Southern Brakes and Plastics Case Study An example of putting best theory into best practice for online learning

by

Alan Holzl, LRDU-TEDI
and
Judy Drennan, Graduate School of Management

The University of Queensland

 

This paper provides a case study of "best practice" in the design and implementation of online learning environments for higher education. One of the reasons why it is considered to be an example of best practice is that it is grounded in contemporary learning theory or "best theory". This theory is Situated Learning or Situated Cognition which has its roots in Social Constructivism. In addition to justifying the claims of best theory and best practice, the paper also describes how the project was conceived and implemented as well as providing some preliminary results on its effectiveness from both the teachers' and students' perspectives.

 

Introduction

As more and more Australian universities move online, there has been increasing criticism of the quality of the learning materials being provided to students. This criticism suggests that many lecturers are simply placing their lecture notes on the Web with little regard for principles of educational design or learning theory. Unfortunately, much of this criticism is not accompanied by any suggestions or guidelines for what universities should be doing to maximise the enormous potential of online learning. This paper aims to address this issue by providing an example of "best practice" in online learning in the form of a case study of the "Southern Brakes and Plastics" web site (Drennan, et.al., 1997) developed by the School of Management and Marketing of Deakin University and recently adopted by the School of Management at the University of Queensland.

 

Criteria for Best Practice

Our claim that this program follows best practice is based on the premise that it incorporates many of the features of Jonassen's (1998) model of an online constructivist learning environment. This model is considered to be ideal for higher education as it is informed by "best" learning theories such as Social Constructivism (McMahon, 1997), Situated Cognition (Brown, Collins, and Duguid, 1989) and Cognitive Flexibility (Spiro, et al., 1987). The claim that these theories are "best" for higher education need to be considered in the light of current trends identified in the recent West Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy in Australia (1998). They include support for concepts such as, "instilling a culture of lifelong learning"(p.48), " fostering a learning society" (p.44) and the urging of the higher education sector to, "provide a learning environment" (p.47). According to Candy et al (1994), one of the key competencies of the life-long learner is the ability to be a "self-directed" learner.

There can be no doubt that a social constructivist learning model is more likely to foster these qualities than the currently over-used transmission or instructivist model drawn from behaviourist learning theories. The concept of the "learning society" seems to be identical to that of the "learning community" described within the context of Situated Cognition (Collins, Brown and Duguid, 1989) as does the view that teaching should be about the, "creation of learning environments" rather than the transmission of knowledge.

Support for the relevance of these theories to higher education is provided by a number of writers both in Australia (Walker and Lambert, 1996; Standen & Herrington, 1997; Lefoe, 1998) and overseas, (Savery & Duffy, 1995; Duffy and Cunningham, 1996) especially those who write about the application of IT to teaching and learning in higher education. Among these are Jonassen, Mayes and McAleese (1993) who, in a paper on the uses of technology in higher education state that, "universities are the most appropriate venues for implementing constructivist learning environments".

 

Constructivist Learning Environments

Jonassen's model of a constructivist learning environment (CLE) as shown in Figure 1, has the case, problem or project as the central focus .

Figure. 1: Model for designing constructivist learning environments.
Source: Jonassen (1998)

The other components include:

 

The Southern Brakes and Plastic Case Project

The Southern Brakes and Plastics project was developed as a multimedia case study on the World Wide Web (WWW). The impetus for this project arose from an interest by a group of management academics in multi-media and their perception that that the use of realistic case studies was an important tool for effective teaching. With the assistance of a small grant from the Commonwealth Staff Development Fund specifically aimed at giving academics the opportunity to develop their skills in producing materials for multi-mode delivery, this team was able to put their ideas into practice.

At the initial stages of the project, several important decisions regarding content and framework arose. One of the team members had recently written case studies on an Australian company, Pacific BBA1, and this material was used as the basis for the multi-media project. As a framework for the case materials, the strategic management process was selected. This process includes the following eight steps:

  1. Determining and identifying the organisation's mission;
  2. Establishing goals and objectives;
  3. Assessing strengths and weaknesses;
  4. Assessing opportunities and threats;
  5. Analysing the competitive situation;
  6. Selecting an appropriate strategy;
  7. Implementing the strategy; and
  8. Evaluating strategy and performance.

The next stage involved the development of a learning grid as shown in Figure 2, which included the learning objectives for each of the eight steps, an illustration of how this objective would be met, learning strategies, and limitations. To complete this task, each member of the team was responsible for constructing particular sections of the learning grid. Weekly meetings were held to discuss and share ideas for the grid, which became a planning and control blueprint for the project.

Figure 2: Segment of the Learning Grid
Source: Hagel et al (1996)

 

Developing the Case Setting

An idea for the setting of the case arose from the grid exercise. The team selected a board meeting as the focal point as it provided an excellent opportunity to illustrate the learning objectives. By creating fictional characters who were representative of different ages, cultures, gender and attitudes, the team were able to build up a group of board members with differing personal agendas and relationships. A story line was also set up with a view to attaining as much realism as possible. To achieve this, a combination of real-life case material from Pacific BBA relating to its external environment, competitive situation, products and financial data were intertwined with a fictional, but feasible, board meeting with strategic options.

To achieve realism, team members created their own characters on the board by writing profiles which showed personality, employment history, their role on the board, and both public and private agendas. Once the characters were developed and the agenda for the board meeting set, the team play-acted their own characters at the meeting and recorded the proceedings. The transcript was then incorporated as part of the case material for students to access.

At this point of the process, technical expertise in Web-site development was required for conversion to electronic delivery. The team were determined that the case should not be simply linear and text based. They wanted students to experience an authentic organisation with real issues. To achieve this, students could enter 'virtual' spaces which were set up as rooms on the sixth floor of a building accessed via the lobby as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Lobby
Source: Drennan, et.al. (1997)

The other rooms are the Board Room (Figure 4) where the transcript, member profiles, and strategic options are accessed; the Resources Centre, (Figure 5) where industry and company information is available; the Briefing Room (Figure 6) where the lecturer can place instructions and tasks for the students; and the Coffee Room (Figure 7) where they can chat informally with other students, leave messages for tutors, peruse notice boards and listen to employee conversations. The project team and the technical team interacted closely to design the graphics and the Web site.

Figure 4: Board Room
Source: Drennan, et.al., (1997)

 

Figure 5: Resources Centre
Source: Drennan, et.al., (1997)

 

Figure 6: Briefing Room
Source: Drennan, et.al., (1997)

 

Figure 6: Coffee Room
Source: Drennan, et.al., (1997)

 

Using the Case

The board meeting is the central focus of the case, and the agenda sets up a scenario where decisions must be made regarding strategic options. This is consistent with Jonassen's(1998) model of a CLE which is based around a "case, problem or project". In the transcript, the meeting stops before any major decisions are made, so it is left up to the students to evaluate the options, analyse the situation and arrive at their own conclusions. In their search for relevant information, students can click onto boardroom members to view their profile, look inside their briefcase or enter their office. They can also click on the tape in the centre of the board table to access the transcript of the meeting, or click on important papers lying on the table such as the agenda, financial statements and options paper. Outside of the Board Room, they are able to access information from the Resources Centre, Briefing Room or Coffee Room. They must determine how they will access the material and when they have enough material to make their decisions. The use of these "information resources" reflect the components that Jonassen believes should be, "learner-selectable and just in time".

Access to "cognitive (knowledge construction) tools" is provided via the Board Room, Resource Room, and Coffee Room in the form of Excel spread sheets for modelling financial data and a note book for reflection. "Conversation and collaboration tools" are available via the Coffee Room in the form of a bulletin board.

An example of the use of this case in an undergraduate class is that of the Introduction to Management subject (BF130). Throughout the subject, the students are encouraged to visit the Web site of Southern Brakes and Plastics and the assignments are based on this case. For each of the topics covered in the subject, students are steered toward the case to answer questions relating to the theory. In this way, they have their own 'virtual' organisation for considering how management concepts match reality. One example shown in Figure 8 is an exercise relating to social responsibility, ethics and decision making. Students are asked to draw a diagram showing the friendships, power and other relationships among the people on the board and consider how these relationships might affect the strategic decisions made by the board.

The Case Study

The topics we have covered this week are social esponsibility, ethics and decision making. Do these topics hae anything to do with Southern Brakes and Plastics? Think carefully about these issues while doing the following exercises to bring to the next workshop.

The first exercise for you is to write a paragraph about who or what the organisation considers in making its decisions. From your reading of the case so far, who do you think the company considers its major shareholders to be and what evidence can you find to support your opinion?

Figure 8: Example of case based exercise in Introduction to Management (BF130) subject
(Kennedy, 1999)

In another topic relating to strategic management, students are asked to apply business-level strategy frameworks to the analysis of SBP's current strategic business units. They are further asked if these frameworks add to their understanding of SBP and whether they help in analysing the options that the company is considering. Other activities in this subject include play acting the roles of the board members with the objective of pushing through their preferred options. To achieve this, they must negotiate before the meeting with other members of the board to gain numbers, thereby gaining some understanding of politics and power in organisations.

 

Evaluation by Lecturers

Two lecturers who had used the SBP case in their Introduction to Management subject were interviewed to ascertain their evaluation of its effectiveness. The key advantages cited were interrelatedness, multiple perspectives, realism, and shared terms of reference. It was stated that the SPB case incorporates a wide range of issues that enables students to understand how strategy, structure and culture are interrelated. As each management topic was introduced, it was possible to link these issues to the case.

Because students had one case over the semester, they kept going back to the case each week to look at it in a different way. Students had to reassess what they had said and thought previously and thus gained more insight into the situation and their own judgments.

It was also suggested that students were able to gain multiple perspectives in terms of the mix of cultures, gender, age and attitudes. One character that the lecturer considered unlikeable, arrogant and pushy was considered cool by the students because he drove a black BMW. This led to discussion on how they were judging him and the idea of projected image impacting on how people are perceived.

With the mix of anglo, asians, male and female, young and old, entrepreneurial and conservative characters, students could identify with different characters and different approaches. The characters were not perfect people. They had personalities; they had relationships with the other members of the board; they liked some of the other characters and disliked others. With the characters in the case, it was possible to go into more depth because (it was) not presented as a rational model, but more like a real model.

The case was also considered to provide a realistic context in that students were presented with incomplete or conflicting information. They were asked to make decisions when there was not enough information to make rational informed decision, so they need to collect more data. Also there may be conflicting information about a situation gathered from one or two people in the case.

Students weren't making decision simply on facts given. It was left open-ended by allowing students to access lots of possible Web sites. They had to decide what they believed and when they had enough information, which is an important skill for when you're working in business.

As the case must seem authentic, a major challenge will be keeping it up to date. With the current situation in Indonesia, for example, it is important that these current issues be integrated into the case.

Finally, the case was considered to give students a shared term of reference. It was stated that the student became so familiar with the case that they referred to it and the characters to give explanations for their arguments in tutorial sessions. As all the members shared the experience of this organisation, it was used as a common frame of reference for discussion in other situations. In general it was considered that the focus was complex enough to sustain interest over the entire semester, and as a teaching tool it is important that it maintains that interest.

 

Evaluation by Students

Students considered that it was a useful way of learning because it seemed more realistic than other traditional text methods.

I got hooked on it once I got to know the characters and how to analyse the situations. It was like being in a company where you get to know about it slowly.

However, a criticism was that some students found that it took time to find their way around the organisation. Students were given the full semester to work with the case, but those who were trying to gather the information for analysis at the last minute found themselves frustrated. Other students commented on the fact that there was only one woman on the Board of Directors, but considered that this was probably a reflection of organisations in our society.

 

Future Directions

At this stage, it is essential that the case be further developed to incorporate recent political and economic events in Australia and overseas. It is also important as a teaching tool, that this case provides opportunities for lecturers to set new assignments. For these reasons, it is intended to refresh and update the board meeting by duplicating the procedure of play-acting the board meeting with a new agenda and new strategic options. In addition, the resource centre will be updated to incorporate recent macro-environmental changes.

 

Summary and Conclusions

As can be seen from the above description of how the SBP case study has been designed and implemented, it contains most of the components of Jonassen's (1998) model as explained below:

This paper has attempted to provide an example of best practice in the design and use of online learning materials within higher education. Although the example was based on the use of online constructivist learning environments within the context of management education, we believe that the model has much wider application within higher education, and possible even vocational education. There are even some excellent examples on the Web of this model being applied to secondary education. After all, the learning theories on which social constructivist learning environments are based have their origins in K-12 education.

Within higher education, however, we believe that any subject which uses case studies, student projects and/or problem based learning could be provided online by applying the principles employed within the SBP case study. At the same time, however, we do not wish to infer that this model provides a universal panacea to every possible teaching and learning situation within higher education. The best way to determine if the model for online learning described in this paper is appropriate for your subject is to try it and conduct a comprehensive formative and summative evaluation.

 

References

Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, S. (1989). Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.

Candy, P,. Crebert, G., & O'Leary, J. (1994). Developing Life Long Learners through Undergraduate Education. NBEET Commissioned Report No 28, DEETYA, Canberra: AGPS.

Drennan, J., Hagel, P., Mahoney, D., Trigg, M., & Zulian, F. (1997) Southern Brakes and Plastics Case Study

Duffy, T., & Cunningham, D. (1996). Constructivism: Implications for the design and delivery of instruction. In D.H Jonassen, (Ed.) Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology, New York: Macmillan Library References.

Hagel, P., Zulian, F., with Drennan, J., Mahoney, D., & Trigg, M. (1996) Value-adding: adapting a paper-based teaching case for the WWW environment, . Conference Proceedings, ASCILITE' 96. Adelaide, SA: University of South Australia.

Jonassen, D. (1998) Designing Constructivist Learning Environments. In C.M. Reigeluth (Ed.) Instructional theories and models. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [online] Available http://www.ed.psu.edu/insys/who/jonassen/cle/cle.html

Jonassen, D., Mayes, T., & McAleese R. (1993). A Manifesto for a Constructivist Approach to Uses of Technology in Higher Education. In T. Duffy, J. Lowyck, and D. Jonassen (Eds.). Designing Environments for Constructive Learning. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Kennedy, J., (1999) BF130 Introduction to Management, Study Guide, Ipswich Campus: University of Queensland.

Lefoe, G. (1998) Creating Constructivist Learning Environments on the Web: The Challenge in Higher Education. Conference Proceedings, ASCILITE' 98. Wollongong, NSW: University of Wollongong.

McMahon, M. (1997). Social Constructivism and the World Wide Web - A Paradigm for Learning. Unpublished paper presented at the Australian Society for Computers In Learning In Tertiary Education, Perth WA, 7-10 December.

Savery, J., & Duffy, T. (1995) Problem Based Learning: An Instructional Model and its Constructivist Framework. Educational Technology, 35(5), 31-38.

Spiro, R.J., Coulson, R.L., Feltovich, P.J. & Anderson, D.K, (1988) Cognitive Flexibility Theory: Advanced Knowledge Acquisition in Ill-structured Domains, in Tenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 375-383.

Standen P., & Herrington J. (1997) Acumen: An Interactive Multimedia Simulation Based on Situated Learning Theory. Unpublished paper presented at the Australian Society for Computers In Learning In Tertiary Education, Perth WA, 7-10 December.

Walker, R. & Lambert, P. (1996). Designing Electronic Learning Environments to Support Communities of Learners: A Tertiary Application. Unpublished paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE), Hobart Tas 27-30 November 1995.

West, R. (1998). Learning for Life (Final Report of the Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy).Canberra: AGPS.

 

1 Professor Darrell Mahoney of Deakin University wrote the Pacific BBA cases in 1994. These cases are available through the University of Melbourne Case Library and are titled Pacific BBA Limited: The Company: A Joint Venture Strategy for Asia; and The Bid for Siddons Ramset Limited.

 

 

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