Teaching and the Tools Thereof
March 30, 2011
I’m teaching in a strategic management class, starting next Monday. It’s the capstone strategy class in the MBA program at University of Maryland University College (UMUC). I’ll be teaching a “hybrid” section, which mean that it’ll be mostly e-learning, but with a few in-class meetings.
The learning management system (LMS) is WebTycho, which is well-established at UMUC, used at a few other institutions, but isn’t a generally-available or widely-used LMS. Having just completed an orientation course in WebTycho, I can give an opinion: it’s solid, and not often annoying.
Teaching at UMUC also involves using Microsoft Outlook, which is both widely-used and annoying.
That said, I’m excited about the 10-week strategy course that’s about to start.
MBAs and BS
December 18, 2009
When I saw a Reddit entry entitled The decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit at source, and linking to The Economist, I doubted that the Reddit title was a quote from the original article. But the article, by one Lucy Kellaway, includes the following sentence.
In 2010 the decline of the MBA will cut off the supply of bullshit at source.
As a once and (probably) future business school prof, I may be biased. But I do have arguments against multiple aspects of the article.
One argument concerns the employment of MBA graduates, and is linked to the prediction that the MBA will decline next year. While it is true that an MBA may not make a job candidate stand out, the lack of one may do so. What used to be true of a bachelor’s has become true of a master’s, and partularly of an MBA. It’s a box that employers expect to be able to check for many jobs.
A second argument is provoked by the above “bullshit” quote. The quote implies that business schools, and in particular MBAs, are the world’s sole source of bullshit. Kellaway is obviously a journalist blissfully unaware of other sources – such as politicians and journalists.
