Winter at Lofoten (2008). By Tackbert. Public Domain.

What Biz School Would Look Like If It Was Interested In Impact

Forrest ChristianLearning 2 Comments

Recently, some deans of business schools have begun blogging on things MBAish at BizDeansTalk. It’s an interesting read, partly because I’ve never spent much time with business school folks. (With my wife being an art historian, we just normally got the scientists and humanities folks for dinner. Other than practicing artists, I suppose we never had a profession-related academic in …

I’ve Got You the Discount: Get To The Most Important Conference of Your Career

Forrest ChristianLearning, Managing Leave a Comment

I don’t shill much. Ever. I don’t even shill my own services here. But I’m going to shill a great conference that is being held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in early August. From 8-11 August 2005, the Global Organization Design Society is holding its first conference on scientific management. It’s an incredible opportunity to learn more about the findings that …

Young worker at the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad 40th street shops, 1942.

Learn More & Faster By Doing Something Else (That’s Similar)

Forrest ChristianLearning, Reviews - Articles Leave a Comment

Implicit in discussions of learning curves in organizations (and explicit in most) is the idea that focused, uninterrupted learning is best. Learning curves (which go down and to the right, please note) are descended because of doing the same thing over and over. That may not be quite the case. In “Learning by Doing Something Else: Variation, Relatedness and the …

Advertisment design study for Pierce Arrow automobiles (1915). By Edward Penfield. Via Library of Congress collection.

Top 5 Job Assignments That Produce Learning

Forrest ChristianCareers, Learning 2 Comments

Not every posting is equivalent to build great managers. That’s pretty clear to even the densest of us (me). What’s not is which of the quality postings will produce better learning than others. Morgan W. McCall, in Lessons of Experience: How Successful Executives Develop on the Job (1988), cites the following as the Top 5 job assignments to produce learning:

Swanage Jazz Festival 2012. Excelsior Vintage Jazz Band. (c) Rob Schofield. (CC-A/ND) http://www.flickr.com/people/robschofield/

Making Learning Computer Programming Accessible For Normal Students

Forrest ChristianComputers/IT, Learning, Reviews - Articles Leave a Comment

Mahmoud et al. say that introductory programming courses have unacceptable failure rates, with “reported withdrawal, failure and D-grade rates approaching 50%”. In an interesting take on the problem, they decided to change they way they teach instead of complaining that the students had to change.