Designing Instruction

I currently teach three courses: Introduction to Information Systems (BA2), Business Modeling (in the MBAC), and Business Analysis (Master's elective). The main issues that I have with course design are common to all three, so I will be revising them all; when needed to be specific, I will use the IIS course as my reference.

As I see it, I have two major concerns with my current course design. The first is lack of engagement by the students, resulting in too much simple lecture on my part. The second is in assessment. The latter will be addressed in future entries, so I will focus on the first.

In the past, I have attempted to use a "Socratic dialogue" type of approach to class. I would provide some information, and then ask questions of the students to try to push their understanding forward. However, the students were rarely prepared, and/or rarely willing to answer, so I more often then not ended up answering my own questions. Which provides little value for the students.

From the student evaluations, I find that while often the students find my lecturing interesting, they do feel that sometimes it veers off-topic, and that I may end up providing too much information of my past experience and too little of the current topic at hand.

As a result of the two problem-based learning seminars I have attended (last year and the one this year in the pedagogical certificate training), I decided to adopt that for all of my classes in the future. The plan is to introduce a small case by video, and then to have students discuss ways that the case can be understood, extended, or analyzed.

I started doing this early in the semester. The initial results were mixed. There were some good points, but often, again, the students were unwilling to speak up. I also got direct feedback from one student who felt that the videos were too long, and that he learned more from me talking than from the video or discussion afterwards. :-)

After talking with Jeannette Hommes, and as a result of the feedback from the student, I adopted two changes. First, I had the students work in small groups to address questions concerning the case; Jeannette suggested this could make them more likely to participate and share. Second, I opted to use shorter videos with more open-ended questions, to be followed (after the results from the student groups) by my own observations on the topic. Both of these tactics have been extremely successful. The small groups do, in fact, discuss the topic more; and my complaining student is very happy with the balance.

Following a suggestion by Jérémie after his observation of my class (discussed in the next entry), I also conclude the session by asking the students to provide a brief summary of what they have learned in the session. These results have been excellent, indicating that the previous changes have been effective.

My plan going forward will be to adapt this type of teaching to my business modeling / business analysis classes, and to better stabilize the cases used for the IIS class.