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Because of the stress fracture in my foot (which has healed pretty much now) I didn't go to the Econ Department this semester till today. So I finally had a chance to look at what you wrote on your ICES forms. Here are a few reactions to that.
Nobody wrote explicitly about Akerlof's Gift Exchange Model, which is one of my favorite parts of the course, but one student put it into practice by using the comments section to tell a joke. This was reciprocation for the "Quizzes" we did to start class sessions near the end of the semester. Reciprocation is part and parcel of gift exchange, so I liked that very much, even if the joke otherwise didn't speak to the subject matter of the course.
Among others who commented, some had positive things to say but even for them the course was not a "home run." One might ask why (I will speculate on that below). Others were more critical.
I think there is a fundamental disagreement between many of the students and me about what a good course should be like, whether it is my course or some other. I am much more interested in developing general thinking and life skills than I am in communicating specific content that you need to master. On the other hand, I believe that most of you need to engage far more with the subject matter than you did to use the course as a way to practice developing those thinking and life skills. I encourage you to look at the next section and ask yourself whether your courses are preparing you to be effective in a problem solving team, which might be one way to reflect on the education you have been getting.
I know that not everyone was there the first day of the semester, but for those of you who were there, you may recall we asked about the purpose of our class, which was to produce human capital. We then asked who owns the human capital. Each student owns their own human capital. The question then, is whether you were showing good ownership skills in the way you went about the course or if there is a fundamental moral hazard, students focus on grades to the detriment of better developing their own human capital. It's a question that each student should try to answer.
One student made, I thought, an interesting observation about liking the discussion based approach, but that my leading questions often didn't get answered well. I would agree with that observation, but I'm not sure why. The article I will mention in the next section says that effective groups have members who feel safe in that environment, so are willing to participate vigorously. I wonder if many of you didn't feel safe in Econ 490, as far as responding to those leading questions, so opted out instead. If so and if you have some further thoughts on what might be done to make the class feel safer, I'd appreciate getting those ideas. I have been thinking about starting the semester with those joke quizzes and not saving them for near the end, but I wonder if students would just think of them as daffy rather than as ice breakers.
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This is the piece from HBR on good problem solving teams. It's a pretty quick read but you might get the bulk of the message in the piece just from the bi-matrix in different shades of blue, found around the middle of the article, and then focus on the upper right cell, Generative Teams.
I thought this piece a good complement to Bolman and Deal Chapter 8, particularly the part about Argyris and Schon Models 1 and 2. That chapter focuses on the style of the leader. The HBR piece focuses on the culture of the group. But they seem to me to be mirror images of one another. A generative team needs a model 2 leader.
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The bulk of the respondents to the ICES were seniors. I know some of you have graduated already. Many others will be graduating soon. This is probably my last post on the site (unless something dramatic happens to Yankees between now and the end of the semester). So let me close by wishing you good luck in your future endeavors.
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