December 2009 Archives

The Alt-MBA is:

The Alt-MBA program is a group of motivated and connected learners, leapers and agents of change who want to build better brains with other likeminded people from around the world. The group was originally inspired by the Alternative MBA program created by Seth Godin in December 2008.

A handful of applicants that were not selected to work with him in New York decided to launch their own version of the program. Two of the founding members put the idea out to the pool of unaccepted applicants on December 15th and since that time the group has grown to 100+ members (including Seth Godin).

Having read this, and Seth Godin's original offer I am thinking "I wonder how it might work here in New Zealand".

Recently there has been much debate on the future role of Business School. In the face of rise of corporate universities (Blass, 2005) and consulting firms doing high quality research (e.g. MckKinsey & Co), it is easy to imagine that Business Schools are under threat (Tinker, 2004). As typified by Mintzberg (2003) the problem arises because of the seeming lack of relevance in what Business Schools typically do.

In the face of a "I want it now" generation, something that sounds like an MBA and yet only takes 6 months, with credible mentors must be attractive (to some niche in the market). Much of what has been written has been directed at MBA and MBA-like education. However, one has to consider if the forces at work at that level might also be evident at undergraduate level (which, for the University of Auckland Business School, is the largest part of what it does). The simple answer seems to be yes, these forces are at work. The example I would give are the rumours about NZICA (The New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants); currently NZICA require accountants to do a four year degree followed by two years of professional training (on-the-job training, followed by PAS-Professional Accounting School--then assessed through PCE2--Professional Competence Exam 2). Back to the rumour: the change would move from this 4+2 model to a 3+3 model (i.e. a three-year degree and three years of professional training). No doubt such a move would make a noticeable dent in income stream for universities. Of course some universities or polytechnics would be better off; they do training/coaching for people undertaking PCE2, but overall one can imagine a nett decrease in revenue for the sector.

I'm sure if I spent some time looking I could find more evidence that undergraduate business education is under some threat. Given the vocational nature of much undergraduate business education, one shouldn't be surprised that some students/employers don't necessarily believe that three or four years at university is the only mechanism for delivering greater economic wealth.

References

Since moving to Zotero, I've found my 'work flow' to be much smoother. These few tips have made things even easier. I particularly find it useful when I've found a link to the full-text of an article, just to drag the link to the item in Zotero (and have Zotero auto-magically download into my library).

In writing my piece on referencing, I just Googled 'apa referencing' and here are the first page of search results.

I was surprised by the results. First, I used google.co.nz instead of google.com (I normally use the later), and secondly the University of Auckland's referencing resource Referen©ite didn't feature at all on the first page.

I see:

• www.waikato.ac.nz
• www.aut.ac.nz
• www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz
• library.ucol.ac.nz
• library.curtin.edu.au
• library.canterbury.ac.nz
• library.manukau.ac.nz
• www.southernoceansoftware.com
• owl.english.purdue.edu
• aut.ac.nz.libguides.com (again)

But there is no sign of Referen©cite. I wonder google doesn't refer to Referen©ite on the first page (that's a rhetorical question; I know how search engines rank sites).

As I look back at my last entry it occurs to me that I use two distinct approaches to citing and referencing ideas, works, etc. Specifically, I use a mixture of hyperlinks and APA referencing.

My habit seems to be that for non-academic works, I tend to use hyperlinks that go to appropriate sources. This seems consistent with normal practice of web-based publishing.

For scholarly works I follow APA conventions for citing and referencing. This seems more consistent with the academic expectations and practices. In acknowledgement of the fact this is electronic or web-based publishing I use COinS to ensure there is enough information so that programmes such as Zotero or LibX can scrape/find all the information they need to quickly locate an electronic copy/source of the document.

However, I feel mildly uneasy about this situation. Should I use only APA (albeit with COinS); afterall it does have citation styles for blogs etc? Or should I only use hyperlinks; after all, this is the web? For some things, such as blog entries, APA seems entirely sensible for paper-based writings. However, for this (and other e-media), APA feels out of place. I am use to clicking hyperlinks to take to "more information". I think I can live with the mixed method of referencing. At the end of the day, I do try and acknowledge my sources, and perhaps it doesn't matter what means I do that by, providing most people recognise that I am doing it; i.e., most people recognise the practices that I am using.

The Chronicle of Higher Education led me to an interesting article on learning styles by Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer, and Bjork (2009).

The summary of the article outlines the idea of learning styles:

The term ''learning styles'' refers to the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them. Proponents of learning-style assessment contend that optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals' learning style and tailoring instruction accordingly. Assessments of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what sort of information presentation they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures versus speech) and/or what kind of mental activity they find most engaging or congenial (e.g., analysis versus listening), although assessment instruments are extremely diverse. The most common--but not the only--hypothesis about the instructional relevance of learning styles is the meshing hypothesis, according to which instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preferences of the learner (e.g., for a ''visual learner,'' emphasizing visual presentation of information).

The learning-styles view has acquired great influence within the education field, and is frequently encountered at levels ranging from kindergarten to graduate school. There is a thriving industry devoted to publishing learning-styles tests and guidebooks for teachers, and many organizations offer professional development workshops for teachers and educators built around the concept of learning styles.

The article, commissioned by Psychological Science in the Public Interest, goes on to question what evidence there is to support these type of practices; i.e., is there evidence that attending to learning styles has a material impact on learning?

I think my first exposure to the notion of learning styles was through Darl Kolb who gave me David Kolb's (1976) classic article to read. One take-away I had from that article was, that although we might have preferences (in our style of learning) it is generally a good thing to be able to draw on all the styles. In particular Kolb (1976, p. 30) says "When one perspective [learning style] comes to dominate others, learning effectiveness is reduced in the long run. From this we can conclude that the most effective learning systems are those that can tolerate differences in perspective". For Kolb (1976) and for Pashler et al., (2009) there is clear--if not undisputed evidence--that people have preferences as to how they learn. The question remains as to how much those preferences should be accommodated in the educational process; is learning ineffective, or less effective if learning styles are not taken into consideration?

Having considered the evidence the conclusion Pashler et al., (2009) draw is that, generally, the nature of the content should determine the style of learning adopted. For example, the Chronicle of Higher Education describes how learning about the structure of molecules is better for most students (independent of learning styles) by building ball-and-stick models. Even those students who have a preference for verbal learning will do better if taught in this kinesthetic manner (rather that catering to their preference). The Chronicle says "teachers should worry about matching their instruction to the content they are teaching. Some concepts are best taught through hands-on work, some are best taught through lectures, and some are best taught through group discussions".

The fallacy that the authors seem to uncover is the argument that "student X didn't do well because the teaching didn't accommodate their particular learning style". If the learning style matches the content (rather than the students preference) then usually the student will do better.

Returning to Kolb (David not Darl), the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that he says:

that the paper's bottom line is probably correct: There is no strong evidence that teachers should tailor their instruction to their students' particular learning styles. (Mr. Kolb has argued for many years that college students are better off if they choose a major that fits their learning style. But his advice to teachers is that they should lead their classes through a full "learning cycle," without regard to their students' particular styles.)

So whither learning styles? For me, it means that the content should determine the means of teaching.

References

For sometime, the Instructions to examiners and assessors has said the following about group projects:

2 Group Projects
a The inclusion of any group project as part of the contribution to the final coursework percentage in a course should be restricted to relevant fields at higher levels.
b Assessment should be on an individual basis, wherever possible.
c Assessment criteria should be established and project supervisory staff should be able to assess individual contributions to the project.
d Each group working on a project should be of a limited size and not exceed a membership of four.
e Where marks allocated for group projects are part of the final percentage, such marks should not normally constitute more than 20% of the total marks for the course.

The new (2010) instructions takes a very different tack, saying:

2 Group Projects
a Group projects may contribute to the final coursework percentage awarded in a course.
b Assessment should be based on a combination of a group mark for the completed work and an individual mark for contribution to the process. The individual mark may come from peer or peer-moderated self-assessment.
c Assessment criteria should be established and cover both the output of the group project and the process by which it is produced, including the contribution of individuals.
d Each group working on a project should be of a limited size and not normally exceed a membership of four.

These changes have been signalled for some time. However, I think it worthwhile to highlight a few features of the new policy. First, the prohibition on groups of over four members has been considerably softened. Secondly, the limits on the amount of marks that can be allocated to group assignments has been removed. Finally, the use of peer-review or self-review to moderate group marks has been formally recognised. Of course, the University has allowed such practices in the past; but only on a case-by-case basis. Now, these very useful pedagogical tools more 'usable' for teaching staff.

As one who has used many of these techniques in my teaching, I think this policy change is a "very good thing".

Lisa Callagher, Andrew Eberhard, and I have been wrestling with how we can do some of the mechanics of peer-review in a more systematic/automated manner so that students can get timely and accurate feedback on how their peers see their performance. I hope we can get some tools in place before I teach again next semester.

Here we tend to use nVivo for qualitative research/analysis. It's pretty robust, but the handling of PDF files leaves a lot to be desired. What nVivo seems to do is to convert the PDF into some sort of RTF-like format. Unfortunately the fidelity of the converted file isn't that good. In fact, it can be darn difficult to work with most converted files if they are anything more than plain-old-text.

The problem is so bad, and I am so keen to analyse/work with PDF files I'm thinking of changing to Atlas/ti. That programme handles PDF files in their native format ... there is no loss of fidelity when working with them.

What I can't decide is whether the learning curve/downtime is worth the change.

Sometimes, it is really necessary to display a complex formula; such as this:

I use MathTran to achieve this, rather than doing a complex server-side install of Latex. Then I can use a URL like the one below to dynamically display the equation above:

That reminds me, there is a Google API for doing charts on the fly. The simple example they give is:

Although much more complex graphs¹ are possible:

¹ Thanks to http://www.felipebarone.com/plot-function-google.php [now defunct] for this example.

Jo Badge talks a bit about her personal learning environment, and so I thought I'd draft out mine. I'm really web-centric and spend most of time 'in' Firefox (I sometimes think about switching to Chrome, but I'm hooked on Zotero).

I found it interesting to consider what is missing here ... there is no Powerpoint. I so rarely use 'slides'; often all I have is a single slide so students coming into class know they are in the right place. Increasingly, when I need slides I'm trying/learning to do them using Beamer. Having said that, for the odd complex set of ideas I do use MindManager in presentation mode to show how I see the connections between things.View image

Since writing this, I've come across Hull, Pettifer, and Kell (2008). They present an interesting figure, which seems to show how much I can actually do in Zotero (which is most of it).

Figure 4. A typical workflow for using a digital library representing a subset of the literature. Tasks represented by white nodes are normally performed exclusively by humans, while tasks shown in blue nodes can be performed wholly or partly by machines of some kind. The main problematic tasks that make digital libraries difficult to use for both machines and humans are ''GET'' (publication) and ''GET METADATA''. These are shown in bold and discussed further in the Identity Crisis section of this paper. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000204.g004

References

Jo Badge and Jon Scott have produced a very interesting paper entitled Dealing with plagiarism in the digital age.

In their concluding remarks, they argue that there is "little solid empirical evidence to show the effectiveness of these [plagiarism detection] tools in improving student practices". However, experience here is that the use of Turn It In makes a significant difference. I recall that a few years ago I did some pretty sound analysis of levels of plagiarism in MGMT 191/192 and in MGMT 101 and there was clear evidence of changes in behaviour ... as manifested in levels of plagiarism.

I do agree with Badge and Scott that the use of electronic detection tools are only a "first step" in addressing plagiarism. We (Lisa Callagher, Lynne Mitchelle, and I) developed a very good on-line tutorial (called AHA, Academic Honesty Assistance) that was used in MGMT 191/192 and MGMT 101 for many years. I think it was the combination of Turn It In and AHA that made the difference in the levels of plagiarism. Perhaps that is what Badge and Scott are meaning, it wasn't just the use of the detection tool that made the difference; it was the combination of factors.

As a something of an aside, Badge and Scott point out there is a CiteULike group of plagiarism articles. It contains many of the 'classics' to which I often refer, especially the Good practice guide from Oxford Brookes.

One blog I always find myself going back to is by Thomas Basbøll, who is the Resident Writing Consultant at Copenhagen Business School. He calls his blog Research as a second language.

I was promoted to mention it now as I was reading his article Free Time, Blank Pages, and other Catastrophes. As I hurtle/stumble towards the end of my thesis, I find myself wondering about the practices associated with "doing" a PhD. Here, at the University of Auckland Business, or at least in this part of the Business School, a thesis seems to be a largely individual exercise. And yet it doesn't have to be that way. A colleague has some theses from a renowned Swedish institution. The detailed structure of each PhD thesis is very similar to each other ... down to the number of paragraphs per section. Clearly there has to be a greater level of congruence between practices there than, say, where Saku Mantere did his thesis (which exhibits some lovely ideosyncracies).

It seems that I don't really understand the way that Movable Type handles styles and templates. I've (yet again) made a total mess of this site in the process of setting up my academic journalling.

No doubt this will take me sometime (over the weekend) to sort out ... but I might wait until after the 8th December 2009, when Movable Type version 5 comes out.

I do like the approach taken by the Ministry of Type. When I redo my own style sheet, I'll have to bear in mind some of the principles that are evident on that elegant site.

I've set up a new blog for those activities related to my academic life. This blog will continue, but the focus will be on less academically related items.