It's easier to learn many other things if you first learn how to learn.
Ashley Brilliant "Pot-Shot" No. 3412

This pot-shot has, despite all the academic material we have read, continued to guide us toward designing our courses to encourage student independence.

My "partner-in-crime" with this venture, and the initiator, is John Scott. While our work in student centered learning has affected much of our teaching, it has been especially noticeable in two areas - a small fourth year Management Science class and a large first year class which introduces the topic of Management Systems

Presentations and Papers

• Student Centered Learning in a Large, First Year Management Class: History, Reflections and Future Directions [John Scott and John Buchanan]
  • Paper presented at the VITAL Colloquium on "Innovations in Teaching", University of Waikato, Hamilton, 17 February, 1998.
  • Presentation at the VITAL Colloquium on "Innovations in Teaching", University of Waikato, Hamilton, 17 February, 1998.

• Some Realities of a Student Centered Approach to Teaching [John Buchanan]
  • Presentation at the APORS '97 Conference, Melbourne, Australia, 30 Nov - 04 Dec 1997. Session MC1.3

• Teaching a Large First Year Class with no Lectures [John Scott, John Buchanan and Neil Haigh] (1997), "Reflections on student centered learning in a large class setting", British Journal of Educational Technology, 28(1), pp 19-30.
  • In many institutions increasing priority is being given to the educational goal of intellectual independence with course objectives placing more emphasis on the processes of learning and less on course content. While such objectives are readily achieved in the small class setting, this remains difficult in large class settings. In this paper we describe an attempt to pursue the student- independence agenda in a large, first year management course and discuss the processes used, outcomes achieved and critical success factors perceived. While results to date show a pleasing increase in the use of effective learning strategies for independent learning by students, a significant minority of students have not responded positively to the independence goal. Concluding comments develop this aspect.

• Reflections on Student Centered Learning in a Large MS/OR Class [John Buchanan].
  • Paper presented at the 32nd Annual Conference of the Operational Research Society of New Zealand, 29-30 August, 1996.

• Using Learning Contracts in a Small Management Science Class [John Scott and John Buchanan] (1992), "Teaching Management Science - Hold the Lectures", OR/MS Today, 19(5), pp 46-50.
  • We tell of a final year, undergraduate course in Management Science (MS) theory, built around learning contracts. Learning contracts are collaborative documents which detail the study outcomes and processes for each module of the course. The paper describes learning contracts, how the course was run, and observed outcomes. Distinguishing features of this course were the high commitment to a course students helped design, the freedom to plan personalized study, some surprisingly good work, and the satisfaction of seeing students practice a little MS as part of the process of studying its theory.

In addition, we have made many conference and seminar presentations on our experiences with teaching in these ways. Overall, we remain very positive and plan to keep on with it.

John Scott and I, would welcome comments from others who are doing similar things in their teaching.

Please email us.

Page updated: 06 May, 1999 - JTB