The Buck Stops At The Faculty

In the rapidly evolving environment, students are evolving faster than the faculty members because they have a higher and more intense exposure to technology, writes Harvinder Singh, Professor at IMT Ghaziabad

An increasing number of CAT applicants reflects the unwavering trust held by Indian students in an MBA degree, contrary to the adverse global trends. This optimism is often clouded by discouraging macro-economic scenario, and complex geo-economic developments coupled with suboptimal placement numbers at business schools. This scenario nudges the stakeholders to find the root cause. The unsatisfactory career outcomes are often attributed to Indian MBA graduates not being ‘industry-ready’. 

This assertion is significant for India because work experience is not mandatory for getting into an Indian MBA program resulting in nearly half the class being freshers. The problem is accentuated by the lack of alignment between the industry requirements and the MBA curricula. However, an equally important reason is the lack of alignment between the faculty member’s chosen pedagogy and the student’s preferred mode of learning. It is important to identify and acknowledge this gap because students are the most active and malleable entity in the Industry-Academia-student triumvirate.

In the rapidly evolving environment, students are evolving faster than the faculty members because they have a higher and more intense exposure to technology. The current generation of students lives in an AI-driven world, viewed through a digital lens. Their learning journey is characterized by a shorter attention span, a preference for distilled content, a fondness for high-engagement stimulants, and an urge to do things rather than reading or writing. Conventional pedagogical interventions are ill-suited to help students navigate through their learning journey and hence, must be replaced with an innovative and more appropriate set of pedagogical methods.

The pedagogical innovations start with selection of content that is appropriate in length and format. The faculty members must identify recent and relevant content that can be administered to the students in the class and make them ready for discussion in a matter of minutes. Most reputed case repositories are promoting shorter versions of case studies (Mini cases and quick cases). At IMT Ghaziabad most faculty members supplement the standard textbooks with an assortment of readings (chapters and articles) compiled as course packs. 

This course fills the recency and relevance gap between the standard text-book and recent developments in the market. Some experts even challenge the need of having a text-book in a dynamic environment. Faculty members must constantly scan recent developments and bring them to the class so that the students receive that content with interest.

Another innovation could be in the choice of content format. Students are more engaged when exposed to audio-visual content. There are many paid and free sources of documentaries, short videos, and podcasts covering business developments and concepts. The longer versions can be circulated to students as a ‘pre-watch’ content and the shorter version can be broadcasted in the class before initiating a discussion.

The end-semester/end-term examination is an inappropriate tool to assess the assimilation of content provided regularly to students during the semester/term. Faculty members can easily use AI-based online assessment tools like online quizzes to assess the student’s level of preparation and understanding of the content. These highly engaging assessments can be easily administered in the class.

Students prefer a more interactive engagement with industry spread over a longer duration. They are not satisfied with Summer/winter internships that come once a year. At IMT Ghaziabad, most courses have a project component as an essential evaluation component, giving students multiple opportunities to interact with industry during a year. In some cases, the projects are mentored jointly by the faculty and the industry mentor (preferably an alumnus) ensuring frequent, long-term and purposeful interactions of the students with the industry compared to a typical guest lecture that seems unidirectional to many students.

Over the years, contests, competitions and hackathons have become the mainstay of learning in good business schools. Students participate, ideate, present, argue and convince a panel of evaluators/judges from the industry. Most of these events carry a positive career outcome in the form of internship/job offers to successful candidates. Students of IMT Ghaziabad have gained significant career outcomes based on their performance in some of the most prestigious case competitions in India. Over the years, the extra-curricular has become the new curriculum! Students actively approach faculty members for guidance for these competitions. Institutions and faculty members need to formally create institutional platforms to facilitate student participation and success in such competitions.

All the initiatives mentioned above do not make the end-semester/end-term examination obsolete. The exams need to reinvent themselves as the platforms where the overall learning derived from the course can be applied in an integrated manner. A final examination necessitating use of reflective and strategic thinking in a structured manner should be the pinnacle of the course.

Faculty members are at the centre of all these innovations. They must attune themselves to the tech-driven world to remain relevant in the new context. Their commitment includes exploring, adopting and adapting the emerging technologies and tools to engage students more intensely in a purposeful and impactful manner. Currently the efforts are driven by the appraisal policies that are heavily oriented towards academic research. Faculty members must re-orient themselves towards practice-oriented and immersive pedagogy. With time, the appraisal policies of business schools are bound to change to align with industry requirements. Faculty members frozen in the time-trap would be caught on the wrong foot as they will have no time to adapt or reorient. They would run the risk of being obsolete in the new learning paradigm. The transition from a conventional to tech-oriented innovative pedagogy involves a change in mind-set at the level of individual faculty members because finally, the buck stops at them!

Read full article : The Buck Stops At The Faculty – BW Businessworld