Archive for August, 2009

A recent report by the U.S. Department of Education confirms what we have known at Thunderbird for several years: that online learning can help not only bridge distance but also improve the learning experience… even more so if blended with face-to-face delivery (as Thunderbird’s Global MBA On Demand does).  Great news for efforts to deliver education on a global scale using technology.  Here are some highlights of the report:

- Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.

- Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction.

- Studies in which learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for online learning.

- Most of the variations in the way in which different studies implemented online learning did not affect student learning outcomes significantly

- The effectiveness of online learning approaches appears quite broad across different content and learner types.

Conclusion:

In recent experimental and quasi-experimental studies contrasting blends of online and face-to-face instruction with conventional face-to-face classes, blended instruction has been more effective, providing a rationale for the effort required to design and implement blended approaches. Even when used by itself, online learning appears to offer a modest advantage over conventional classroom instruction.

Linda Hunt, President of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix spoke at commencement last Friday. Inspiring and insightful words with the Thunderbird Oath at the center and a perspective from the health-care industry.  Here are some highlights:

You know that you have just completed the necessary training to be the type of business leaders who will establish the new norm for prosperity – one that is sustainable, respectful of all people,  and shared widely. And we know how seriously you take this challenge because of the Thunderbird Oath of Honor you have just taken today.

An oath is no small undertaking.

I know a little something about our oath and commitments, because I work in an organization that is guided by them. As CEO of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, one of Arizona’s largest hospitals, I lead a complex organization that is shaped by professionals who have also taken special oaths:

• Our physicians must adhere to the Hippocratic Oath,
• Our faith leaders are guided by religious vows.
• I started my professional career as a nurse, and I took the Florence Nightingale Pledge when I completed my training.
• And many other health-care professionals are guided by their professional codes of conduct.

All these colleagues, many from very different walks of life, come together with a common purpose at St. Joseph’s, to serve the whole of our community with excellence and integrity. Their oaths and vows are so much more than promises. Once sworn, they become the very foundations for how they live their lives.

Read more »

Justin Fox‘ latest book, “The myth of the rational market,” tells the fascinating story of the rise and fall of the “efficient market theory”, a twentieth century saga of an elegant mathematical and philosophical contraption turned ideology (if not religion): the idea that markets are always right.

If there were still any doubt, the financial meltdown of 2008 was the latest (and quite painful) proof that investors are a lot less rational that one would think (they overreact or underreact, they are influenced not just by considerations of the assets they trade but by the behavior of the market itself, they tend to discount the distant past and assume that current conditions will be eternal, etc.).  The crisis (which Fox covers, though succinctly, in the epilogue) demonstrates the dangers of perpetuating the myth that markets can somehow filter out human irrationality and be themselves “rational”.

“Where does that leave us? It leaves us with a need to find ways to temper speculative excess while acknowledging that we won’t necessarily be able to distinguish speculative excess from an entirely sustainable boom.  Financial regulation will be a part of that.  A rediscovery of ethics and integrity will play a role too. So will memory…”

To prove the point, Fox points out an idea laid out by Hyman Minsky in the 70’s: that periods of tranquility and financial bonanza lead to a rise in the price of capital assets, a higher tolerance for risk, and the appearance of, surprise!, Ponzi schemes… (there is, after all some science behind Ponzinomics!) I hope to remember this admonition a few years from know, when homes and stocks once again appear to have reached a “permanently high plateau”…

(Justin Fox covered the Thunderbird Oath last May, both in print and video on the web)

Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

Last night, American TV comedian Jon Stewart ran a thought-provoking parody of ethics in business schools and the MBA Oath (featuring a group of MBA students who chose not to endorse it).

In 2005 the US had 38M immigrants, which is about 21% of the world’s immigrants. Of the total US population, 13% are immigrants. (For the record, I’m one of them). Immigration is one of the most complex policy issues, and it is often the subject of populist manipulation or simple misunderstanding.  The Council on Foreign Relations just released a report that provides interesting data and insights (U.S. Immigration Policy – Council on Foreign Relations):

- Foreign students and immigrants make up more than half the scientific researchers in the United States; in 2006, they received 40 percent of science and engineering PhDs and 65 percent of computer science doctorates. Among  postdoctoral students doing research at the highest levels, 60 percent are foreign born.[...] even in the 1980s, some 40 percent of engineering and computer science students in the United States came from abroad.

Read more »