This is an excellent thread. Hopefully my remarks will make it
excellent-er.
Firstly, because the managers primary contribution to his/her 'portfilio' of
employees is their rate of learning a major item in management education
must be the theory of education, preferably meaningful learning. Joe Novak
has provided the material on this in "Learning, Creating, and Using
Knowledge," Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998, . Ideally, management
educators would receive students who already knew all this stuff but if not
then this foundation must be built.
Likewise, learning style is important and can be assessed quite accurately
as can interpersonal style and strengths profile (commerce.gallup.com).
Anyone qualified to be in a management course can understand and apply this
stuff in a matter of days.
One should verify whether Bloom's taxonomy is adequate for the management
track. I think there are some serious issues with it but quickly admit that
they may be rooted in my lack of understanding rather than his prescription.
Next, because management is one third people, one third systems and one
third economics, one must make sure that the program content provides for
all three.
Next comes creating the learning environment. Professors may be useful
parts of a learning environment but one should not start with that
assumption. For example, computer-based training is more effective for some
material and learning styles. Furthermore, the lone professor vs. multiple
learning styles should be seen for what it is and the 'lone professor' model
dropped in favor of the 'professor bank' from which a student can select the
professorial style that matches his/her learning style for each course. It
turns out that once this learing style and 'teaching'style thing is
understood then many professors can learn to conduct more than one style of
learing. After all, middle school teachers of excellence do this every day.
The most important part of a management learing environment is the scrimmage
field. Lecture won't suffice. Business simulation games (the lab) help
considerably but don't highlight the people third (although the combined
game and psychodrama sessions can be quite helpful to many learners. A
mandatory part of the management education curriculum must be the 'in situ'
experience whether constructed on campus or on site.
This thread to date has been quite innovative but it might be worth
considering whether we are addressing Management Education in the future or
simply Management Professoring in the future. It is the former that will
make the difference.
Thanks for your time and attention.