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Teaching Via Mixed Methods. BPS Doctoral Consortium, August 2013 Margie Peteraf Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Possible Teaching Approaches. Lectures Classroom-ready lectures available (for any text) Exercises/exams with automatic grading available Cases
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Teaching ViaMixed Methods BPS Doctoral Consortium, August 2013 Margie Peteraf Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
Possible Teaching Approaches • Lectures • Classroom-ready lectures available (for any text) • Exercises/exams with automatic grading available • Cases • Case collections; textbooks collections • Video cases; interactive cases • Simulations and Games • Project based teaching (classroom consulting) • Site visits and executive participants
What Do I Do? • I use a mix of methods throughout the course and within each session • Why? • Research suggests that the attention span of college students is about 7-10 minutes • Human adults can only go for about 20 minutes with minor breaks • And it’s WAY MORE FUN!
Over the Course of the Term • I use: • Lectures • Cases • Full length and mini cases • Videos • Exercises • Games • Guest speakers (on an occasional basis)
But Within Each Session… • I also make a point to vary the methods and keep things moving • But the majority of my sessions are either essentially a case discussion day or a lecture day • So for each of these basic formats, how do I mix things up?
Case Discussion Days • Videos (2 to 8 minute clips) • E.g.: Southwest Airlines; Walmart; Disney; DeBeers • Demonstrations • E.g. Cola Wars taste test; Newell shopping trip • Breakout groups • Group presentations of their conclusions • Debates that divide the room into two sides • Numbers analysis (for demonstration purposes)
Lecture Days • They’re always interactive lectures • Tests students’ levels of preparation and understanding • Engages them • But in addition, I use: • Exercises in small discussion groups • Games to illustrate concepts • Stories to bring ideas to life
#1: Competitive Intelligence • Competitive Intelligence: • refers to activities designed to gather information about your competitors that can help you make strategic decisions and compete more effectively • An area where the ethical limits are not entirely clear
Competitive Intelligence Exercise • I give them a list of examples for them to discuss in small groups and decide on whether or not they are ethical • We talk about this as a group, noting how hard this can be and how guidance may be needed • We talk about actual cases of misbehavior and the consequences • I handout copies of a company code of conduct and we discuss how such codes can make the difference
#2: The Price/Cost/Value Model • I use an “Illustration Capsule” from my textbook on the Aravind Eye Clinic • An example of a focused low cost strategy • The Capsule provides sufficient information to allow students to calculate: • The Customer Value Proposition • The Profit Formula • Total Economic Value Created
Where Can You Find Exercises? • News articles from papers, blogs, magazines • Mini-cases or illustration capsules in textbooks • Prepared slides often include questions to accompany these parts of text • Exercises at the end of textbook chapters • Ideas that colleagues have had success with • Teaching sessions at conferences • Shared teaching ideas from online sources