What can B-Schools do?

Last year, I had gone back to my alma mater. I met up with one of my favourite professors from campus. As usual we ended having up a lengthy discussion. One of the things we debated on was “What can B- Schools do to better prepare students for the industry?”. I had shared a few ideas with him. He had asked me to flesh out my ideas more and send him an e-mail.

Below is an excerpt of the e-mail I had sent him.

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Dear Sir,

It was nice meeting you the other day .

I have been reflecting on the discussion you and I had about "What can we do more at the institute level, to ensure that when students graduate they are better prepared to meet the challenges of the industry?" (This is the way i have verbalized the intent of the discussion even though these were not the words used.).

You had asked me to flesh out the thoughts i shared and write to you.

The answer to the question asked would lie around 3 areas, viz:

· Admissions process- Profile of students who are taken into the system?

· Course Curriculum - What is taught to the students?

· Pedagogy - How is it taught to the students?

These 3 areas are inseparable and inter - related. But which one should we focus on?

When i look back at the times that i have learnt the most i realize that there have been some common characteristics:

· The situation was novel, and

· The answers were not forthcoming and hence I had to struggle through to find a solution to the situation,, or ..There was a lot of material available on possible solutions but i had to form my opinion because i knew i had to defend my opinion to the hilt, and

· There was an element of working with others to arrive at a commonly accepted solution.

During this process my own assumptions used to get questioned causing the learning to be much deeper.

What i have also consistently observed is that success on the job is a function of:

· Problem Solving - the individual's ability to arrive at a solution given a situation (novel situations are the ones which usually cause most difficulty to individuals).

· Openness to relook at one's own assumptions - when faced with contradictory evidence to one's own assumptions, how does the individual react?

· Being able to effectively relate with important others on the job.

I rely on my experiences ( including what i have heard relevant others say - Professors, Line Managers, Function Heads, Fellow Recruiters, etc) in different roles as a Student, Employee, Recruiter , Process owner for Induction of new joiners to arrive at the observations i have made above. These experiences include:

· Admissions interview for B-School - i remember being asked to back the opinions i had shared during the interview.

· Some courses in B-School- there was a lot of information which comes your way and initially there is a feeling of being overwhelmed. The subjects which left their mark on me are the ones where there was a strong focus on "struggling through to find your own solutions" and where my "assumptions got questioned".

· Hiring across campuses - many a times i don't find students making their own choices. They seem to select careers on the basis of what they have heard others say (peer groups, seniors, etc) but there is limited individual processing (What is my opinion? What do i want?).

Now let me get back to the 3 areas i had mentioned above - Admissions Process, Course Curriculum, Pedagogy.

Though i agree that focussing on the Course Curriculum is important, at the same time no course curriculum can be exhaustive enough. There is only so much you can learn at a point of time.

On the other hand if the "struggling through" way of finding answers to situations becomes a part of life for a student, then i feel we would have managed to bridge the gap between what the industry wants and what the institute delivers. This would be a function of the Admissions Process (Students who are keyed on to Problem Solving, Openness to relook at one's assumptions when faced with contradictory evidence, and being able to effectively relate with others) and Pedagogy (Consistent reinforcement of this "struggling through to form your own solutions" method of teaching would make a student comfortable with this way of working).

This is what i had on my mind.

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Sourav

Pedagogy and Andragogy

I, at times, land up for my dance classes early. I listen to songs on my Ipod, finish warming up and centering, and am raring to go but there still is some time left before I get in. What do I do?

For the lack of anything better to do, I sometimes peep in and observe what’s happening in class.

I find the Kid’s classes intriguing and amazing. There is only one adult in the room –the instructor. S/he is trying to teach around 30 kids in age bracket of 3-7 years how to dance. I observe the instructor animated, patient, and trying everything under the Sun to teach. I observe the kids doing what they want to do – some listen closely to the instructor and follow her/his instructions, others take a fancy for few particular steps and just keep on doing those steps, some others are looking around for their mummy, and then there are others who seem to be lost in their own world.

While I was observing one such class, Jim and Aparna (2 instructors- names changed to maintain anonymity J ) walked up to me and asked “What are you observing?” I looked at them and asked ‘Do you guys instruct kid’s batches too?’ They nodded.

Aparna said ‘They are the toughest batches to instruct in. I usually am mentally fatigued by the end of such a class. You just don’t know what holds their attention. You might have had a brilliant class today. You try the same thing tomorrow and it fails. You have to improvise from class to class.‘

Jim added ‘I have realized that words have limited impact on these kids. Illustration helps because then they start imitating you. What I do before each class is to figure out what I want the kids to imitate today. I go ahead and demonstrate/illustrate those in class and that seems to work. It is also necessary to make the class fun and play like. Kids love to play!’

We were about 10 minutes into our conversation when a senior colleague from office dropped in. He had come there to pick up his daughters who were there in the kid’s batch. In sometime Jim and Aparna left, and we 2 colleagues started discussing ‘Do adults learn differently and if yes, how?’’.

What do you think? How do adults learn differently from the way children do?

Yes, Malcolm Knowles does talk about andragogy (adult learning) and he does mention that adults learn when it makes sense for them, in the way they want to, and prefer to learn experientially.

But what does our own experience say about the way adults learn. How consequently should instructors change their style?. I have a few observations to make:

• Control is a key word for adults. One corollary of this is ‘We want to know why we are doing something’ which would translate to ‘We want to know how learning would have relevance for us’. Relevance is usually sometime in the near future. For the instructor, this means, the necessity to sensitize adult learners to how learning’s have relevance to their context and how they can use leanings in their work/lives.
• Adults do tend to be judgmental, usually rejecting what doesn’t fit in their world views. Judgment is usually a ‘parental’ characteristic. It is important for an adult to be in ‘adult, rational state of mind’ during the learning process. An instructor has a role to play in making a learner consider new/different ideas.
• It is also necessary to maintain ‘curiosity’ during the learning process – the fun of discovering something new and knowing that something interesting might be up for grabs at the next turn. Curiosity is a ‘free child’ characteristic. This combination of ‘curiosity’ and ‘adult state of mind’ is difficult to simultaneously maintain for adults but necessary for effective learning.
• The part about ‘What holds their attention’ is common for both kids and adults. If a kid is not attentive, s/he would show it. If an adult is not attentive, s/he may still fake attentiveness. I think it’s necessary for instructors to be keyed on whether the group at large is being attentive but if some individuals are not being attentive then the instructor should focus on those who are being attentive and have an offline discussion with the ‘inattentive individuals’.
• All of us require feedback. Feedback tells us whether we are on the right track and gives us the confidence to go ahead. Maybe as adults we prefer primary feedback – we try out something for ourselves and see whether it works. That’s where the emphasis on experiential learning for adults might come from. But that doesn’t mean children don’t need feedback. It is just that they might be okay if a teacher/instructor were to tell them whether they are on the right track or not. As an instructor, we have to figure out ways for adults to get primary feedback during the learning process. ‘I learn something, try it out, see for myself if it works or not, and make changes accordingly.’ Experiential learning is important for adults.

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Sourav