Part 3:  Faculty Perspectives

 A View From The Podium

Marketing Professor Dominique Hanssens likes to think of three classrooms (or learning environments) as he discusses the instructional program: the face-to-face, the study group, and the electronic. To meet the needs of today's technologically sophisticated business community, all three "classrooms" play a critical role in preparing MBAs for their roles as managerial leaders. A major challenge for all business schools has been to achieve the most appropriate integration of computer, communication, and information technologies to support each of these three "classroom" environments. Here at Anderson, the combination of a fully-networked environment and the laptop requirement provides exciting opportunities for us on all three fronts. By way of developing a snapshot of where we are today, I've asked several of the faculty for their impressions of our status.

We at Anderson have been using technology in support of various aspects of the curriculum since 1957, when the IBM Western Data Processing Center opened at the site of the old GSM building. Over the past four decades we moved from only a handful of students and faculty having occasional use to 100% using technology almost daily.

Teaching in a fully networked laptop environment presents opportunities and challenges unlike those of a traditional classroom setting. Making the transition to this new environment is difficult, even for the most forward-thinking, educationally minded faculty members. First and foremost, an instructor is responsible for conveying the concepts and ideas which underlie the curriculum. Thus, a goal for technology in all three classrooms is to make those concepts and ideas more accessible, to provide a deeper understanding of them, and to extend their application and usage. This is no small or easy task.

The Face-to-Face Classroom

Here at Anderson the traditional classroom is everything but. The electronic podium and network seats provide faculty opportunities heretofore unavailable. Before the move to the new complex, for an electronic presentation to occur, a computer, overhead projector, and LCD display panel all had to be brought to a room on a cart. However, having network connectivity up close and available all the time makes the instructional environment very different. Business Economics Professor Ed Leamer succinctly summarizes the view of many faculty when he says, "I'm still feeling my way." The network provides ubiquitous access to resources which have never been widely available before-but this is a double-edged sword.

Business Economics Professor Victor Tabbush indicates that "connectivity to the Web has allowed for an increased relevancy and timeliness of the economic principles that I discuss. It is effortless now to connect to pages that illustrate the points I am making. For example, this past quarter I used the electronic version of the Financial Times." Information Systems Professor George Geis feels that "the greatest benefit is that everyone has continuous access to interactive content--specifically marketplace research information." Strategy & Organization Professor Marvin Lieberman feels there has been a vast improvement in student presentations, and the "faculty have much more capability and flexibility to use computers in classroom for presentations, exercises, etc." Professor Hanssens provided a list of the benefits he sees, which include:

But, as Hanssens also says, "I think the instructor should have a big red 'turn off the net' button on the podium." This reflects an overwhelming frustration expressed by the faculty: students who used to read a newspaper or write letters during class now surf or do e-mail, activities which are noticeably distracting to both classmates and professors. As one professor comments, "Whenever I look up and see a student engrossed in their screen, with sudden bursts of typing, I know they aren't taking notes but doing e-mail. I find it rude and distracting." Another observes that "keyboard noise is annoying, but bearable, provided they are doing class-related work." The consensus of the faculty appears to be that we need a better set of norms for appropriate classroom behavior with the technology. They would like to see more student responsibility in finding ways to make it work better.

The Study-Group Classroom

Learning teams, work teams, and independent, self-sufficient units are all part of the corporate vocabulary today. We see these in action at Anderson all the time, and they are heavily supported by the ubiquitous nature of our network. The faculty's role in this classroom is to require and encourage team projects, assignments, and interactions. The student perspective on this classroom setting will be discussed more thoroughly in the students comments below.

The Electronic Classroom

For many faculty, this has been the most powerful dimension of our environment, extending learning well beyond just the face-to-face time spent together in the past. A finance professor states, "I can post updated items for students on my Web site and know that they will be able to pull it off." Professor Leamer relates that, "as much as possible, I try to go paperless with data sets and homework put on the server." For some faculty, it's the interactive nature that enriches our environment. As Professor Hanssens observes, "Office hours are now mostly virtual and students can work in virtual teams, independent of their geographies." Leamer adds that "e-mail capabilities allow the conversation to extend between classroom times."

Another challenging issue which has emerged among many faculty is the use of the Web versus the use of the network servers. To put material on the instruct server is effortless for most faculty, while publishing to the Web may entail hours of work for a single document. On the other hand, Web materials are readily available from anywhere, while it is much more difficult to retrieve material from the servers remotely. This issue will resolve itself over the next couple of years, as tools for posting to the Web become simpler to use.

The Anderson School faculty has taken a bold step forward with the student laptop ownership requirement. It's impossible to predict what will be five years from now, but based on the evidence I see, my guess is that many other schools will be desperately trying to catch up with us. Each year I learn of another couple of schools following in our footsteps, installing networks and requiring laptops. However, it is not an easy undertaking, and it places significant pressure on all parties involved in the learning process.

Over the next several years we will see entirely new approaches to the educational setting emerge as the technological tools become easier to use, more accessible, and increasingly integrated into our everyday lives. Although technology will not drive the educational changes, those changes will emanate from and reflect technology's almost universal absorption into our daily lives. The availability of our networks and laptops enables more individuals to participate in new and exciting ways. I believe a fundamental element of our success will be faculty and students moving toward accepting shared responsibility for the educational effort, and making all three classrooms--the face-to-face, the study-group, and the electronic--places of interest, excitement, challenge, and growth.
 


Part 1:  Goals
Part 2:  A Management Perspective
Part 3:  Faculty Perspectives
Part 4:  Student Perspectives

Return to Jason Frand's research page
jason.frand@anderson.ucla.edu
April 30, 1998