Kim Boal has raised some interesting points. I also have to operate
within a higher education system geared towards numbers, and so have to
deliver to class sizes of 100 plus for mass lectures. At the same time
continuing downward pressure on printing budgets means that it is not
possible to mass print supplementary material for students given the
numbers.
As an institution committed to open access, the student groups also come
from a wide range of backgrounds in terms of age, racial group and
educational experience. It is therefore some what risky to presume that
all students will have similar capabilities in terms of IT skills and
other information retrieval skills. It is also, based on my experiences,
a myth that we are dealing with the computer generation. Many of
students in the 18 to 24 age banding do not have superior IT skills to
their more mature peers.
I also feel it is not necessarily advisable to treat students too
gently. If they are continually not challenged then they will
develop/continue to display "learned helplessness", i.e. they will
expect to be constantly guided and directed.
As regards the purpose of a degree, this question is still being much
debated in the UK. Some of you from the outside the UK may be aware of
the Dearing Report into HE that was published last year, that examined
the whole higher education sector in the UK. This Report leaned strongly
towards the view that universities should be providing industry with the
"experts" of the future. Whilst I would endorse this view to an extent,
universities should also be engaged in challenging existing
knowledge/ideas, and supplying the academics of the future.
Dr. David Robotham
Wolverhampton Business School
> ----------
> From: Kim Boal[SMTP:
odkbb@TTACS.TTU.EDU]
> Reply To: Management Education and Development Discussion
> Sent: 01 March 1999 15:15
> To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
> Subject: Research, Education, Praxis and Thoeory
>
> The concerns and subsequent conversations regarding student research,
> the
> role of practitoners, required course work, etc., prompted by Gary
> Lear's
> post deserve a reply. As a caveat, let me state, I do not speak for
> the
> Professoriate, and have no idea in whose class the assignment were
> given,
> the motivation for giving the assignment, nor the level of students
> who
> contacted Mr. Lear. Recognizing these limitations, my response to Mr.
> Lear
> is as follows.
>
> 1) My experience corresponds to your complaint that many/most students
> apparentely do no know how to use the library, at least for research
> purposes. The tragic fact is that funding for many/most state
> universities
> has not kept up with costs. This often results is very large classes.
> (Currently, I teach, at the junior level, one section of 431 students
> and
> one section of 184 students.) It would take a heroic teacher to
> require
> papers in such large classes. (I am not one). Therefore, many
> students
> never write term papers period, or at least until they are in classes,
> whose size does not make grading prohibitive.
>
> When I again encounter those students as Seniors in the capstone
> policy
> course, where the class size typically is 30-40, papers are generally
> required. However, as I routinely schedule a classs period (1 1/2
> hours)
> in the library. Working with the Business Librarian, he has put
> together a
> presentation to teach my students how to use the library to gather
> information on countries, industries,and companies. Without his
> presentation and hand outs, I think that many/most of my students
> would
> also be the type that bothers Mr. Lear.
>
> 2. Many of us take certain types of knowledge for granted. However,
> as
> one who typically brings philosophy, history, and science into my
> lectures,
> let me assure you that I often make the mistake common to those who
> ASSUME
> things. Many (probably most) of my students are from rural Texas,
> they are
> first generation college students, they come from working class
> families.
> If this is true of the students who approach Mr. Lear, then the
> Professor
> may have accurately assessed that his students had little real
> knowledge
> about organizations or what managers/leaders in those organizations
> do.
> Thus, the assignment to go and "talk" to a real manager to find out
> what
> they do. Real managers have more credibility than do texbooks. Thus
> reading about Mintzberg's results, for example, is not as meaningful
> to
> students as talking to a live person on the firing line.
>
> 3. If you treat students as the novices they are, then you realize
> that,
> like other novices, their search patterns will be inefficient and
> often
> incoherent. Therefore, I ask indulgence on your part. It is my hope
> that
> someday, somewhere, some of these students will emerge as world class
> managers, but it takes time: theirs, mine, and yours. We need your
> help
> if we are to be successful.
>
> 4. On a related issue, involving student research and statistics,
> P.A.
> Gantt suggested that a problem is that students are required to take a
> lot
> of courses that have no practical value. Usefullness, it seems ought
> to be
> the mantra of college courses and the goal of teaching. Usefulness
> for
> what I ask. Richard Montgomery suggest that his education has
> provided him
> with a "life long learning structure" that had enabled him to cope
> with new
> problems. The research evidence, whether at the level of the
> individual or
> the organization usggests that those who know more develop an
> "absorptive
> capacitiy" that allows them to learn new things easier. Thus, the old
> adage, "knowledge for knowledge's sake" has real practical benefits.
> The
> Greeks use to say that the good life consists of "health, wealth, and
> wisdom" While wisdom is clearly more than knowledge, extensive
> knowledge
> coupled with experience is more likely to result in wisdom than
> ignorance
> coupled with anything.
>
> I remember a poem, by William Blake, one of many I was required to
> learn in
> English literature as a Freshman in college (circa 1962). It goes
>
> Does the eagle know what is in the pit
> or will thou go ask the mole
> can wisdom be found in a silver rod
> or love in a golden bowl
>
> Does this have any "practical" value? YES! It has enriched my life.
>
> To illustrate the Julian Rotter's concept of "locus of control, " I
> often
> recite William Henley's poem Invictus. Many of you are familiar with
> this
> poem, or at least the last stanza, which goes:
>
> It matter not how straight the gate
> how filled with punishments the scroll
> I am the master of my fate
> I am the captain of my soul.
>
> Trust me, I never thought, in 1962, that I would have any "practical"
> use
> from English literature. Oh how wrong I was.
>
> Let me end this long missive by paraphrasing President John F.
> Kennedy.
> Ask not what your local university can do for you. Ask what you can
> do for
> your local university. Support the university of your choice. (But
> if you
> have any money left over, please send it to Tech).
>
> Regards to all on the firing line.
>
> Kim Boal
>
> --------------------------------
> Kim Boal
> College of Business Administration
> Texas Tech University
> Lubbock, TX 79409
> (806) 742-2150
>
KimBoal@ttu.edu
>