Missouri Course Redesign Initiative
Northwest Missouri State University
Course Title: Principles of Management
Contact: Jeffrey Nickerson
Principles of Management is a high-enrollment course in the Booth College of Business and Professional Studies at Northwest Missouri State University. To ensure a common professional component among the accredited business programs, all students majoring in accounting, business economics, business education, business management, finance, international business, management information systems, marketing or office information systems are required to take Principles of Management. Traditionally, two or more faculty members have split the duties, teaching a total of four to five sections of up to 50 students each semester. Total enrollment each semester is typically between 200 and 250 students.
The traditional mode of instruction has contributed to several academic problems that will be addressed by the course redesign. The way the course has been administered in the past has led to significant course drift in the teaching style, rigor and overall learning outcomes of students across sections taught by different instructors. The preparedness of students for upper-level courses has also differed among sections taught by different instructors, leading to inconsistent knowledge and performance in those classes. Because Principles of Management is a lower-level, prerequisite course for so many upper-level courses, improving the consistency of the knowledge and skills of students completing the course will support and improve the upper-level curriculum.
The planned redesign model is a Replacement Model. In-class meeting times will be reduced from three, 50-minute classes to two, 50-minute sessions per week. Students will prepare outside of class by reading the textbook and using web-based resources to complete low-stakes assignments and quizzes (approximately 30% of the overall grade.) Vocabulary and practice questions and problems will be moved online and will include low-stakes quizzes and activities. Students will engage in projects using computer-based learning plans and computer-based exercises provided by textbook supplemental material. Discussion of management topics and cases will be conducted in an online environment through small-team threaded discussions and case studies of managerial concepts, monitored by the instructor and graduate assistants. In-class time will be used to reinforce material with lecture and real-life examples of concepts and current events. The threaded discussions and online assessments will enable faculty to detect areas in which students are not grasping key concepts, which will be revisited in lecture.
The redesigned course will enhance quality by facilitating more discussion. Students will learn from each other by applying concepts to their personal experiences and observations. The online, small-group discussions will allow students to share thoughts and ideas without the traditional fear of “speaking up” in classroom sessions. The redesigned course will also aid in student preparedness for class. The redesign will facilitate a deeper understanding of material and how it applies to real-life situations.
Assessment of the impact of the redesign will be done using a baseline “before” (traditional) and “after” (redesign) method of obtaining data and comparing learning outcomes. The team has baseline information about student learning outcomes in the traditional format from a common, comprehensive, final examination that tests students’ knowledge of key management concepts. This exam has been given over the past six semesters (12 sections totaling approximately 500 students). That data will be compared by using the same final exam in the redesigned course.
The redesign will reduce costs by increasing section size from ~40 to 100 students, reducing the number of sections offered each year from eight to four and reducing the number of different instructors teaching the course from three to one. The redesign will also probably include graduate students who will assist the faculty member by monitoring the online case analyses and discussions. The cost per student will decline from $221 to $113, a 49% reduction, while simultaneously reducing course drift and improving course consistency. Cost savings will allow for redistribution of departmental resources to offer more upper-level courses.
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