Bangalore December 6, 2013: Hassle free education is an oxymoron in itself. All through history, growth always comes at a cost and with hassle. When companies grow, they deal with new challenges of greater customer reach and greater standardization. When kids grow, they deal with new expectations. Every salary growth in an organization comes with new challenges and changing a job of growth requires you to come out of your comfort zone. There is bloodshed when empires grow and there is collateral damage with new growth policies. A diamond has to be cut to gleam and the gold has to go through fire to shine.
Education of any find is a process of growth – in knowledge, perspective, personal belief and in career. It’s a process of expediting this growth. And hence, by the very definition, any education that does not create challenges and hassle is unlikely to achieve its objectives. In the higher education space, this is the fundamental criticism that we hear of “diploma mills” and “convenient degrees”.
Given the changing times, education can be far more flexible though, without losing rigor, which can decrease hassle for a student. There are a few things that we have tried with varying degrees of success at Sunstone Business School. Our program is meant for working professionals and we have done a fundamental ground up design around their needs. Some of the key aspects that we have tried and are usable across other educational programs are the following:
– Inspire, Connect and then Teach: The biggest source of hassle for students is when they lack interest in a subject and are not able to connect to it. They start feeling that they have to consume a lot of content without really getting into it. A good faculty “sells” content and inspires students to get interested in the subject. Remember the movie “TaareZameen Par” where the new art teacher played by Aamir Khan first showed the fun side of art. Similarly, if the application of a subject is highlighted much more, students will take much more interest in the subject itself. This bridge has to be built between the teacher and the student on which the learning can travel.
Unfortunately, most of our conventional education system follows the reverse approach. The teacher tried to cover a breadth of syllabus in a limited time and students find it very hard to connect to it, for most part. We need more depth and less breadth. The faculty needs to view themselves as coaches.
– Smaller and “outcome based” courses: We have seen when courses become very long and lot of content is covered before an evaluation happens, it results in rote learning. It becomes about the exam and ensuring you remember large amounts of content. We have constantly experimented with shorter courses and in some ways, a constant evaluation.
The main focus of a course should not be the breadth that it covers but the learning outcome of the course. For example, the goal of a course should not be “Teach the students Porter’s five forces”, but “Understand how to attain competitive advantage sustainably in businesses” and use Porter’s framework and other frameworks inside that. Let students apply their minds and analyze businesses. Start with examples, let them think and then offer the frameworks as one way of doing it. This also allows the evaluation to be a little subjective since its in smaller chunks.
– Be flexible, but be rigorous: We have seen since our students are working professionals, they sometimes struggle to find time to spend on courses. We have hence created a structure that they can repeat a course and chose course workload as they want. However, the requirements of each course and very rigorous and you can only exit a course once a certain set of learning objectives have been met. They would only graduate is they satisfy a certain set of criteria.
Its really important to give this message the right way. Flexibility can sometimes be taken as lenience. A school has to always think to the benefit of the student and hence try to help them complete as much of the course as they, however need to be fair in their evaluation and feedback. The worst thing for a student is to not get honest feedback.
“Hassle free education” is a misnomer; it’s like polishing a diamond without cutting it. However, if a school is more focused on inspiring students and faculty see themselves as coaches, I believe a school can offer a good combination of flexibility and rigor, and reduce student stress, and enhance their learning.
