Search results

Problem solving is a key skill for success in general chemistry, and yet it remains a persistent challenge for instructors to teach and for students to learn. One of the primary causes of this difficulty is that the majority of problem solving is actually deciding how to solve the problem – a task that experts do automatically and that befuddles novice students. The author created a decision-based learning (DBL) model for the general chemistry students to solve problems related to heat and enthalpy. The process of creating the decision model was enlightening to the author as an instructor. It revealed expert blind spots and made the author aware of places in the curriculum where the instruction was unclear or incomplete. When the author implemented the model with the students, it resulted in significant learning gains for students who worked with the model outside of class to practice problem solving. Additionally, the students reported improved attitudes toward problem solving such as decreased anxiety and being able to see the big picture. Since this initial foray into DBL, the author has incorporated explicit instruction for conditional knowledge construction in other parts of the curriculum. As the author works to make thinking more explicit, students are better able to master challenging problem-solving skills in chemistry.

In the early 1900s, Alfred Whitehead argued that the goals of educational reform would be met if knowledge were made functional rather than simply rearranging or privileging different forms of “inert” conceptual knowledge. And for knowledge to become functional it must be “conditionalized.” Decision-based learning (DBL) is different because it explicitly conditionalizes learning and makes knowledge functional. Moreover, DBL fits within an overall developmental progression of expertise and fills a gap often overlooked by formal education. Considerations for designing and implementing DBL are outlined.

Modern societies are imbued with a fundamental tension of expertise, as expert status is both a source of authority and channel of wider public trust. Scholars of expertise have shown, though, that the public often lacks trust in experts, something which often occurs alongside politicized social problems. I argue that there are contexts in which expert–public interactions may facilitate trust-building processes even amidst the politicization of problems in which experts are attempting to manage. I refer to this as “negotiated expertise,” when communities with divergent sensibilities of problems (re)construct the rules and norms of expertise in ways that build trust and facilitate cooperative and collective action. This builds on an interactionist understanding of trust and expertise, focusing on the ways in which communities negotiate the meanings, rules, and norms of expert settings. Through a qualitative analysis of Miami's Sea Level Rise Committee, I identify two key factors that facilitate trust-building in expert–public interactions: an emergent socioenvironmental problem and “advocacy-experts.” I suggest that these contexts and factors enabled Miamians to work toward reciprocal practices and understandings, unexpectantly building trust in a politicized setting.

Many instructors have implemented decision-based learning (DBL) into their courses. This chapter is a careful qualitative analysis of the narratives in this book done by the editors. The author found common themes among all the narratives. The first theme was that many instructors discovered that they were missing conditional knowledge in their instruction. Second, the author found common issues around the complexity of designing an expert decision model (EDM). Included in this theme are stories about selecting problems and organizing the EDM, building the EDM around specific course learning outcomes, providing just-enough, just-in-time instruction, and introducing the decision model and software to students. Instructors also discovered that assessing the learning of students needed to go beyond traditional goals and began to include new goals related to conditional knowledge. Finally, the author describes the comments made by both faculty and students about the experience of using DBL. Several authors described the value of using DBL in the process of taking students from novice thinkers to expert thinkers. Many students expressed that they enjoyed the process that DBL presented to them and that they had a new level of confidence to be able to approach problems in the content area. Summaries and quotes from the chapters in this book are referenced by the authors’ names and the content areas they were teaching.

Transitioning engineering knowledge to practice is critical for the success of a working engineer. Decision-Based learning (DBL) provides a path for developing this capability during the educational experience rather than relying on post-educational experiences in the field. In this chapter, DBL is framed in the context of an engineering educational experience, with a discussion of how certain attributes of engineering and DBL can complement each other. An overall class structure conducive to implementing DBL instruction methods is presented. A possible process for defining an expert decision model (EDM) for engineering topics is explored. This type of decision model can help communicate and teach students the small decisions that culminate to an expert conclusion on a topic, giving the student a clear way to justify analysis and design decisions. An EDM for selecting of a static failure theory with an accompanying learning module and representative assignment problems that accompany the module are presented. The implementation of a DBL approach in an engineering classroom is discussed, and reflections are given about the experience for both the instructor and the students.

The purpose of this paper is to review – from the perspective of nascent academic practitioners – the promise and challenges of service‐learning as an instructional methodology. The paper is contextualized in terms of preparing students of business and management with the requisite skills for coping and thriving in the unknowns of the unscripted future.

The approach is a review of the context of the unscripted future and the considerations involved in determining the viability and appropriateness of service‐learning from the perspective of faculty who have not previously used this approach.

Although there are numerous challenges and considerations involved in the use of service‐learning, particularly for faculty members who are new to this instructional method, thoughtful perseverance and attention to the issues inherent to this teaching tool can yield a powerful approach that is well‐suited to meeting the learning needs of students facing an unscripted future.

The paper provides not only a literature review of the current thinking in the service‐learning domain but also a set of resources relevant to the topic from the perspective of a nascent practitioner. The paper is designed to illustrate the unique challenges and strengths of faculty members who are considering implementing service‐learning in a management or organizational sciences course.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of blind spot to illustrate the misapplication of extant global strategies to emerging markets. The authors discuss cases of multinationals and indigenous local companies to draw insights on firm operations in emerging markets. The authors unpack four specific blind spots that have resonated repeatedly in their operations: an adherence to unqualified scaling, the intractability of localization, the opacity of non-government intervention, and an undue attention to disruption rather than transformation. The study concludes with recommendations that can help companies be better aware of the blind spots and manage more effectively in emerging markets.

Conceptual.

Four blind spots: an adherence to unqualified scaling, the intransitivity of localization, the illusion of non-government intervention, and an undue attention to disruption rather than transformation.

The paper is primarily for practitioners.

This study presents some of the key findings from our previous studies on emerging market issues. The authors recently published four different books on various themes on emerging markets. The findings presented in this paper come strictly from these previous projects.