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November 21, 2005
A Few Ideas from Yesterday's Conversations
Donna Davis at the University of Southern Mississippi suggests that we share cases that we've developed. A great idea that we could easily implement here. Please, if you have a case that others can use, send it (or a link to it) to me and I'll post it on this blog. If we get enough of them, I'll create a keyword searchable database that everyone can access.
Delvin Grant from DePaul University suggested that we work together as a community to establish Critical Success Factors (CSF) for the MIS class. What an interesting idea! Clearly, we deal with many common issues / problems / opportunities, and most of us are addressing those issues in isolation. Learning what others have found to be critical to their success could be a great boon to all of us. When I get back to Seattle, I'll summarize the notes I've taken from the conversations here and produce a draft of possible CSF's that incorporate the ideas expressed in our meetings. Meanwhile, if you have suggestions for CSFs from your own experience, please mail them to me or make a comment to this blog entry.
One common theme seems to be the need for in-class activities to break up the lecture hour(s). Tueta Cata from Northern Kentucky University uses in-class group exercises successfully and believes they are a key part of her students' learning. I hope to have a summary of Dr. Cata's activities on this site, soon.
Roy Dejoie is the course coordinator for all sections of the MIS class at Purdue. Roy brought lots of ideas / issues / problems / opportunities to our discussion yesterday afternoon. He raised one point that greatly complicates our classrooms: Unlike marketing, ops management, finance, even accounting, MIS requires integration of all business disciplines. An IS is like the nervous system of an organization, and we have to know and teach something about every major business activity. That need causes the course to fan out like the Platt River in springtime -- 3 miles wide and half an inch deep. It means not only that we need to have a wide breath of knowledge, but also that we need to connect to the knowledge that students are gaining in other classes. All of that to students many of whose business experience is that they've been summer lifeguards. How do we address this? Lots to think about and I hope Professor Grant's idea of the CSFs will help.
Many other great ideas in the conversations, but I'm running out of time. More to come tomorrow and over the weekend.
Thanks to everyone!
Posted by DavidK at November 21, 2005 08:11 AM | Permalink