Applying Lean in Learning and TeachingColston Sangersangerc@lsbu.ac.uk

Association of Business SchoolsInnovation and the student experience22-24 April 2013

Agenda

1. Why Lean in learning and teaching?2. What I do: some examples3. Where next? 4. Contributions, questions

1. Why Lean in learning and teaching?

Because Lean is about learning

The two core principles of Lean:• Respect for people

– Engagement, meaningful contact is all – Without engagement, there is no learning– In my experience, students are crying out for an HE experience that

engages with them as sensible, sensitive, idealistic, thoughtful beings

• Continual improvement– Necessarily involves learning, shifts in thinking that enable us to see things

differently

2. What I do: some examples

Learning Lean in a Lean way

Low-fidelity business simulation as a keystoneexperience and organising theme in an international MBA core unit

Managing Projects

• An MBA elective

• Managing Projects— Not Project Management— … as a team sport

• Learning how to manage projects through live project-based learning– E.g., a charity fundraiser event– Several £K raised now for

different charities

• Constructive alignment of intended learning outcomes, activities and modes of assessment

• Calibrating the process of learning– Frequent opportunities for

group reflection and hence learning

Intended learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding• Describe … • Identify similarities, differences,

connections …

Intellectual skills• Evaluate…• Analyse …• Exercise appropriate judgement …

Practical subject-specific skills• Develop …• Demonstrate …

Transferable skills• Manage own learning …• Communicate effectively …• Work with others …• Recognise and support

followership, and be proactive in leadership

Working on live projects that matter

Another example

Calibrating the process of learning -I

• Learning agreement

• Check-in

• Weekly project progress reviews

• End of unit project retrospective

Calibrating the process of learning -II

• Learning agreement

• Check-in

• Weekly project progress reviews

• End of unit project retrospective

End of unit project retrospective

3. Where next?

Developing a culture of‘research mindedness’

• MBA Critical Management Inquiry core module– Research Methods

• Active learning through a series of group-based inquiry projects

• Initially based on management dilemmas

– ‘The art of management is largely about learning to live with dilemmas, situations where difficult choices must be made between two or more alternatives…’

Why does this matter?

• Learning how to ask good questions is usually more important than having “the right answer” because, increasingly, there is more than one possible response.

• So learning what makes a good answer is very important: and “good” might mean logically provable, or emotionally wise, or ethically sound... Life is complicated.

• Learning what to do when you don’t know what to do is now a survival skill (there is simply too much to learn just in case, so you’ll have to do it just in time).

• Learning how to organise yourself and achieve meaningful goals is critical because there may not be anyone else there to chivvy you along.

• Learning how be part of a community and form meaningful relationships with others ...

http://www.bushfieldschool.net/index.htm

And because …

Research mindedness will enable me to improve my own practice

Research mindedness will help me think differently about what it means to be a feminist and a manager

Research mindedness will be at the heart everything I do as a manager and future organisational leader

What does ‘happy’ look like?

Where research begins

• Using your eyes, using all your senses

• Noticing the world around you

• Situational awareness

Activity: what do you notice as you walk around the campus?

• In groups• Five minutes• What’s your story of what you see?

Sievers, B (2006), ‘Pictures from below the surface of the University: The Social Photo-Matrix as a method for understanding organizations in depth’. In: Michael Reynolds & Russ Vince (eds.), Experiential Learning and Management Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Where research begins - II

– Research begins with close observation – seeing what no-one else has yet seen

– Shifts in perception are also shifts in ways of thinking

Developing sustainable learning

• Encouraging confident learners

– who can think under pressure,– are resilient and resourceful– who can lead collaboratively,– communicate effectively in a

polyglot world– and know how to learn from

experience

‘In this unit we were taught to find many of the answers ourselves, which I have personally learned much more from... I learned to be less dependent on teacher advice and more dependent on my own, which has given me more confidence. I think this was a really good learning experience. Sometimes teachers answer far too many questions easily when they really need to let the student search for their own answers…’

Contributions, questions