
P.O. Box 1210, FIN-00101 Helsinki, Finland
Fax +358-9-431 38 700
Tel. +358-9-431 38 444
E-mail '
krasanen@hkkk.fi'
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