Unlearning through learning
One of greatest things about going back to school is having the opportunity to refine some of the things learned earlier. In particular, I have been expanding and honing my understanding of how to do homework.
I was a science major in college. I mostly studied on my own, as did most of my classmates for at least some of the time. Although science students form study groups to get the problem sets done and cram for tests, there are two major forces driving toward individual study for those who are serious students, not just trying to pass the classes.
First, you've really got to know the material by yourself. You will have to solve the problems on your own on the exam, so you might as well practice on your own with homework sets. And if you intend to become a scientist or engineer, you are expected to have fairly complete individual mastery of the material. Furthermore, it is well known that people don't really learn material that requires intense concentration (like difficult math) when they are in a group setting. In the end, you just have work with it, work on it, puzzle it over, and chew through it... by yourself. (And it's well worth the effort for those interested in the subject. Others may be less convinced).
Second, working individually is good preparation for the actual process of science, where it is critical for results to be replicated by independent researchers. That is the whole basis for validity in science, so you need to train scientists who are comfortable and proficient doing things on their own. Arguably, individual study is important for the integrity of science.
This model is completely false in business school. The majority of assignments are done on teams, and even for those that aren't, collaboration and sharing information are totally normal. In fact, it is widely recognized that for business assignments, you learn more when you do it with other people. You will actually get less out of an assignment if you go off and do it on your own. And sending 30 students off to replicate the same work indvidually--- what a colossal waste of time! :-)
Futhermore, shared solutions not only tend to produce results better than the sum of the parts, but this method too supports the actual process of business, which is a shared enterprise. Companies aren't just operating in a vacuum, they are part of their own industry, part of their supply chain from raw materials to customer, part of their local communities, part of the global economy, and part of the ecosystem. It is actually counterproductive to promote separatist ideology about such things.
I don't mean to imply that scientists are completely separate-- they too are very much a part of a collaborative community that doesn't advance without collective participation. But it's a different sort of thing than business. Through school, I am seeing how the very process of doing assignments is a microcosm of the larger industry process, be it one of replicating individual results or one of producing group results.
I was a science major in college. I mostly studied on my own, as did most of my classmates for at least some of the time. Although science students form study groups to get the problem sets done and cram for tests, there are two major forces driving toward individual study for those who are serious students, not just trying to pass the classes.
First, you've really got to know the material by yourself. You will have to solve the problems on your own on the exam, so you might as well practice on your own with homework sets. And if you intend to become a scientist or engineer, you are expected to have fairly complete individual mastery of the material. Furthermore, it is well known that people don't really learn material that requires intense concentration (like difficult math) when they are in a group setting. In the end, you just have work with it, work on it, puzzle it over, and chew through it... by yourself. (And it's well worth the effort for those interested in the subject. Others may be less convinced).
Second, working individually is good preparation for the actual process of science, where it is critical for results to be replicated by independent researchers. That is the whole basis for validity in science, so you need to train scientists who are comfortable and proficient doing things on their own. Arguably, individual study is important for the integrity of science.
This model is completely false in business school. The majority of assignments are done on teams, and even for those that aren't, collaboration and sharing information are totally normal. In fact, it is widely recognized that for business assignments, you learn more when you do it with other people. You will actually get less out of an assignment if you go off and do it on your own. And sending 30 students off to replicate the same work indvidually--- what a colossal waste of time! :-)
Futhermore, shared solutions not only tend to produce results better than the sum of the parts, but this method too supports the actual process of business, which is a shared enterprise. Companies aren't just operating in a vacuum, they are part of their own industry, part of their supply chain from raw materials to customer, part of their local communities, part of the global economy, and part of the ecosystem. It is actually counterproductive to promote separatist ideology about such things.
I don't mean to imply that scientists are completely separate-- they too are very much a part of a collaborative community that doesn't advance without collective participation. But it's a different sort of thing than business. Through school, I am seeing how the very process of doing assignments is a microcosm of the larger industry process, be it one of replicating individual results or one of producing group results.
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