October 09, 2005
The MISsed Opportunity
The MIS Class is in trouble, nationally. Students hate the course; faculty avoid teaching it. Evaluations are poor. And students gain little sense of the fascinating opportunities in IT/IS. Consequently, without the hype and hyperbole of the dot com frenzy, IS major enrollments have plummeted.
Is this assessment too bleak? My conversations with colleagues around the nation indicate not, but I have no formal survey. The publishers tell me, however, that enrollments are certainly down and I suspect most department chairpersons know that as well.
But, could it all be unnecessary? Is there a way to make the MIS class exciting and interesting? Is there a way to show students some of the great opportunities in this field – opportunities that involve innovative applications of IT/IS for the solution of business problems? Some opportunities lie with traditional programming, etc., but don't the major opportunities, especially for b-school graduates, concern business application of IT/IS to maintain competitiveness on the international horizon?
I think the course can be much better, even exciting, and even fun to teach. I also think the burden for making the needed changes falls, in truth, on us senior faculty. The realities of tenure track promotion mean that any young assistant professor who spends even an hour improving this class is engaging in an hour's worth of self-defeating behavior. Promotion is based on scholarship and research and it has always been that way. So, it is for those of us who do not face promotion/publishing pressures to lead the way.
The key is relevance. It does not work to teach the class like a geologist naming minerals. Here's a TPS, here's a MRP, here's an MRP II, here's an ERP, etc. Nor does it work to teach the class as a glorified dictionary. This is what IPv4 means, this is what IPv6 means, this is what RFID means. No, we can't keep teaching the class that way.
It has to be application. It has to be "Here's a problem that you might have early in your career." How are you going to solve that problem? How are you going to marshal the resources to reduce inventory costs using a new information system? As a small retailer, how can you use an IS to determine that you've lost a customer? As a future manager, your boss put $80,000 in your computer budget. Is that enough?
I pose the problem and then try to teach the technology or systems that students can apply to solve that problem. Their knowledge needs drive the class. And maybe this means I don't cover all the material. "Death by coverage," is how Herbert Simon called it. Besides what a misleading word for a teacher. Why should I be covering material. I should be uncovering material.
We’re a lot closer to the medical school than we are to the geology or physics departments. As graduates, our students need to solve problems – not to cure sick people, but to improve the business in which they work – increase competitive advantage, solve particular problems, improve decision making.
Medical schools for years have endorsed a problem solving pedagogy. Pose the problem and use it to drive the need for the knowledge. It's knowledge in action and not sinking with PowerPoint.
It doesn't always work. Sometimes we fail. But, even in the failure, much is learned. And nobody, including me, goes to sleep.
We're MISsing an opportunity!
Posted by DavidK at October 9, 2005 10:27 AM | Permalink