Term 1: Wrap up

Term One: Complete!

Term one is complete!  Our students took their final exams over the weekend; turned in final projects; and have gone their own way for a much needed break.  We offer our congratulations to Murali who became a first-time father yesterday: he has a daughter.

Final marks (i.e., grades) for Term One courses remain to be finalized, but we're confident that all students performed well in the face of rigorous academic challenges. We made them work!  I'll offer a few personal observations.

This year's full-time MBA class appears highly cohesive and independent; they seem to grasp the nature of the challenge before them and require very little hand holding.

They have grown in confidence in their ability to work in syndicates (teams) and deliver case presentations in class.  They produced excellent work and seemed to enjoy (figuratively) having the spotlight or stage.

End-of-term interviews with each student suggest our students have few, if any, concerns about their performance and our support. The academic year has gone very, very smoothly!

Our two social events (pregame carry-in / Rugby match + barbecue) went over well, with a good mix of faculty, management team and student participation.  The Highlanders (our home team) won the rugby match by one point.

We conducted two writing workshops to aid our students' understanding of conceptual reasoning. This thinking ability (i.e., the quality of their reasoning) remains a core theme across courses and constitutes a skill refined with practice (i.e., like learning to ride a bike).  But, they are getting it!

Our students appear to grasp the distinction between understanding the professional treatment of concepts and the application of concepts to data.  

They understand the need to ground their thinking in a professional literature (i.e., defining core concepts) and apply concepts to analyze (not describe) cases and personal experiences (i.e., real world data).

We addressed a source of confusion. Students began the year with a fixation on right answers (i.e., what is the lecturer looking for) and grades.  We emphasize the following:

• At the MBA level, right answers do not exist and our concern remains the quality of the student's reasoning, even if the logic diverges from the lecture's expectation.  

• They should restate questions on written assignments and exams, to permit the lecturer to mark answers based on the student's understanding of the question.

• Students should create boundary conditions: i.e., identify what is included and excluded in their answers.

• They should interact with, and demonstrate an understanding of, the relevant professional literature, such as defining core concepts with references.

• Separate their discussion of the professional literature from the application of concepts in an analysis of data.  The real world in all forms (e.g., written cases, live examples and personal experiences) comprises messy data (e.g., mired with irrelevant details and opinions), with the student responsible for imposing a structure on these data.

• Construct a cohesive logical (i.e., additive) argument. Don't repeat. 

• Remember that grades are dependent on the quality of their reasoning and not how many concepts are included in their answer.