The Emergence of a New Normal in Education

This is intended to be a series of articles written by Ian MacDonald which will explore the recent past and the near future of education. Whilst the focus is on business schools, the principles discussed are frequently and equally valid for education in general.

 

About 15 years ago, I was invited to teach a management-related course in a business school. The course in-question addressed both a body of knowledge and, to a lesser-degree, related skills. I was provided with detailed resource pack that included:

• a course outline
• decks of PowerPoint (PPT) slides
• a series of discussion points
• a textbook
• case studies
• assignment tasks
• exam description
• seminar exercises.

It was apparent at this early point that the focus should be on the PPT’s. My initial impression was that this was rather organised and it contrasted somewhat with my experience from the year before when I had been engaged to deliver a specific management skills course. On that occasion, the course leader had simply given me a course outline, assignment tasks and a textbook.The book was palpably beyond the reading ability of the students, most of whom were non-native speakers of English. When I asked how I should approach the seminars, the course leader casually replied, “I see you’re experienced and that you know how to deliver this, so please just get on with it”. At the time, I felt this was rather unprofessional, particularly given that my students represented less than 20% of the semester cohort and the assignment requirements were the same for all students.

Today, whilst I retain some scepticism about the management skills course leader’s faith in his teachers’ability to arrive at a shared understanding of what that course was about and how best to deliver it, I have come to see that the other course, which seemed so much better-organised, as being rather more problematic. My central issue with that course was the reliance on PPT slides. After a year of stumbling through the course and mostly failing to incorporate the slides with any sense of confidence – a feeling that will resonate with most teachers – I decided that I would ditch the slides for my sophomore effort. Now if you have ever taught, or have been taught, in a university or business school you will realise that this is not a decision to be taken lightly. It certainly wasn’t at the time. As I recall, just as I was jumping off the PPT bandwagon, our Administration was introducing training to help teaching staff get the most out of the ubiquitous software. I later came to count the cost of cost of my personal initiative which quickly spread to all the courses I taught across two different business schools. It seemed that students and administrators did not share the joy with which I embraced a PPT-free classroom environment. In fact, after some critical feedback from students, and a few clandestine Programme Director’ threats aimed at encouraging me to reverse my initiative, I was summarily dismissed from teaching a number of those courses, although interestingly not the one that had precipitated the adoption of my new approach.

 

I should make it clear that I did not have an academic background when I first came to higher education and that none of the three business schools with which I’m currently associated were my first port of call. That honour went to the Open University where I had been hired as a tutor for a series of business school courses. My background was in management training and development. In fact, I had spent very little time in universities having completed a single year of studies in Building Management before realising that the academic world and I were not such a good match. I promptly quit those studies and was fortunate enough to secure an entry-level job with a Japanese company that was setting up a manufacturing facility in Scotland, my country of birth. That job offered me a rapid pathway into junior management and also the type of correspondence or distant learning education that the Open University (UK) is so famous for. In the UK, it remains somewhat of a badge of honour to have an Open University degree on one’s CV since it is considered as a clear indication of self-motivation and personal sacrifice. Perhaps the most important thing I took away from my experience of working with a Japanese company was a commitment to continuous improvement, both on a personal and organisational level. This relates to much of what I will write about in this series of articles.

The system of education at the Open University, or to be more precise in my case, the Open Business School, is premised on distant learning and is arguably a prototype of the flipped classroom method which is currently gaining currency throughout the entire spectrum of education, including primary schools. Students were provided with textbooks, exercises, cassette- and video-material and a range of assignments to complete. In addition, they were given opportunities to meet with a tutor in a limited number of classes, personal consultations and occasional residential weekends. The latter were heavily skills-oriented and classes were less formal than those typically experienced in traditional business schools. There was a pervading sense that one was in an adult education environment and this was reflected in the nature of relationships between tutors and students, with the former acting in a decidedly more facilitative role and the latter much more engaged.

When I arrived at a more traditional business school I experienced deep culture shock. I had simply never been conditioned by the arduous rigour of traditional university education nor had I taught in, what I perceived to be, such a stuffy and formal manner. In fact, coming from a training and development background, my entire approach was dominated by experiential learning and adult education principles. Imagine my surprise when colleagues referred to our business students as a gyerekek (the kids). This still sends a shiver down my spine today! The other thing which I found rather disturbing was the sheer, and exasperating, volume of rules and procedures. The whole school seemed overly complicated and it took me well over two years to grasp how the system worked. It has taken me considerably longer to understand why business schools operate the way they do but I will write more about that in a later article.

Let me return to the issue of PowerPoint and the near-universal use of the software in business schools and universities. Having been fired from various courses for refusing to engage in what is a widely-accepted, and a tacitly-required, education practice, I felt somewhat obliged to develop a deeper understanding of the implications and impact of using PPT slides as the dominant mode of business course delivery. After all, I had to explain to my partner why I was permitting my stubborn principles to affect my level of income, particularly given that she had been forced to stay home and raise our mildly-autistic son.

Is PowerPoint an effective tool? If not, as I have always suspected, what are the issues[1] with using the software in education? What are its limitations? The reader may rightly highlight the fact thatpresentation software is used by the vast majority of university teachers in classes all around world. So what exactly is the issue with PowerPoint or similar software? Why are a growing number of teachers refusing to, or minimising the use of PowerPoint? The short answers are as follows:

• The messages PowerPoint, and similar software, conveys regarding the roles of teachers and students in the learning process are counter-productive and lead to various unintended and unwelcome outcomes
• The nature, place and importance of knowledge in education is evolving and we are witnessing a massive shift in favour of competencies that simply cannot be developed whilst sitting in front of a projection screen
• Using PowerPoint and similar software is frequently inconsistent with adult education principles
• The very purpose of education is changing and this is creating a need to review and renew education methods and systems, including the use of presentation software

 

As you read the above, you may have been thinking: to what extent is the writer proficient in the use of PowerPoint and to what degree, if at all, does it have any bearing on the position he takes in respect of the software and its use? Firstly, as the author of a highly popular assessment tool called the Presentation Skills Profile, I am both knowledgeable and accomplished in this discipline. Secondly, as someone who ran a company that published training and development resources for seven years, my grasp of design principles is more advanced than the average university professor. In short, my negative and deeply critical stance in relation to PowerPoint is not related to competence but to preference.

In the next instalment of this series, I will share with you what I have learned from the late media guru, Marshall McLuhan, about the impact that various technology has on its users.

 

Notes:

[1]These issues have become somewhat central to my Doctoral research, although I hasten to point out that this is very much in a metaphorical sense, since the ultimate concern of my research is with the general effectiveness of business school education. There are numerous other, and arguably much more important, issues that my research addresses.

 

Ian is a business school professor who has lived and worked in Budapest for the past 30 years. His Doctoral research is focused on the effectiveness of business school education and the extent to which it develops the competencies that future entrepreneurs and leaders are likely to need. Ian is also a professional DJ and a passionate cyclist.