HERDSA 1996: Thirlwall and Liddicoat - lateral thinking, flexible learning and facilitation

Lateral thinking, flexible learning and facilitation when teaching business studies students

Alison Thirlwall and Linda Liddicoat
School of Business
Nelson Polytechnic, New Zealand

Students have different approaches to learning. When passing on information educators will often use the style with which they are most comfortable, rather than the one that is of most use to the student. Barriers to learning can be created by the use of inappropriate learning styles. In order to overcome this situation, we encourage students to facilitate their own learning by thinking for themselves. We teach them different ways of looking at problems or case studies. They work in groups, if appropriate, and present their findings, becoming involved in as much experiential learning as possible.
In class we prefer to facilitate instead of lecture. There is a lecturing component in the classes we take, but we attempt to keep this to a minimum, and involve the students in the process.
We draw on work by Edward De Bono, Tony Buzan, Christine Ward and Jan Daley, and Gordon Dryden and Dr Jeanette Vos utilising mind maps to organise work and to help create links and develop experiential learning.

Background information

We teach primarily Business Ethics and Communication at the School of Business, Nelson Polytechnic. The classes can have under 20 people, but increasingly the numbers are reaching 40 or more. There is a mix of both New Zealand and international students. The international students provide special challenges for educators.

When we are teaching we encourage the students to think for themselves, so rather than lecturer we prefer to facilitate. The nature of these subjects enables us to draw a considerable amount of information from the students, then formalise it with them into concepts and models. It is possible to use these techniques to develop concepts that have already been learned. Obviously there is also a lecturing component, but we attempt to keep this to a minimum and try to involve the students as much as we can.

We know that students learning preferences will vary according to whether they have left or right brain tendencies. Those with left brain skills will generally respond to a logical, fact driven approach, whereas those who have a preference for the right brain are likely to be more random and less judgmental in their approach. The right brain learners may prefer to work with pictures, instead of words. It is possible to vary lectures to embrace both types of people, with the following techniques.

There are three ways further ways in which students have learning preferences. These are visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. It is possible to give the students a questionnaire to find out their personal learning style, so they can expand their capacity to learn. We will do this questionnaire in the workshop. It is important that the lecturer is aware of these different styles, otherwise the lecture will not reach all students.

Allowing students to work with concepts in a variety of ways gives them the opportunity to check their understanding and helps to encourage deep learning. This is where the student internalises the idea, or concept, rather than merely learning it for an assessment and then forgetting it.

We will also use practical examples taken from the classes we teach to show how you can utilise different teaching methods in class to help facilitate learning in the students.

1. Mindmaps

During the introduction session of Business Ethics, instead of telling the students what will be covering in the Business Ethics course, big sheets of paper with "Business Ethics" written in the middle are used. The students form groups and complete a mind map of what they think Business Ethics entails and what they think will be taught in the course. This allows the students to think about the subject whilst being participants rather then passive non participants. The mindmaps are presented to the rest of the class by the various groups and discussed. They are then put up on the notice boards around the classroom. This helps the students to do quick revision each time they are in the classroom, and provides a useful reference point for the lecturer when linking to other aspects of the subject.

There are some students who tend not to like the use of mind maps and may prefer to write things down in lists. We are happy to accommodate these students. Most students are happy with the use of mind maps and often end up using them in other subjects and other areas.

The students who tend to benefit the most from this method are those with right brain preferences, as the method allows a random approach to idea gathering, and provides for easy linking. Those who use lists quickly see the benefits of this method, if only as a preliminary to better lists.

2. de Bono's CoRT thinking

There are several different techniques. We primarily use "Plus, Minus and Interesting". Sometimes we utilise OPV (Other People's Views), C & S (Consequence and Sequel) depending on what we want to achieve. We find that using these techniques creates a structure for students to use when thinking about an issue. The main benefit of these techniques is that the students can explore the issues without their ideas being considered as their opinion. This is particularly useful in drawing ideas from students, as it takes away the fear of being wrong, and thus losing face. This is particularly important for Asian students.

An example of the use of de Bono's CoRT thinking:

Dob-a-Workmate Hotline

"Recently in New Zealand a private eye launched a national Dob-a-Workmate phone line designed to fight employee theft and on-the-job drug use. Anonymous caller can phone the "0800-CRIMELINE" to inform on colleagues. Employers are told of the claims and invited to hire the private investigators, to check them out."
Students are asked to list plus, minus and interesting points for the case and also what their thoughts or conclusions on the idea of a Dob-a-Workmate Hotline.

This method encourages the students to think about the issue before reaching a conclusion, rather than deciding if they like it and arguing their position.

3. Thinking hats

This method gives students the opportunity to be creative when looking at concepts. Instead of merely criticising an idea, they use six approaches to explore it. Again this is non threatening for the student, as they only need the ideas to fulfil the criteria of the exercise. They need not necessarily be what the student believes. When teaching the method it is useful to make or use hats, however these quickly become redundant as people remember the colours. This approach is very useful for people who intend to go into business, as it lets them nurture ideas, rather than kill them off at the first hearing, as can often happen. An example of an idea, from ethics, on which this technique might be used is:

"The government have decreed that everyone must behave in an egotistical fashion at all times, otherwise they will be sent to prison." Use the six hats to decide the merits of this decree.

Possible responses could be:

Yellow (optimistic) - everyone would be happy because they could do whatever they wanted
Green (creative) - much more money would be available because no one would pay taxes and they would spend more on consumer goods
Red (emotional) - sounds frightening because no one would protect anyone else, they would only be thinking about themselves
White (objective) - would public services exist and who would pay for them?
Blue (thinking about process) - the country would fall into anarchy without law and order
Black (negative, devil's advocate) - the world would quickly become chaotic as no one would be reliable and there would be no way to gain redress

Frequently, thinking involves only the use of the black hat by all but the proponent of the idea. This use of the Socratic method leads to the abandonment of ideas that, if given time to develop, could be very useful.

4. Case studies

We use many case studies in class and as assignment tasks. We also use video case studies to stimulate learning though another of the students' senses. The students will watch a short video on an ethical matter, for example the "Winebox" inquiry. They will then get into groups and discuss the ethical issues based on some broad questions. When reporting back the groups' discussions, they elect one person to present an answer to the rest of the class, at the end of discussions. They also field any questions and comments from classmates.

5. Group assignments

The students are often asked to do a group assignment where lateral thinking and various learning techniques can be used. For example, in Business Ethics, students get together with other students to research an ethical issue they find interesting. Often these are topical New Zealand issues that they want to further investigate. They research the issue and present it both as a written report and as an oral presentation to fellow class members. A question and answer session is also included and often takes up most of the time allocation.

Often the issues that the students have researched link through into issues we have examined in class, so these linkages are highlighted and can be further investigated.

We try to use methods which appeal to all learning styles; so lectures may include role playing, drawing, mindmaps, presentations, debates and group discussions. Emphasis is placed upon the practical application of theory to underscore student learning.

Authors: Alison Thirlwall and Linda Liddicoat, School of Business, Nelson Polytechnic, Private Bag, Nelson, New Zealand. Email: athirlwa@admin.nelpoly.ac.nz, lliddico@admin.nelpoly.ac.nz
Please cite as: Thirlwall, A. and Liddicoat, L. (1996). Lateral thinking, flexible learning and facilitation when teaching business studies students. Different Approaches: Theory and Practice in Higher Education. Proceedings HERDSA Conference 1996. Perth, Western Australia, 8-12 July. http://www.herdsa.org.au/confs/1996/thirlwall.html

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