Dear Colleagues,
Charles Wankel's "early bird special" and the follow-ups by Cynthia
Roberts and Ted Legatski prompt me to share the way that our teaching
group works in my large first-year course in organization and
leadership.
The students work on a large semester project. This project includes
a choice between one of two cases, an essay, and an annotated
bibliography.
Under the rules of the Norwegian School of Management, students may
elect to prepare their projects as individuals, or in groups of two
or three. In accordance with Norwegian university law, the final
projects are submitted for grading under anonymous student numbers.
We led up to the semester project with a number of assignments they
allow us to diagnose student abilities and skills. Then, we assign
working groups to a teaching assistant. While we do not require
students to work closely with their TA, we do require them to attend
one or two meetings for early drafts on the semester project. Most
students discover the value of working with the TA.
At any time up to the final due date, students are welcome to meet
with their TA for feedback. They are also free to send me a copy of
the project for feedback and suggestions.
We usually find that about one third of the students make such good
use of the opportunity to learn from the process that they develop a
serious and integrated understanding of subject matter and a good
overview of the field. These students demonstrate the perspective and
judgment to fit organization and leadership issues into the broad
context of business in society with understanding and insight beyond
the obvious subject matter.
One third does reasonably well. The remainder fills out the spectrum.
It is my view that undergraduate students often base their choices on
class culture, but they also learn from the examples we set and the
structure we create. Even though I am constrained by university law
from creating a system that is exactly the equivalent of the early
bird special, I use this idea with excellent results.
In my view, the issue does not have as much to do with earning a
better grade as it does with creating a learning culture. We run our
class as a learning organization, depending in great part on the
teaching assistants and on my effort to create a rich communication
environment through personal contact and email. Students do want to
earn good grades, and it is important to reward the work they
deliver, but I feel that the most important issue here is creating a
communication and learning culture.
Even though the rules and the classroom context in Norway is differs
from that in the US, a system rather like Charles Wankel's "early
bird special" works wonderfully well for us.
Best regards,
--
Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Leadership and Organization
Norwegian School of Management
Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University