This week's session notes - Week 7 (11 and 13 September 2018)

Hi everyone

Today we started with our usual revision test from the previous week.

After this, I gave the class some general feedback on Assignment 1, along with some pointers which might be useful when preparing for Assignment 2.

Among other things, I mentioned that, as the topic of this paper is PSDM, the assignments are meant to be challenging (as, indeed, should all papers be at tertiary level).

You should make a point of carefully reading the assignment task / question (along with the marking schedule) in order to fully understand what is required of you. Assignments link back to Learning Outcomes, so the words that are used are often very important. If the assignment asks you to do something then you know that there is a good reason for this.

A good approach is to use a simple problem solving technique called ‘swapping places’. Put yourself in the tutor’s shoes and ask, “what is it that this question is testing?” When you have finished writing something, then ask yourself, “what can I award marks here for?” As a rough guide, a marker might award (say) half a mark for each good relevant point (more on this, further down).

You should regard every assignment is an opportunity for you to ‘show off’ your knowledge, so don’t be shy about doing this! Markers can only give you credit for what they see, so make sure that you write down everything that you want marks for.

Remember that you need to do around 110 hours of independent work for every 20 credit paper that you take. This work includes spending time in the library, reading journals and other academic material. This is the ‘academic’ component which should support your work, and which should feature prominently in your reference list and in-text referencing.

It is really interesting to note how students are packing more internet sources students into their assignments these days. While some of these sources may be high quality (e.g. from ProQuest and other library databases), many of these sources are actually quite low quality (and therefore unsuitable for this level of academic work). Generally-speaking, you should not use brief entries from professional websites (or even unprofessional ones, for that matter!) or from promotional and advertising sources. The ‘library test’ is a good rule-of-thumb as to whether a source should be used in an assignment: If you wouldn’t find that source in a library collection then don’t use it in your assignment!

I also mentioned that some students were either over-writing or under-writing in their assignments. By this, I mean that you need to match the length of your answers to the number of marks available. If there is only one mark available then don’t write three or four paragraphs (unless each paragraph is very short!). Similarly, if there are five marks available for a section (as there was in Assignment 1), then don’t write only four or five lines of text. If you use diagrams or tables then these should illustrate points that you make in your text (NOT replace them!)

I also gave you a rule-of-thumb which you can use to distinguish between a C grade, a B grade and an A grade. This rule-of-thumb says that a C grade shows that you are competent in your understanding of the assignment question; a B grade means that you are showing proficiency in your work; and an A grade shows sign of excellence or expertise. This is another test that you can apply to your work, by asking yourself whether your work shows proficiency-rather-than-competency or expertise-rather-then-proficiency.

After this, we turned our attention to the similarities and differences between critical thinking and creative thinking.

Critical thinking is typified by a logical, sequential, analytical and reasoned approach. We are looking for proof and for specific, quality answers to our questions. Reasoning follows 'if ... then' logic (‘if x happens then y will probably follow’).

Creative thinking is lateral, expansive, imaginative, innovative and disruptive. We are less interested in the probable answer and more interested in generating interesting possibilities (often the more the better). This sometimes means that creative thinking is a quantitative exercise while critical thinking is more qualitative.

While we sometimes think of these two types of thinking as being mutually exclusive, it can be useful to use them in tandem (especially when it isn’t clear whether a problem requires one type of thinking over the other).

Some things may need critical thinking:

* If I sell 100 widgets at $100 profit each then how much money will I make? (Method: 100 x 100)

* Mondays are my busiest days at work. Should I roster more staff on Mondays? (Method: Number of customers? Ratio of staff to customers? Number of staff needed?)

* My bank manager tells me that interest rates will rise this year but my mother says that they will fall. Who do I believe? (Method: Who has access to the most accurate information?)

Critical thinking should result in sound decisions, based on evidence and logic. However, critical thinking also has its limitations. For instance, many routine decisions are NOT taken rationally, due to:

* Non-deliberative decisions (e.g. choices made without extensive thought)

* Missing information (e.g. lack of information)

* Mental errors (e.g. mistakes, assumptions, bias, etc.)

(As we will see later on, rational decisions sometimes fall prey to political decisions, group pressure, and other influences.)

In contrast to this, some things may need creative thinking. For instance:

* What business shall I start?

* I want to show my customers that I care about them. How can I do this?

* A new supermarket is opening across the road from my supermarket. What should I do?

The answers to these questions may not be obvious and they may require some complex and non-linear thinking before we can arrive at a sound decision.

So, with all this in mind, we tried a practical exercise in which we used our thinking skills to find both critical and creative solutions to the business problem: ‘My profits are falling … what should I do?’

At this point, we finished our session for the day. I need you to think about this problem over the weekend, as we will be returning to it next week.

On Thursday, we continued with our look at PSDM in a business context. I showed you one particular tool that you can use to develop new products from existing products by altering one or more existing features. This tool is called SCAMPER.

SCAMPER is a mnemonic that stands for Substitute, Combine, Alter, Modify / distort, Put to another purpose, Eliminate and Reverse / re-engineer. We took a basic product (Smarties) and we pretended that we were running a Smarties factory where sales were falling and profits declining. Our task was to find ways to increase production / demand so that we could remain viable as a business. In order to do this, we SCAMPERed the basic Smarties product to see what we could come up with.

See the SCAMPER powerpoint on Moodle to see the sort of products that we could make by changing one or more of the SCAMPER features in Smarties. Each of the product examples given is a REAL product. You can use the same technique to develop your ideas for Assignment 2, if you are stuck.

Remember that Assignment 2 requires you to take an everyday problem and to develop a business proposal around it. When I say ‘an everyday problem’ I want you to keep it simple (i.e. we are not talking about flying people to Mars!) It might be a safety problem, a practical problem or a marketing problem. You need to think both critically and creatively in order to do this assignment successfully.

Have a good weekend, and I will see you all on Tuesday!

Cheers

Phil