Scamper towards teaching innovation

In the business world innovation is often so simple that it is welcomed by the chorus (usually of derision)  "Well, I could have done that!" from frustrated innovators who didn't.

Teaching innovation is a much used and vaunted term in Higher Education and a previous blog post  has questioned whether today's innovations are not simply old ideas being given fresh paint.

The excellent MindTools website gives us another tool - this time for creativity - innovation if you will - the tool, another mnemonic, is SCAMPER - standing for:

• Substitute - Use customers instead of staff to process their own banking transactions
• Combine - Bundle complementary goods together - computers and software
• Adapt - Use maggots to heal scar tissue
• Modify - Make the Gramophone portable
• Put to another use - Put NASA's non-stick coating on frying pans
• Eliminate - Shop on-line and avoid the crush
• Reverse - Unbundle package holidays and get travellers to choose and book the separate elements of their holiday

So, how could University lecturers use SCAMPER?

• Substitute - Podcasts for (some) lectures
• Combine - Lectures and workshops to link application and discussion directly to knowledge acquisition
• Adapt - Lecture theatres to become flexible learning spaces
• Modify - Thinking about how students learn (and when and where...)
• Put to another use - Rework successful lectures as Distance Learning materials
• Eliminate - Exams and use assessment that actually measures learning
• Reverse - The trend towards TEF metrics for teaching and focus, instead, on effective learning.

Now that's innovation!

What MoSCoW can tell us about better lectures

Don't mess with Putin!

That's the valuable lesson learned by Ukrainians, dissidents, opponents and competitors for Putin's cleptocracy.  But enough International Relations...

Picture courtesy of "Mr Norman" who actually went to Moscow to take it.

It is the MoSCoW developed by Oracle in the 1990's that this post focuses on.  MoSCoW is a simple mnemonic used to prioritise issues, features or components of a project.  The letters in capitals stand for features that a project:

• MUST have (the project fails without these essential elements being delivered)
• SHOULD have (elements of  importance that could be delivered in a second phase if necessary, when time and budget allows)
• COULD have and ( wish list items - elements of good practice and "nice to haves" that are not absolutely essential to the project but add benefit)
• WON'T have (desirable but clearly not part of the current project.  This helps to limit the objectives and outcome measures of a project.  These items can also be undesirable, perhaps detracting from the MUST, SHOULD and COULD haves).

So, let's apply this to the simple (sic) lecture in a University:

• MUST have: 1. a clear purpose; 2. relevant structure (including breaks); 3. interesting "real world" content;  4. opportunities for interaction and reflection.
• SHOULD have: 1. on-line support pre and post lecture; 2. links to or basis in key research in the area; 3. Lecturer enthusiasm; 4. Variety in presentation.
• COULD have: 1. "War stories" that give the lecturer and lecture credibility; 2. debates that encourage learning; 3. pointers to further reading; 4. lecture capture.
• WON'T have: 1. Too many slides; 2. students tuning out; 3. a focus on how brilliant the lecturer is; 4. poor communication.

That's 16 separate points but Cass Business School goes 23 better (well, they would wouldn't they) through the work of the late Shelagh Heffernan.

It is a privilege to be asked to lecture to and teach our future entrepreneurs, businessmen and women so let's take the lecturing part of the job very seriously.

Maximising student engagement

Lecturers lecture, lectures happen in lecture halls or theatres and students know that they have been lectured (because that's what their timetable told them was happening).

But how many students were learning? how many were engaged? and for how long?

Skinner et. al. (2008) - see above diagram - encourage us to think about the components of classroom engagement - and whilst their study was of schoolchildren there are aspects that transfer readily to HE.

So, how can we make sure that those events that happen in lecture rooms, in timetabled lecture slots and delivered by lecturers are designed to engage, rather than disaffect; impact not only the behaviour and actions of students but also their emotions?

Are my learning events (lectures) redolent with my own enthusiasm and interest? do I expect students to listen passively or to undertake actions, attempt problem solving and actually enjoy the experience?

Skinner E, Furrer C, Marchand G and Kindermann T, (2008), Engagement and Disaffection in the Classroom: Part of a Larger Motivational Dynamic? Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 100(4), pp 765-781

But we've always done it like this...

One of the most frustrating things I hear when discussing change is the response "but we've always done it like this..."

Ways of doing things are a product of environmental and resource factors as well as competition (what others are doing) and those convinced that change is needed - for efficiency, effectiveness, cost, responsiveness or other reasons.  But what if the change required is to something as fundamental as the culture of an organisation or sector such as a University or Higher Education?

Cultural change starts with the individual, it cannot be imposed from above without considerable disruption and fall-out.  The following diagram helps to illustrate the steps needed to begin the shift to a change in culture that impacts strategic as well as individual decision making.

But what do we need to do to win the hearts and minds of HE staff to encourage them to learn new skills, to change their approaches to teaching, to effect changes in institutional priorities in investment - systems can be IT based, classroom based, curriculum based etc.in order, over time, to create cultural change?

The economist in me shouts - "incentivisation!"  How can we encourage the brilliant minds that inhabit our Universities to use more of their capacity for cerebral activity to consider innovative teaching methods, new ways of learning that reflect changed student abilities and expectations and to begin to effect real change in the experience of tomorrow's students?

Business School Ethics

A number of UK Business Schools have signed up to the UN Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) and, no doubt were sincere in progressing towards ethical dealings with their students, their partners and in providing opportunities to explore ethical issues as part of teaching.  In particular, if the "six principles" of PRME are not explicit enough, the signatories also sign up to the following:

"We understand that our own organisational practices should serve as example of the values and attitudes we convey to our students."

So, look at similar postgraduate degrees in Accounting / Finance / Marketing or Management in different PRME members (I won't name the ones I have looked at) and wonder why tuition fees for non-EU students are higher (often double) than those for domestic and EU students.

For some PRME signatories the fees are the same (at the higher non-EU level) whilst others retain an historic distinction between domestic and EU and International students - despite the fact that the argument of UK government HE funding for domestic and EU students has long since evaporated.

I simply ask - is that ethical?

Fifteen minutes of fame

In 1968 Andy Warhol forecast that "In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes".
Since that time, the internet, specifically social media such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook etc. have given ordinary people the opportunity to strive towards Andy's prophesy.  And some really do take the quote as a challenge!

Today's HE students have grown up as "Generation Y digital natives" surrounded by a plethora of images, personalised messages, "Channels" and with the opportunity and encouragement to see this as a legitimate source of information, news and entertainment.
So, the expectation of today's students is that their experience at University will, at the very least, acknowledge the fact that their preferred means of communication is digital, their learning preferences are moving from the face to face and towards the on-line and that high quality images are the norm.

Enter...Lecture capture.

For many years the technology to "capture" lectures has been available and is installed in many lecture rooms across the world.  Akin to YouTube it provides video and audio (sometimes with an unflattering image of the lecturer, taken from an ill positioned camera) of lectures and should have many advantages for today's students - even if their first language is the same as the lecturer and they have no particular learning needs.

Some lecturers use "capture" to achieve their 15 minutes of fame - others consider, deeply, the implications for traditional classroom teaching and wonder if the demands of students for full value in exchange for their life of debt will outweigh or overtake the important discussion that we must have: When is lecture capture beneficial to learning and when is it a problem?

A Recipe for: Old-Fashioned Fudge

Old-Fashioned Fudge Ingredients

1 group of conflicted Universities
5 years of Tory government
0,000’s of students, steeped for a number of years in a mixture of high expectations and lower accepted standards
000’s of academic staff, schooled, reluctantly, in jumping through hoops of regulation
1 pinch of fear
1 lack of understanding

ADD media hype to taste.

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES add any MONEY.

Old-Fashioned Fudge Directions

• In a mid-sized economy with a relatively low heat, immerse the University in a cauldron of politics.
• Add in the inflated expectations of tens of thousands of students.
• Stir continuously until mixture simmers.  (You will know when the mixture is done when a small fall in NSS satisfaction scores to 90% is seen as a failure).
• In a separate vessel gently warm the academics, a chosen few at a time, stirring regularly until they are totally confused (using the Johnson Scale of Bemusement). If you don't have a Johnson Scale, you will know your mixture is done when a handful of the mixture forms a soft lump when dropped into the cold water of a pay freeze.
• Remove from heat as soon as mixture has reached desired temperature and degree of flaccidity.
• Add in the pinch of fear that TEF could be worse, but do not stir.
• Allow mixture to cool until Universities have a uniform appearance.
• Pour the mixture into the public domain by way of League Tables and “quality” scores then beat it with a wooden spoon – just because you can.
• Allow mixture to stand until cool and hard.
• Turn fudge out of the vessel and into the dustbin.