Category Archives: Teaching

ETP (Excellent Teaching Practitioner)

In May I received official message that I had been awarded the status of Excellent Teaching Practitioner with four colleagues from BI.

To cite an official description: “The excellent teaching practitioner (ETP) status is granted based upon proven merit and commitment to teaching and educational excellence. The ETP is independent of other academic promotion schemes, and the title ETP can only be awarded to people who develop their teaching competences systematically and over time to a level that is significantly higher than the required basic competence at Universities.” The program has existed at other schools for a few years, but this is the first year BI awards it.

I thought I would use this space to reflect a bit on the whys and hows of this status change – as well as the process, to encourage more of my colleagues to seek it.

Why apply for ETP?
I have always cared about the teaching part of the job, partly because I am better at that than publications, partly because I think quality in teaching is an important differentiator for higher education institutions in general and business school in particular. We need good teaching. BI, a private institution competing with practically gratis public institutions, need it more than ever.

While focusing on teaching is great for your life quality and sense of purpose, it is a killer in terms of more material rewards. You will not get promoted to full professor by being a good teacher and publishing on teaching (at least not in Norway: My excellent colleague Bill Schiano was promoted to full professor at Bentley in 2015 in no small measure because of the book we wrote together.) Good teaching will be rewarded with nice words and rather quickly evaporating brownie points, illiquid outside your own institution. Unless you shift over to becoming a professor of pedagogy (i.e., change careers) you will have to take your rewards intrinsically (happy students and good experiences in the classroom) or outside the institution (consulting, speaking, board memberships etc.).

Prestige?
Apparently (and I can’t find the quote, ChatGPT or not) a cantankerous old editor of The Times disallowed the word “famous” when describing someone. The reason was that if the person was famous, the word was unnecessary – and if not, incorrect.

So I am a little puzzled that the ETP is referred to as “prestigious” in the announcement. However, some really good teachers, such as my friend Arne Krokan at NTNU, has been awarded it (he was one reason I applied, actually). And I certainly feel proud when my photo appears next to my colleagues above. That is prestigious, at least to me.

The ETP status, however, carries some tangible benefits aside from whatever prestige it may confer: A (modest) salary increase, permanent and applicable towards your pension. While the sum is not large, it is high enough that it makes the process of applying worth doing in itself. (The salary increase certainly does not pay for the extra effort you have put into your teaching over the years, but it is not intended to.)

A second, and perhaps more important consideration is that the pendulum in academia has swung very far out on the research & publication end, and is now coming back towards teaching & relevance, particularly for business schools. The ETP status is something implemented by the government and adopted by BI to shift focus towards quality in teaching – and if nobody applies for it, it loses value.

So, dear colleagues with excellent experience with innovative teaching – yes, I am looking at you Ragnvald, Øystein, Hanno, Anna, Pål, Robert and doubtless many others – do go ahead and apply!

That will increase my prestige!

And now for the process:

The application itself
To help people apply for ETP, BI has created an internal web page and sought the help of a consultant (Prof. Trine Fossland) to advise applicants. I had two video sessions with Trine, and she helped me structure my application. The application is quite comprehensive, and it is good advice to take out as much of your documented experience as possible (that goes into the pedagogical CV, which, if you have not created it gradually over the years, is quite a bit of work in itself.)

Writing an application is an exercise in focus: You need to show that you fulfil the criteria, that the evolution and innovation you have done is a planned activity, consciously undertaken, and that you can credibly claim to want to continue it. You need to pick a few activities and show their change over time.

For me this was difficult – I have never had a plan with what I do, but a constant dissatisfaction with my courses (I really should do better) and an appetite for new technology and new ways of doing things has helped me maintain an innovative pressure. I try to explain that I put a lot of work into my courses because I am inherently lazy and want to work as efficiently as possible, but that excuse is wearing a bit thin.

Innovation comes from trying things at the edge. I have always been someone who wants to try things out, often by “breaking” rules or at least tradition – such as currently teaching a course at UiO and BI at the same time, mixing the students. The students love it (and have asked med to force cross-institutional teams the next time I teach it), the administration at the operative level are helpful, but you do run into a lot of “this is how we do it here” issues, often expressed as pedagogical principles that as a rule are neither pedagogical nor principled.

At some point I really need to write that “Innovators are irritating” paper I have been thinking about for so long…

Pedagogical course requirement
Midway through the process (actually, after the application was submitted) I discovered that one of the criteria was that I had to have the basic education course (Utdanningsfaglig kompetanse) that all newly hired faculty at BI must take. That was kind of a bummer and in my view an unnecessary formality: I have learned and taught pedagogy at HBS and many other places around the world and taught classes since 1983. Luckily, there was an option for highly experienced faculty to basically take a home exam based on the curriculum in the course, which duly did. This required writing and submitting a teaching portfolio – a mix of a short pedagogical CV, as well as a short paper reflecting on your teaching as seen through the curriculum of the course.

Initially I saw this basic pedagogy exercise as an irritant (and, to be honest, slightly humiliating), but looking back on it, I cannot say it was a totally useless endeavor. The Learning Center (Inger Carin, in my case), was very helpful. It acquainted me with some literature – and language – of pedagogy. I found that what I had been doing over the years was recommended by the pedagogues, though it must be said that pedagogy professors never use one sentence when a few chapters or a whole book can be written instead.

In the end, it allowed me with some justification to say that what I do is grounded in theory, though I discovered at least some of the theory after a couple of decades of teaching…

The panel interview
The final stage of the process was an interview by a committee of assessors (professors from other institutions in Norway, all of them ETPs in their own right). I have not done many job interviews and have not done well in any of them, but apparently I passed well enough, and the report afterwards was very complimentary.

One thing I do remember was that my main teaching approach – HBS-style case teaching, where the students are supposed to do the talking and every class is a case-based class, with participation grading, fixed seating and other features – was not something the committee was familiar with (or maybe they were, and just wanted me to explain it.) I also got the feeling that the committee was not very familiar with executive teaching in a business school context.

My main advice to those of you wanting to go through the same process is to not take any knowledge about what you do for granted, but explain it and put it into a context. I did the usual smart thing and tried to check out the backgrounds and pedagogical focus of the committee members, but still managed to miss the mark a bit. However, they were friendly and pulled me back on track.

In conclusion
Well, there you go: A worthwhile exercise to go through to get some tangible rewards for doing the thing you love and would do anyway. Now it remains to see if this exalted status will bring reputational immortality or exciting new opportunities…

Video teaching in Shanghai (from Oslo)

Class photo….

I have just finished teaching a four-day course in Strategic Technology and Innovation Management in the BI-Fudan MBA program. This is the second time I teach this way – the last time was in June, where we divided the course up in two two-day modules and everyone was on Zoom. This time about half the students were in the classroom in Shanghai, the rest on videoconference.

Last time I did this, it was an enormous amount of work. This time it was easier – not so much because of routine (though that helps) but because my strategy of building up a library of video classes has helped me reduce the workload in later courses. Normal teaching hours when videoteaching to China is from 0700-1400 Oslo time, which is 1400-2100 for the students. This has meant, for me, that I have had to be in my office (where my fast computer is) at about 0630. So how to bridge the time difference productively?

My strategy has been to have the students work on case analysis in their mornings, and to make 5-minute videos where they present their case analysis. So, when I get up at 0500, I watch their videos, grade and comment on them. Then I get to work, where we start the day with discussing the case. For some of the mornings, I have also asked them to watch videos of presentations (the airline series, in particular). I have also used other videos where the students have either watched them on their computers or on a large screen in the classroom, instead of me talking into the camera. And when I am talking into the camera myself, I have made sure that I capture sound, picture (with a good webcam) and the slides for future videos.

The upshot: I now have about 10 hours of videos which I can reuse. They are decent quality, in English, and will allow me to teach by having the students watch the video, then meet with me to discuss the content. This is much less tiring for both parties – the experience for the students is a presentation (which can be paused, speeded up, and watched when they want to) and a discussion with me, the experience for me is an interesting discussion with prepared and interested students. Having the presentation recorded allows time-shifting, and avoids all kinds of trouble with videoconferencing.

I am a very lazy person, so I have been working very hard to create a library of teaching material which will allow me to work less (or, perhaps, teach more but work the same) in the future.

We’ll see how that works. The students seem to like it. And it would not be China if it did not include a group shot with the professor…

How to do a research interview

Here is a little video I did on how to do a research interview.

30 minutes long, fairly straightforward, I now have the technology sorted that I can make videos like this fairly easy and with decent quality. Might have used a better microphone, but what the heck, it works and only took me about four hours, including writing the outline.

As usual with these things: Caveat emptor. But this approach works for me.

Outline posted below the fold.

Continue reading →

Getting dialogue online

Bank in the nineties, I facilitated a meeting with Frank Elter at a Telenor video meeting room in Oslo. There were about 8 participants, and an invited presenter: Tom Malone from MIT.

The way it was set up, we first saw a one hour long video Tom had created, where he gave a talk and showed some videos about new ways of organizing work (one of the more memorable sequences was (a shortened version of) the four-hour house video.) After seeing Tom’s video, we spent about one hour discussing some of the questions Tom had raised in the video. Then Tom came on from a video conferencing studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to discuss with the participants.

The interesting thing, to me, was that the participants experienced this meeting as “three hours with Tom Malone”. Tom experienced it as a one hour discussion with very interested and extremely well prepared participants.

A win-win, in other words.

I was trying for something similar yesterday, guest lecturing in Lene Pettersen‘s course at the University of Oslo, using Zoom with early entry, chat, polling and all video/audio enabled for all participants. This was the first videoconference lecture for the students and for three of my colleagues, who joined in. In preparation, the students had read some book chapters and articles and watched my video on technology evolution and disruptive innovations.

For the two hour session, I had set up this driving plan (starting at 2 pm, or 14:00 as we say over here in Europe…):

Image may contain: Espen Andersen, eyeglasses

Leading the discussion. Zoom allows you to show a virtual background, so I chose a picture of the office I would have liked to have…

14:00 – 14:15 Checking in, fiddling with the equipment and making sure everything worked. (First time for many of the users, so have the show up early so technical issues don’t eat into the teaching time.)
14:15 – 14:25 Lene introduces the class, talks about the rest of the course and turns over to Espen (we also encouraged the students to enter questions they wanted addressed in the chat during this piece)
14:25 – 14:35 Espen talking about disruption and technology-driven strategies.
14:35 – 14:55 Students into breakout rooms – discussing whether video what it would take for video and digital delivery to be a disruptive innovation for universities. (Breaking students up into 8 rooms of four participants, asking them to nominate a spokesperson to take notes and paste them into the chat when they return, and to discuss the specific question: What needs to happen for COVID-19 to cause a disruption of universities, and how would such a disruption play out?
14:55 – 15:15 Return to main room, Espen sums up a little bit, and calls on spokesperson from each group (3 out of 8 groups) based on the notes posted in the chat (which everyone can see). Espen talks about the Finn.no case and raises the next discussion question.
15:15 – 15:35 Breakout rooms, students discuss the next question: What needs to happen for DNB (Norway’s largest bank) to become a data-driven, experiment-oriented organization like Finn.no? What are the most important obstacles and how should they be dealt with?
15:35 – 15:55 Espen sums up the discussion, calling on some students based on the posts in the chat, sums up.
15:55 – 16:00 Espen hand back to Lene, who sums up. After 16:00, we stayed on with colleagues and some of the students to discuss the experience.

zoom dashboard

The dashboard as I saw it. Student names obscured.

Some reflections (some of these are rather technical, but they are notes to myself):

  • Not using Powerpoint or a shared screen is important. Running Zoom in Gallery view (I had set it up so you could see up to 49 at the same time) and having the students log in to Zoom and upload a picture gave a feeling of community. Screen and/or presentation sharing breaks the flow for everyone – When you do it in Zoom, the screen reconfigures (as it does when you come back from a breakout room) and you have to reestablish the participant panel and the chat floater. Instead, using polls and discussion questions and results communicated through the chat was easier for everyone (and way less complicated).

  • No photo description available.

    Satisfactory results, I would say.

    I used polls on three occasions: Before each discussion breakout, and in the end to ask the students what the experience was like. They were very happy about it and had good pointers on how to make it better

  • We had no performance issues and rock-steady connection the whole way through.
  • It should be noted that the program is one of the most selective in Norway and the students are highly motivated and very good. During the breakout sessions I jumped into each room to listen in on the discussion (learned that it was best to pause recording to avoid a voice saying “This session is being recorded” as I entered. The students were actively discussing in every group, with my colleagues (Bendik, Lene, and Katja) also participating. I had kept the groups to four participants, based on feedback from a session last week, where the students had been 6-7 and had issues with people speaking over each other.
  • Having a carefully written driving plan was important, but still, it was a very intense experience, I was quite exhausted afterwards. My advice on not teaching alone stands – in this case, I was the only one with experience, but that will change very fast. But I kept feeling rushed and would have liked more time, especially in the summary sections, would have liked to bring more students in to talk.
  • I did have a few breaks myself – during the breakout sessions – to go to the bathroom and replenish my coffee – but failed to allow for breaks for the students. I assume they managed to sneak out when necessary (hiding behind a still picture), but next time, I will explicitly have breaks, perhaps suggest a five minute break in the transition from main room to breakout rooms.

Conclusion: This can work very well, but I think it is important to set up each video session based on what you want to use it for: To present something, to run an exercise, to facilitate interaction. With a small student group like this, I think interaction worked very well, but it requires a lot of presentation. You have to be extremely conscious of time – I seriously think that any two-hour classroom session needs to be rescheduled to a three hour session just because the interaction is slower, and you need to have breaks.

As Winston Churchill almost said (he said a lot, didn’t he): We make our tools, and then our tools make us. We now have the tools, it will be interesting to see how the second part of this transition plays out.

Dealing with cheating

At BI Norwegian Business School, we are (naturally and way overdue, but a virus crisis helps) moving all exams to digital. This means a lot of changes for people who have not done that before. One particular anxiety is cheating – normally not a problem in the subjects I teach (case- and problem oriented, master/executive, small classes) but certainly is an issue in large classes at the bachelor level, where many answers are easily found online, the students are many, and the subjects introductory in nature.

Here are some strategies to deal with this:

  • Have an academic honesty policy and have the students sign it as part of the exam. This to make them aware of they risk if they cheat.
  • Keep the exam time short – three hours at the max – and deliberately ask more questions than usual. This makes for less time for cheating (by collaborating) because collaboration takes time. It also means introducing more differentiation between the students – if just a few students manage to answer all questions, those are the A candidates. Obviously, you need to adjust the grade scale somewhat (you can’t expect all to answer everything) and there is an issue of awarding students that are good at taking exams at the expense of deep learning, but that is the way of all exams.
  • Don’t ask the obvious questions, especially not those asked on previous exams. Sorry, no reuse. Or perhaps a little bit (it is a tiring time.)
  • Tell the students that all answers will be subjected to an automated plagiarism check. Whether this is true or not, does not matter – plagiarism checkers are somewhat unreliable, have many false positives, and require a lot of afterwork – but just the threat will eliminate much cheating. (Personally, I look for cleverly crafted answers and Google them, amazing what shows up…).
  • Tell the students that after the written exam, they can be called in for an oral exam where they will need to show how they got their answers (if it is a single-answer, mathematically oriented course) or answer more detailed questions (if it is a more analysis- or literature oriented course). Who gets called in (via videoconference) will be partially random and partially based on suspicion. Failing the orals results in failing the course.
  • When you write the questions: If applicable, Google them, look at the most common results, and deliberately reshape the questions so that the answer is not one of those.
  • Use an example for the students to discuss/calculate, preferably one that is fresh from a news source or from a deliberately obscure academic article they have not seen before.
  • Consider giving sub-groups of students different numbers to work from – either automatically (different questions allocated through the exam system) or by having questions like “If your student ID ends in an even number (0,2,4,6,8) answer question 2a, otherwise answer question 2b” (use the student ID, not “birthday in January, February, March…” as this will be the only marker you have.) The questions may have the same problem, but with small, unimportant differences such as names, coefficients or others. This makes it much harder to collaborate for the students. (If you do multiple questions in an electronic context, I assume a number of the tools will have functionality for changing the order of the questions – it would, frankly, astonish me if they did not – but I don’t use multiple choice myself, so I don’t know.
  • Consider telling the students they will all get different problems (as discussed above) but not doing it. It still will prevent a lot of cheating simply because the students believe they all have different problems and act accordingly.
  • If you have essay questions, ask the students to pick a portion of them and answer them. I do this on all my exams anyway – give the students 6 questions with short (150 words) answers and ask them to pick 4 and answer only those, and give them 2 or 3 longer questions (400 words or so) and ask them to answer only one. (Make it clear that answering them all will result in only the first answered will be considered.) Again, this makes cheating harder.

Lastly: You can’t eliminate cheating in regular, physical exams, so don’t think you can do it in online exams. But you certainly can increase the disincentives to do so, and that is the most you can hope for.

Department for future ideas
I have always wanted to use machine learning for grading exams. At BI, we have some exams with 6000 candidates writing textual answers. Grading this surely must constitute cruel and unusual punishment. With my eminent colleague Chandler Johnson I tried to start a project where we would have graders grade 1000 of these exams, then use text recognition and other tools, build an ML model and use that to grade the rest. Worth an experiment, surely. The project (like many other ideas) never took off, largely because of difficulties of getting the data, but perhaps this situation will make it possible.

And that would be a good thing…

A teaching video – with some reflections

Last Thursday, I was supposed to teach a class on technology strategy for a bachelor program at the University of Oslo. That class has been delayed for a week and (obviously) moved online. I thought about doing it video conference, but why not make a video, ask the students to see it before class? Then I can run the class interactively, discussing the readings and the video rather than spending my time talking into a screen. Recording a video is more work, but the result is reusable in other contexts, which is why I did it in English, not Norwegian. The result is here:

To my teaching colleagues: The stuff in the middle is probably not interesting – see the first two and the last five minutes for pointers to teaching and video editing.

For the rest, here is a short table of contents (with approximate time stamps):

  • 0:00 – 2:00 Intro, some details about recording the video etc.
  • 2:00 – 27:30 Why technology evolution is important, and an overview of technology innovation/evolution processes
    • 6:00 – 9:45 Standard engineering
    • 9:45 – 12:50 Invention
    • 12:50 – 15:50 Structural deepening
    • 15:50 – 17:00  Emerging (general) technology
      • 17:00 – 19:45 Substitution
      • 19:45 – 25:00 Expansion, including dominant design
      • 25:00 – 27:30 Structuration
  • 27:30 – 31:30 Architectural innovation (technology phases)
  • 31:30 –  31:45 BREAK! (Stop the video and get some coffee…)
  • 31:45 – 49:40 Disruption
    • 31:45 – 38:05 Introduction and theory
    • 38:05 – 44:00 Excavator example
    • 44:00 – 46:00 Hairdresser example
    • 47:00 – 47:35 Characteristics of disruptive innovations
    • 47:35 – 49:40 Defensive strategies
  • 49:40 – 53:00 Things take time – production and teaching…
  • 53:00 – 54:30 Fun stuff

This is not the first time I have recorded videos, by any means, but it is the first time I have created one for “serious” use, where I try to edit it to be reasonably professional. Some reflections on the process:

  • This is a talk I have given many times, so I did not need to prepare the content much – mainly select some slides. for a normal course, I would use two-three hours to go through the first 30 minutes of this video – I use much deeper examples and interact with the students, have them come up with other examples and so on. The disruption part typically takes 1-2 hours, plus at least one hour on a specific case (such as the steel production). Now the format forces me into straight presentation, as well as a lot of simplification – perhaps too much. I aim to focus on some specifics in the discussion with the students.
  • I find that I say lots of things wrong, skip some important points, forget to put emphasis on other points. That is irritating, but this is straight recording, not a documentary, where I would storyboard things, film everything in short snippets, use videos more, and think about every second. I wanted to do this quickly, and then I just have to learn not to be irritated at small details.
  • That being said, this is a major time sink. The video is about 55 minutes long. Recording took about two hours (including a lot of fiddling with equipment and a couple of breaks). Editing the first 30 minutes of the  video took two hours, another hour and a half for the disruption part (mainly because by then I was tired, said a number of unnecessary things that I had to remove.)
  • Using the iPad to be able to draw turned out not to be very helpful in this case, it complicated things quite a bit. Apple’s SideCar is still a bit unpredictable, and for changing the slides or the little drawing on the slides I did, a mouse would have been enough.
  • Having my daughter as audience helps, until I have trained myself to look constantly into the camera. Taping a picture of her or another family member to the camera would probably work almost as well, with practice. (She has heard all my stories before…)
  • When recording with a smartphone, put it in flight mode so you don’t get phone calls while recording (as I did.) Incidentally, there are apps out there that allow you to use the iPhone as a camera connected to the PC with a cable, but I have not tested them. It is easy to transfer the video with AirPlay, anyway.
  • The sound is recorded in two microphones (the iPhone and a Røde wireless mic.) I found that it got “fatter” if I used both the tracks, so I did that, but it does sometime screw up the preview function in Camtasia (though not the finished product). That would also have captured both my voice and my daughter’s (though she did not ask any questions during the recording, except on the outtakes.)
  • One great aspect of recording a video is that you can fix errors – just pause and repeat whatever you were going to say, and the cut it in editing. I also used video overlays to correct errors in some slides, and annotations to correct when I said anything wrong (such as repeatedly saying “functional deepening” instead of “structural deepening”.) It does take, time, however…

My excellent colleague Ragnvald Sannes pointed out that this is indicative of how teaching will work in the future, from a work (and remuneration) perspective. We will spend much more time making the content, and less time giving it. This, at the very least, means that teachers can no longer be paid based on the number of hours spent teaching – or that we need to redefine what teaching means…

Moving your course online: Five things to consider

Another video on moving to video-based teaching, this time about some things to consider to make the transition as easy for yourself as possible (as well as increasing the experience for the students):

From the Youtube posting:

Many teachers now have to move their courses online, and are worried about it. Teaching online is different from teaching in a classroom, but not so different: The main thing is still that you know your material and care about the the people at the other end. There are some things to consider, however, so here are five tips to think about when you move your course online:

  1. Talk to one student, not many.
  2. Structure, structure, structure (much more important in online teaching).
  3. Interaction is possible, but needs to be planned.
  4. Bring a friend: Teach with a colleague, for mutual help and a better experience.
  5. Use the recording as a tool for making your teaching better, by reviewing it and editing it yourself.

Five tips for better video teaching

In these viral times, a lot of universities will need to switch to video teaching, and for many teachers, this is a new experience. Here is a short (and fast) video I made with five – non-technical – tips for better video conferencing and teaching.

To sum it up:

1. Sound is more important than picture.
2. Look into the camera!
3. Don’t make the obvious mistakes: Background, lighting, and clothing.
4. Be lively! The medium consumes energy, you need to compensate.
5. Get to know the tools.

Good luck!

Student cases of digitalization and disruption

I teach a M.Sc. class called “business development and innovation management”, and challenge students to write Harvard-style cases about real companies experiencing issues within these areas. The results are always fun and provide learning opportunities for the students: You may not provide the answer for the company, but you get a chance to really learn about one company or one industry and dive into the complexities and intricacies of their situation. That knowledge, in itself is valuable when you are hitting the job market.

Here is a (fairly anonymized) list of this year’s papers:

  • disruption in the analytics industry: One group is studying SAS Institute and how their closed software and architecture model is being challenged by open-source developments
  • disruption in the consulting industry: One group wants to study a small consulting company and how they should market some newly developed software that allows for automated, low-cost analysis
  • establishing a crypto-currency exchange: One group wants to study strategies for establishing a payment and exchange service for crypto-currencies
  • marketing RPA through a law firm: One group wants to study how a large law firm can market their internal capabilities for RPA (robotics process automation) in an external context
  • fast access to emergency services: One group wants to write a case on Smarthelp and how that service can be spread and marketed in a wider context
  • using technology to manage sports club sponsorship: One group wants to study how to develop strategy for a startup company that helps participation sports clubs with gain corporate sponsorships
  • electronic commerce and innovation in the agricultural equipment sector: One group wants to study how a vendor of farm equipment and supplies can extend their market and increase their innovative capability through ecommerce and other digital initiatives
  • machine learning in Indian banking: One group wants to study how machine learning could be used to detect money laundering in a large Indian bank
  • social media analysis in consumer lending: One group wants to study an Indian startup company that uses digital indicators from users’ online behavior to facilitate consumer financing for online purchases

Al in all, a fairly diverse set of papers – I am looking forward to reading them.

Analytics III: Projects

asm_topTogether with Chandler Johnson and Alessandra Luzzi, I currently teach a course called Analytics for Strategic Management. In this course (now in its third iteration), executive students work on real projects for real companies, applying various forms of machine learning (big data, analytics, whatever you want to call it) to business problems. We have just finished the second of five modules, and the projects are now defined.

Here is a (mostly anonymised, except for publicly owned companies) list:

  • An IT service company that provides data and analytics wants to predict customer use of their online products, in order to provide better products and tailor them more to the most active customers
  • A gas station chain company wants to predict churn in their business customers, to find ways to keep them (or, if necessary, scale down some of their offerings)
  • A electricity distribution network company wants to identify which of their (recently installed) smart meters are not working properly, to reduce the cost of inspection and increase the quality of
  • A hairdressing chain wants to predict which customers will book a new appointment when they have had their hair done, in order to increase repeat business and build a group of loyal customers
  • A large financial institution wants to identify employees that misuse company information (such as looking at celebrities’ information), in order to increase privacy and data confidentiality
  • NAV IT wants to predict which employees are likely to leave the company, in order to better plan for recruitment and retraining
  • OSL Gardermoen want to find out which airline passengers are more likely to use the taxfree shop, in order to increase sales (and not bother those who will not use the taxfree shop too much)
  • a bank wants to find out which of their younger customers will need a house loan soon, to increase their market share
  • a TV media company wants to find out which customers are likely to cancel their subscription within a certain time frame, to better tailor their program offering and their marketing
  • a provider of managed data centers wants to predict their customers’ energy needs, to increase the precision of their own and their customers’ energy budgets
  • Ruter (the public transportation umbrella company for the Oslo area) wants to build a model to better predict crowding on buses, to, well, avoid overcrowding
  • Barnevernet wants to build a model to better predict which families are most likely to be approved as foster parents, in order to speed up the qualification process
  • an electrical energy production company wants to build a model to better predict electricity usage in their market, in order to plan their production process better

All in all, a fairly typical set of examples of the use of machine learning and analytics in business – and I certainly like to work with practical examples with very clearly defined benefits. Over the next three modules (to be finished in the Spring) we will take these projects closer to fruition, some to a stage of a completed proposal, some probably all the way to a finished model and perhaps even an implementation.

How to write a teaching case

Since I sometimes give classes on how to do case teaching and have written a book on the subject with Bill Schiano, I am sometimes asked how to write a teaching case. The following blog post is a quick tips & tricks collection (essentially an update of this post.)

Why are you writing this case?
First and foremost: Cases are written for a teaching purpose – and to write a teaching case, you need to have a teaching objective in mind. It is not enough to have an interesting company. Even the best company story needs to have a pedagogical point, a theory or dilemma to illustrate. So don’t write a teaching case just because you happen to know someone in a really interesting company – it does need to be a good story, but it also need to have a purpose.

The standard outline
Cases – particularly the standard HBS case – follow an outline that can seem rather trite, but which is very effective. It is something like this:

  • 0.5 page: Intro: The protagonist is introduced, typically pondering a question of some importance. The idea is to tell the students from which perspective the case is written, to set the scene – and that is all there is to it.
  • 1 – 1.5 pages: Description of the company – not the whole history, but the relevant details, explaining what the company is doing, how they make their money. Most companies are to a very large degree formed by their history, so the relevant parts need to be told.
  • 1 page: Industry. Companies exist within a context, and you need to set it. Explain the industry, its evolution, and the company’s position within it. Do it succinctly, but leave more detail in than what is strictly necessary.
  • 1 – 5 pages: Specific issue. This is the meat of the case, the issue at hand, the story to ponder. Make sure you tell it logically and cooly, not leaving anything out, but also conveying the complexity of the situation.
  • 0.5 page: Conclusion, typically with the protagonist wondering what to do, often with some sort of event (board meeting, etc.) where he or she has to present a solution to the problem.

Most cases are just that – one case. You can have a B case and even a C case, but keep them short, since they have to be handed out and read in class. The B case should explain what the company did and perhaps introduce a new problem, the C case, if necessary, should bring some sort of closure, explaining what eventually happened. In my experience, it is very hard to get discussion after a C case – the students become exhausted. As a novice case writer, especially if you are writing about a company with a long history, it can be tempting to create a long string of small cases, but in practice this seldom works well – for one thing, it forces the discussion into a very predictable path.

The no-nos
No theory. A good case should be a description of an interesting situation, frequently a decision point – and nothing else. This means that there should be no theory and no discussion of the case in the case itself. Save that for the teaching note, or write a separate academic article about it. Not only does this make the case more realistic, it also means it can be used for more purposes than the one initially envisioned. This can be quite challenging for the traditional academic writer – but it is actually good practice to only present the facts (though, of course, which facts you choose to present constitute a discussion of sorts).

No hero, no villain. When teaching students how to analyze a case, I always start by saying that for most business situations, if is useful to begin the analysis with the assumption that people are not stupid and not evil. Consequently, when you write a case, make sure it has no heroes and no villains. If a case has a clear-cut hero or villain, it is a sign that you have not done enough research. Write things so that the students can see the issue from many perspectives.

No judgement. I frequently find, when reading prospective teaching cases, especially if written with the help of the communications department of a company, that judgements tend to be embedded in the text itself, though it is supposed to be as neutral and purely descriptive as possible. Do not write that a company is “leading” – instead, describe what they do, perhaps adding a bit of industry numbers for comparison, and let the decision about how leading the company is be up to the student. Do not write “Smith was a highly accomplished manager, leading a successful technology implementation.” Instead, write “Smith, at 29, was promoted to be the youngest vice president in company history after conceiving and overseeing the introduction of the first machine learning platform in the industry.”

No consultingese. Be very careful of weasel terms – is the company embarking on a strategic alliance or merely collaborating with another company for a specific purpose? (As a friend of mine said: “I buy all my socks at Marks and Spencer. That does not mean I have a strategic alliance with them.”) Avoid terms that are not well defined, and be precise in your language. Remember, a teaching case has the longest legs when it describes a human situation (since humans change slowly) and to not tie the narrative to specifically to a technology or a situation. (See the example of Fabritek below.) I quite often use old technology cases, and when the students complain, ask them to take out a pen and change the dates mentioned to current times, update the technology capabilities accordingly – and see if anything else changes.

Dramatic structure
A really well written case has dramatic structure – there is a beginning, a middle that builds up the story, and a really compelling issue at the end. The best cases are almost like a detective story, where you have to dig deep into the analysis to find surprising and sometimes counter-intuitive conclusions. One example of a “detective story” case is Fabritek 1992*, a very old (first published 1969, rewritten by Jan Hammond) case about a quality control issue in a small mechanical workshop. (Hat tip to Robert D. Austin, eminent case teacher, for making me aware of this case and showing me how to teach it.) The case is excellent because it starts with the company (strategic level), proceeds to describe a new situation and a new process (organizational or business logic level) and then introduces the problem (operational level.) Analyzing the operational details leads to one conclusion, which then can be discussed in terms of the organization and its business logic, which can then be placed into a strategic context. The case is excellent because it allows links between these levels – and also teaches the students that the devil indeed resides in the details, and that you as a manager better be very close to how the business you are leading works and makes money.

iPremier-front-pageA second case which shows quality and innovation is iPremier, written by Robert D. Austin and Jeremy C. Short, the first and only graphic novel (cartoon) case I am aware of. The story is about a small online gift company being attacked by hackers, exposing glaring gaps in their security procedures and forcing managers at various levels to make some really hard decisions. The graphic format is excellent in making the various characters real (though they, on average, tend to be way too good-looking for a normal business situation), illustrates technical issues in a way that is very understandable even by non-technology students, and has a cracking good storyline with a B and a C case. I like to introduce a few technical cases in my courses because, well, I don’t think there is enough technology in business schools, and this cases answers very well because it illustrates that certain technical decisions very much require top management attention – ignore (or mindlessly delegate) technology understanding and responsibility at your peril. The graphic format also provides a welcome break from the standard case verbiage, which can be a trifle dour on occasion.

Details, details, details!
Research cases – the kind that is published in refereed journals – tend to be written from a very specific viewpoint, and only facts pertaining to that perspective is included, often in a very abstract format. A teaching case is the direct opposite: It needs lots of details, frequently made available as exhibits (graphs, pictures, documents, tables, etc.) placed at the end, after the main text. A teaching case writer, when visiting a company to write about it, needs to notice the small details, much like a really good journalist does. I tell my students that they should prepare each case so well that they feel like they have worked in the case company – and to allow them to do that, you need to provide the operational details necessary. (Incidentally, having more details than strictly necessary has the added benefit of making the case realistic – in the real world, you have to decide what is important and what is not.)

Doing it – and reading about it.
grandongillI am not aware of many books about how to write a good teaching case, with one exception: Grandon Gill (pictured), professor at University of South Florida and an excellent case teacher, has written a book called Informing with the case method, which is available for free download in PDF, MOBI and EPUB format from his web site. It has lots of details, tips and tricks, not just about case writing, but also about case teaching and course planning. (For the latter, of course, I am duty bound to recommend Bill Schiano’s and my book Teaching with Cases: A Practical Guide.)

Last but definitely not least: Don’t underestimate how much work writing a proper business case is. Getting the details right, describing the dramatis personae, and making the storyline compelling is quite a challenge, in many dimensions different from the traditional academic article. On the other hand, should you get it right, you will have a very effective teaching tool for many years to come.

Good luck!

Analytics projects

asm_topTogether with Chandler Johnson and Alessandra Luzzi, I currently teach a course called Analytics for Strategic Management. In this course (now in its second iteration), executive students work on real projects for real companies, applying various forms of machine learning (big data, analytics, whatever you want to call it) to business problems. We have just finished the second of five modules, and the projects are now defined.

Here is a (mostly anonymised) list:

  • The Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (Difi) wants to understand and predict which citizens are likely to reserve themselves against electronic communications from the government. The presumption is that these people may be mostly old, not on electronic media, or in other ways digitally unsophisticated – but that may not be true, so they want to find out.
  • An electric power distribution company wants to investigate power imbalances in the electric grid: In the electric grid, production has to match consumption at all times, or you will get (sometimes rather large) price fluctuations. Can they predict when imbalances (more consumption that production, for instance) will occur, so that they can adjust accordingly?
  • A company in the food and beverage industry want to offer recommendations to their (business) customers: When you order products from them, how can they suggest other products that may either sell well or differentiate the customer from the competition?
  • A petroleum producing company wants to predict unintended shutdowns and slowdowns in their production infrastructure. Such problems are costly and risky, but predictions are difficult because they are rather rare – and that creates difficulties with unbalanced data sets.
  • A major bank wants to look into the security profiles of their online customers and investigate whether some customers are less likely to be exposed to security risks (and therefore may be able to use less cumbersome security procedures than others).
  • An insurance company wants to investigate which of their new customers are likely to leave them (churn analysis) – and why. They want to find them early, while there is still time to do something to make them stay.
  • A ship management company wants to investigate the use of certain types of oil and optimise the delivery and use of it. (Though the oil is rather specialised, the ships are large and the expense significant.)
  • Norsk Tipping runs a service helping people who are in danger of becoming addicted to gaming, an important part of their societal responsibility which they take very seriously. They want to identify which of their customers are most likely to benefit from intervention. This is a rather tricky and interesting problem – you need to identify not only those who are likely to become addicted, but also make a judgement as to whether the intervention (of which there is limited capacity) is likely to help.
  • A major health club chain wants to identify customers who are not happy with their services, and they want to find them early, so they can make offers to activate them and make them stay.
  • A regional bank wants to identify customers who are about to leave them, particularly those who want to move their mortgage somewhere else. (This is also a problem of unbalanced data sets, since most customers stay.)
  • A major electronic goods retailer wants to do market basket analysis to be able to recommend and stock products that customers are likely to buy together with others.

All in all, a fairly typical set of examples of the use of machine learning and analytics in business – and I certainly like to work with practical examples with very clearly defined benefits. Now – a small matter of implementation!

Big Data in practice

(This is a translation of an earlier post in my Norwegian blog. This translation was done by Ragnvald Sannes using Google Translate with a few amendments. This technology malarky is getting better and better, isn’t it?).
ml_mapI have just finished teaching four days of data analytics – proper programming and data collection. We (Chandler, Alessandra and the undersigned) have managed to trick over 30 executives and middle managers in Norway to attend a programming and statistics course (more or less, this is actually what analytics basically is), while sort of wondering how we did that. The students are motivated and hard-working and have many and smart questions – in a course taught in English. It is almost enough to make me stop complaining about the state of the world and education and other things.
Anyway – what are these students going to do with this course? We are working on real projects, in the sense that we require people to come up with a problem they will find out in their own job – preferably something that is actually important and where deep data analysis can make a difference. This has worked for almost all the groups: They work on real issues in real organizations – and that is incredibly fun for the teacher. Here is a list of the projects, so judge by yourself. (I do not identify any students here, but believe me – these people face these issues every day.) Well worth spending time on:
  • What is the correct price for newly built homes? A group is working to figure out how to price homes that are not built yet, for a large residential building company.
  • What is the tax effect of the sharing economy? This group (where one student works for the Tax Administration) tries to figure out how to identify people who cheat on the tax as Uber drivers – while making suggestions on how tax rules can be adapted to make it easy to follow the law.
  • What characterizes successful consulting proposals? A major consulting firm wants to use data from their CRM system (which documents the bidding process) to understand what kind of projects they will win or lose.
  • How to recognize money laundering transactions? A bank wants to find out if any of their customers are doing money laundering through online gaming companies.
  • How to offer benefits to customers with automated analysis? A company that supplies stock trading terminals wants to use data analysis to create a competitive edge.
  • How to segment Norwegian shareholders? A company that offers online trading of shares wants to identify segments of its customers to pinpoint and improve its marketing strategy.
  • How to lower costs and reduce the risk of production stoppages in a process business? A hydropower company wants to better understand when and why your power stations need repairs or maintenance.
  • How to identify customers who are in the process of terminating? A TV company wants to understand what characterizes “churn” – how can they identify customers who are about to leave them?
  • Why are some wines more popular than others? A group will work with search data from a wine site to find out what makes some wines more sought after than others.
  • Which customers will buy a new product? A group is working on data from a large bank that wants to offer its existing customers more services.
  • How to increase the recycling rate for waste in Oslo? REN – Oslo’s municipal trash service – wants to find out if you can organize routes and routines differently to better utilize trash trucks and recycling plants.
  • How to avoid being sold out for promotional items? One of Norway’s largest grocery chains wishes to improve their ordering routines so that customers do not get to the store and find out that there is no more left of the offer they wanted.
  • How to model fraud risk in maritime insurance? An insurance company wants to build a model to understand how to find customers attempting to fraud companies or authorities.
  • Which customers are about to leave us? A large transport company wants to find out which customers are about to go to a competitor so that they can take action before it happens.
  • What characterize students who drop out? BI enters 3500 new students each year, but some of them end after the first year. How can we find evidence that a student is about to drop out?
Common to all the projects – and so it’s with all the student projects I have advised since I started in this industry – is that you start with a big question and reduce it to something that can actually be answered. Then you look for data and find that you need to reduce it even more. Then you get problems that the data is either not found, unreliable or inadequate – and one has to figure out what to do with it. Finally, after about 90% of the time and money budget is gone, one can begin to think about analysis. And then there is a risk that you find nothing…
And that is an important lesson of this course: The goal is that the student should be able to know about actual data analysis to ask the right questions and have a realistic expectation of what kind of answer you actually can get.
There is a great demand for this course – so we have set up an additional course this fall. See you there!

Made my day!

digøkskjermI just got the message that the new bachelor program Informatikk: Digital Økonomi og Ledelse (Informatics: Digital Economics and Management) is now the most sought-after study program in Norway, with 19 applicants per available place (514 first-priority applicants for 27 available places).

Since I have taken the initiative to this program and developed it with colleagues at the University of Oslo (where I have an adjunct position, this definitely made my day. Week, actually.

Just sayin’…

Effective student feedback

In our book Teaching with cases: A practical guide, Bill Schiano and I talk at a fairly high level about how to give effective student feedback by using a spreadsheet and personalized emails. Our argument is that by giving every student individual feedback in addition to the grade, you reduce the number of grade justification requests and complaints. This blog post is a detailed guide on how to do it – too detailed for the technically inclined, probably, but we all have to start somewhere.

You probably already have all the tools you need on your computer – a spreadsheet and an email client that works with your spreadsheet – such as Excel and Outlook, for example. (For myself, I use Excel and SerialMailer, a cheap serial mail client for Mac.) You can probably use online software as well, for instance a Google spreadsheet (which is nice because editing by more than one teacher is easy) and Gmail, though I have never tried it.

The idea is to use the spreadsheet to organize all your feedback, and to set it up so you use as little time as possible to give as much feedback as possible. I will demonstrate this, with an example for a fictitious course with three in-class sessions (with participation grading, 40% of grade), an individual written examination (30% of grade), and a group assignment (30%). I will show the various details of building the spreadsheet below – if you want to skip ahead and inspect the thing your self, I have made it available for downloading.

I start with a spreadsheet of students and email addresses, provided to me by the administration or downloaded from our LMS. Let’s say it looks something like this:

1eval

(If I have the time or can get the administration to create it from their databases, I ask to have first and last names in separate columns. For this demonstration, I won’t bother.)

Then I add columns for each of the assignments that I am going to grade:

2eval

(In this example, the individual examination has six questions, of which the students should answer four.)

For the group project, I create a separate sheet (in the same workbook, called “Groups”

3eval

The group sheet is exceptionally simple, just group number, points and comment. If you have several group assignments, this is where you will put them:

4eval

Note that I also create a group numbered 0. This is what I use for students who drop the course or don’t do the group assignment.

With that done, I assign students to groups in the Students sheet…

5eval.jpg

…and then I am ready to start teaching my course.

As the course rolls along, I enter points and comments for each student. As mentioned in the book, it is extremely important that you do the participation evaluation immediately after each class. I tend to give the students a score of 1-3, sometimes 1-6, with some definition. As I will show later, what scale you use does not really matter, as you can normalize them to whatever you want later in the process.

Anyway, assume the course is finished, and you have entered comments and points for everything – for the individual student, in the Student sheet….

7eval.jpg

…for the groups, in the Groups sheet:

6eval

To finish the evaluation part (we’ll get to communication later), you need to a) match the group points and comments to each individual student, b) calculate a final score for each student, and c) determine the letter grade for each student.

First: Group grades and comments. For a small class like this, this is probably a bit of overkill – you could just copy comments and points over to each individual student. But doing it the way I show here has the advantage (aside from being correct from a database administrator’s point of view) of error-correction (any error you make will be systematic and therefore easily spotted) and repeatable (the first time you do this, it is a chore, the second time, you just copy your previous spreadsheet and fiddle with it). Moreover, if you have a class with more than 40 students, a bit of “programming” saves time and effort. (I have done this for classes of 350 students, a situation where participation grading is not really possible – except as a small reward for exceptional students – but where the group feedback mechanism becomes extremely valuable.)

So, first – link individual students with their group’s scores and comments, using the LOOKUP function:

8eval

The formula is

           =LOOKUP($E2;Groups!$A$2:$A$8;Groups!B$2:B$8)

and what it does is take the student’s group number (E2), look it up the first column of the “Groups” sheet (Groups!$A$2:$A$8), using fixed references to be able to copy the formula to the rest of the sheet, and displaying the group score (which is in column Groups!$B2:$B8). This nicely picks up all the group scores and comments:

9eval

We now have all the information for each student, then we have to calculate the various scores. We have the exam score already (the average of the exam points) and the participation score (a sum of the score for each session.) We now need to calculate the total points, which isn’t too hard: The max for participation is 9, for the others it is 10, so the formula for the total will be:

01eval

         =(W2*0,3)+(O2*0,3)+(J2*0,4*10/9)

(I use comma as a decimal delimiter, parentheses for readability). We can now add a student ranking in the G column (students are always interested in this, so why not tell them?)

02eval

Now we are ready to set the grades. The simple way to do this is to sort the students by their scores (or rank, if you will):

03eval

How you set the letter grades is up to you, of course, but it helps to have the students sorted. I set grades by starting at the top, trying to get a reasonable distribution, and make sure that I don’t use absolutes so that some unlucky student narrowly misses a better grade. Let’s say we end up here:

04eval

Now we are ready to communicate the results to the students. We will do that by writing a letter to them, composed largely of common text (i.e., feedback that is the same to all students), and them use the mail/merge function of word to merge in the individual details from the spreadsheet.

1feed

Example letter using SerialMailer

As said above, I use a product called SerialMailer on my Mac. The concept is simple: You write the letter, link to the spreadsheet, and insert field names into the text. When the letter is sent out (or printed), the field names are substituted for the values for each individual student.

Here is how to do it in Word (if you want to send it out via email, you need to have Outlook as well.):

First, open Word and write the letter:

2feed

(As you can see, I recycle much of my texts…)

Let’s start by replacing “student” in the opening salutation with the student’s name. Then you open the Mailings tab in Word and hit Select recipients from an existing list…

3feed

…and select your spreadsheet:

000ff

I get this message, click OK:

5feed

And open the “Students” sheet (i.e. the individual sheet):

6feed

If you click “Insert Merge Field” now, you should get a list of the column headings in the spreadsheet:

7feed

Delete the word “student”, choose “Insert Merge Field” and choose “Name”, and the field code will be in the document:

8feed

If you hit “Preview Results”, the code will be replaced by the content for each student:

9feed

Now write field labels and insert the fields you want to share with the students. I like to add the listing at the end of the letter, but you can do whatever you want:

1ff

Hit Preview, and this is what each student will see:

2ff

And there you go. Now hit “Finish and Mail Merge”, and select whether you want to print the documents on paper (or PDF) or send them out via email (shown).

3ff

You must tell Outlook where the email addresses are in the spreadsheet:

5ff

Then specify a subject and choose HTML Message (if you want formatted text):

6ff

…and, well, this is where I will have to stop, since I do not use Outlook. But trust me, it works well, the students love having individualized feedback, and it really isn’t that much more work than just providing the grade. As an added bonus: If students want a grade justification, you can just tell them that they already have it…

(Corrections and feedback welcome, of course.)

Teaching Hacks: Using Google Docs under It’s Learning

(This is a new category I just dreamed up – will post little snippets of useful stuff for teaching. My view is that technology should make your life easier and the experience of the student better – otherwise, don’t use the technology.)

At BI Norwegian School of Business we use a learning management system called It’s Learning. As these systems go, it is (I think) no better or worse than any other system, but the interface is a bit clunky. However, it has a very useful feature (which I learned from Ragnvald Sannes), namely the ability to display Google Docs within the page:

screendocs

This is very useful because

  • you can create all your course documents (syllabi etc.) in Google Docs, which is much better for editing and everything else. You can even edit the docs right in the It’s Learning window.
  • you can give the students read, comment or write capability as you please. Giving the students write access to a shared document is useful for many purposes – I use it as a shared arena for proposing term papers, for instance. Linda Rademaker uses a shared spreadsheet for student group formation – the students write themselves into groups, and she has a tab with “Lost sheep” who have not found groups to work in.
  • you can also share a Google Folder with the students and link that right from It’s Learning.

To set up a page like this, first create the document in Google Drive, copy the link to the document (“Share” in Google Doc, set the access rights to whatever you want), go to It’s Learning, click “Add” in the left column, choose “File or link”. Here you can choose various options, but what has worked for me is choosing “link” and pasting in the link. Make sure the “Embed page within itslearning” is checked, write the Title, and there you go.

Certainly has made my life easier, and hopefully made the students’ experience better.

(By the way, this does not work in China, of course (no Google Doc access), in case you teach there.)

Cases: How to prepare for and learn from them

My versatile and creative colleague Hanno Roberts and I have made a series of five videos on case learning and preparation, originally for students at the BI/Fudan MBA program. This teaching method is difficult both for teacher and student, but highly rewarding provided you give it proper attention – which means effective preparation. Hanno and I talk about the goal of case teaching, how students can prepare individually, how to prepare as a group, how to go through the case discussion in the classroom, and then we sum up with some strategies for how to retain what you have learned.

Hanno and I did these videos against a green-screen, with little preparation – we basically met, outlined a structure with some keywords, decided broadly on who should say what, and dove right into it. Most of the videos were shot once, and then the very capable Milosz Tuszko edited them, added background, logos and keywords.

The updated videos are a less wooden than the previous version, methinks, and available in high resolution and with better sound. We clarified the differences between my version of case teaching and Hanno’s (both work, by the way). Over the years the original videos have been much watched – hopefully, our students (and others) will watch them carefully, and the result will be better case teaching, more learning, and an even more enjoyable experience teaching.

Details about each video below the fold…

Continue reading →

Teaching in China – some reflections

I am just back from teaching a four-day module (called IT management and eBusiness, though I might change that title somewhat) at the BI-Fudan MBA program.

R0012024

picture2017This is just about the 15th time I teach in China, all of it in cooperation with Fudan University, which gives me some cause to reflect on how teaching in China has changed – all seen from my rather narrow perspective, of course, but still. Just as the Shanghai Bund view has changed (the pictures are from 1990 to 2010) so have the participants, contents and business environment of my courses.

The students have changed: In 2004, the age range and English proficiency of the students varied much more. About two thirds of the class had rather rudimentary English skills, I had to simplify the language, and the Chinese co-teacher spent a lot of time explaining concepts and partially translating what I did. This is not any longer – gone are the days when Chinese students would sit quietly and avoid your gaze. Now they participate more or less like students anywhere in the world. English skills still vary, but not any more than they do in any European country. The co-teacher (this time the very capable Dr. Wei Xueqi, left of me in the picture) still has one hour of Chinese teaching every day after I am done, but spends more time discussing and less time translating.

The course has changed: I used to lecture much more, focus more on basic concepts and methods. Now I use cases (five in this course, plus one for the in-class exam) and the students analyze and present, challenging each others’ conclusions. I now basically use the same teaching method (heavy on case teaching) in this course as I do in any other course at a M.Sc. or MBA level I teach.

The business environment of Shanghai and China has changed. In 2004, China’s business environment was firmly divided into FDI (foreign direct investment) and SOE (state owned enterprises) and the management culture, measures and methods were very different. Copying was rampant and you sometimes felt as if you were introducing capitalism to an audience where a sizable portion of the students were unsure whether it was a good idea. Not so any more: The students now all have experience with international business, frequently with much more experience than my Norwegian students, particularly when it comes to production and industrial planning. A larger and larger portion of the class works in service industries and in online enterprises, something which I have reflected in choice of cases and examples.

I used to go to China because it was different and therefore interesting. Now I go there because it is interesting – but not so different. At least not in the classroom.

Teaching with Cases: Detailed table of contents

bookcover2The Table of Contents in the paper and PDF version of Teaching with Cases: A Practical Guide is only at the chapter level. For readers wanting a more detailed overview of the book or to find something specific, here is the detailed table of contents:

Preface  vii
Acknowledgements     ix

Chapter 1: Introduction: Why you should read this book 1
Why case teaching?     2
How case classes and students vary     4
Class size     5
Core versus elective     5
Part-time versus full-time     5
Gender     5
Weekly versus  modular courses     6
Domestic versus international     6
Single versus multi-section     6
Executive versus graduate versus undergraduate     7
One of many case classes for students vs. only or one of few 7
In school versus other location     7
Practical Guidance for all Case-Teaching Faculty     7
The central framework: Foundation, flow, and feedback     8

Chapter 2: Foundations: Preparing for the course     11
Taking Ownership    12
Making a Contract     14
Developing Content     16
Structuring the syllabus     26
Selecting cases     18
Selecting readings and textbooks     24
Using guest speakers     26
Using assignments     28
Working with Students     29
Motivating Students     32
Enthusiasm and Engagement     33
Relevance     33
Opportunities to build valuable skills     33
Safe participation     34
Fun     34
Finding Information about Students’ Backgrounds     35
Helping the students prepare for case discussions    36
Classroom participation requirement     36
Establishing Infrastructure     38
Establishing seating arrangements     39
Using Name cards and seating charts     42
Setting length and frequency of class sessions     44
Session Length  45
Session Frequency  45
Wrapping up     46

Chapter 3: Flow During the Class Session    49
Preparing Yourself    51
Crafting a teaching plan     52
Demeanor in class     54
Dressing for class and impression management     55
Managing your anxiety     57
Preparation     57
Exercises     58
Rituals     59
Starting to Teach     59
The first class     59
Opening classes     62
Building trust in the class     64
Managing the Discussion     66
The Emcee: Calling on students and managing airtime     67
The Scribe: Using the board     70
Board plan     71
Writing on the board     74
The Conductor: Using body language, silence, and movement 76
Using the physical space   79
The TV Host: Asking questions   82
Giving up control     84
Time management     85
How long to let a discussion go     86
If you are running out of time     86
Breaks and other interruptions    87
Teaching long class days     88
Beyond Discussion     89
Using theory and other non-case material     89
Inductive versus deductive case use 90
Communicating Theory  91
Role-Playing     93
Multipart cases     94
Group work     95
Group Presentations     96
Group Discussions    98
Team teaching in the classroom    99
Are you getting the most from each student?     101
Humor in the classroom     102
Energy    103
Raising the energy level     104
Relationships among and with students     106
Concluding a Discussion     107

Chapter 4: Feedback: Assignments, Grading and Guidance 111
The Evaluative Mindset  112
Designing Evaluation   113
Designing assignments 115
Individual Oral Assignments   115
Individual Written Assignments 116
Group Oral Assignments  117
Group Written Assignments  118
Designing Exams     118
Selecting Cases for Exams   118
Writing Exam Questions  119
Take-Home Exams   121
Designing Term Papers  122
Term Papers as Research Method  124
Grading    125
A matter of scaling     125
How to structure feedback     127
Group Work  130
Final Exams  130
Class participation     131
Capturing Participation  133
Setting Expectations  134
Setting Expectations by Self-Evaluation  135
Exams  136
The dreaded extra-credit requests    139
Handling academic dishonesty     140
Conclusion     143

Chapter 5: Managing Classroom Issues     145
Issues with Individual Student    145
How do I manage students who hog airtime?     146
How do I manage combative students?     147
What can I do about students’ computer use in class?    148
What do I do if a student does not pay attention in class?   149
What do I do if a student complains?     150
How do I accommodate students with disabilities?     151
Issues with groups of students     152
What Do I Do When Students Are Not Well Prepared? 152
How do I get students to prepare better?     153
Reward Good Preparation 153
Help Them Along  154
Draw Out Prepared But Reticent Students 154
Require Case Write-ups or Give Pop Quizzes  154
Give a Stern Lecture  154
Make An Example of a Student or Two  154
How do I stop side conversations?     155
How Do I Manage Dysfunctional Class Behavior?  156
Hissing  156
Genuflection   156
Sharking  157
What if the class turns against me?     157
How is Teaching Executives Different?  159
How should I deal with student pranks?     161
How Do I Deal with Student Representatives?    163
How Do I Deal with Dysfunctional Groups? 164
Free-Riders  164
Personality Conflicts   165
Poor Project Management   165
Poor Performance   165
Issues Beyond Students     166
What if I can’t find enough cases that fit?     166
What do I do if I have lost track of the discussion?     167
What if I run out of questions?     168
How do I deal with problems in an intensive-format course? 137
Prepare Differently  169
Manage Expectations  169
Manage Process Closely  169
What can I do if I am low on energy?     170
What If the Administration Gets Involved?

Chapter 6 Quantitative and technical material     174
Flipping the Qualitative and Quantitative    175
Being Qualitative about the Quantitative  175
Being Quantitative about the Qualitative  176
Explicitly Teach Estimation   177
Quantify Anything   177
Know the Industry Data   177
Change Assumptions or Problems on the Fly  179
Teaching Quantitative Material   179
Making a Teaching Plan for a Quantitative Case   179
Pacing the Discussion  180
Asking for a Number at the Beginning   181
Managing Math Phobia and Aversion to Numbers   183
Making the value clear   182
Acknowledging the Phobic  182
Filling in the Holes  182
Fostering a Sense of Self-Efficacy  183
Using the Board  183
Making the best use of students     185
When Students Go Wrong  185
When No One Has the Correct Analysis  186
Discussing a Quantitative Case with Subjective Numbers or Estimates   187
Using Groups  188
Teaching Technical Material   189
Motivating the Study of Technology   189
Structuring the Teaching of Technology  190
Conclusion 192

Chapter 7 Adjusting for language and culture     195
The Foreign Student  197
Making Adjustments for Foreign Students   200
The Foreign Teacher   202
The Teacher Abroad  204
Expectations for teaching   205
Teacher power     206
Student behavior     207
Using Interpreters   208
Trust the locals     211

Chapter 8: Preparing for the next time     213
Debriefing a course     213
Interpreting and using student feedback     215
How to Read Student Feedback   215
Striving for High Evaluations   217
Reviewing Case Selection   217
Debriefing with a Teaching Group 218
Archiving Material   218
Evaluating case teachers, including yourself     219
Before Class  219
During Class  219
After Class  220
Managing relationships with alumni     220

Chapter 9: Fostering Case Teaching at the School Level  223
The Commoditized Business School  223
Relevance is Relevant   224
Integration is Integral   225
Institutionalizing Case Teaching   228
Recruiting, Incentives and Promotion   228
Teaching-Related Procedures   230
Getting Infrastructure Right   230
Classroom Design  231
Good, Abundant Board Space   231
Blackboards Rather Than Whiteboards   231
Seating   232
Making Cases Easy to Use and Produce   233
Case Production   234

Chapter 10 Technologies for Case Teaching  238
Take Control of the Technology  238
Technology for Teacher Productivity  239
Teacher’s Computer Use in Class   241
Presentation Software   243
Tools for Student-Teacher Interaction   246
Learning Management Systems     246
Build a Sandbox   246
Explore the System   247
Maintain Communication Norms   247
Create a FAQ Repository  247
Structure for Reuse  247
Facilitate Searching   247
Consider the User’s Experience   248
Maintain Structure   248
Automate Availability   248
Explore the Analytics   248
Seek and Accept Help  249
Other Technologies to Support Student Interaction  249
Social Media   249
In-Class Polling and Voting Tools   249
Questionnaires   250
Shared Documents   250
Analysis Tools   250
Online Simulations  251
Online Teaching   251
Teleconference Teaching   251
Get the Basic Technology Right 252
Communicate in a Way Suited to the Medium   252
Communicate via Side Channel and Back Channel  253
Get to Know the Students  254
Videoconferencing  254
Lighting and Background   255
Sound   256
The Video Camera   256
Concurrently Teaching Face-to-Face and Remotely   259
Teaching Asynchronously with Discussion Forums   260
Foundations: Designing the Course and Forming the Contract   262
Flow: Running the Discussion   265
Guidelines for Students   267
Feedback: Evaluating and Closing the Loop 269
Managing the inevitable technical failures   271
Conclusion   273

Index   275
About the Authors  293