Some acquaintances -- who never have time to learn anything new (or to exercise), although they seem to have vast knowledge of TV show storylines and sports events -- have challenged me to blog (their word was "prove") how it's possible to continue to learn stuff after formal education ends.
Hence "Project 2016," in which I'll mostly document the use of books, articles, MOOCs, podcasts, public lectures, and other sources for learning as entertainment.
Yes, learning as entertainment. I have to keep learning new things for my job; those will not be blogged. I like knowing stuff even when there's no monetary payoff to it. In the past I would keep the learning to myself, but since I like to peruse other people's educational blogs, I'll give something back to the community.
My main ludic learning interests are in STEM, economics, and business management. (I work on the quantitative side of business, but there's a lot beyond my area of expertise that I find enjoyable to learn.) There'll be references to books I read and I may occasionally stray into the application of logic and thinking to subjects like fitness, travel, or packing. I might even blog about science popularization.
There will be math (typesetting courtesy of MathJax):
\[
\Pr(\text{math}) = \lim_{x \rightarrow +\infty} \frac{x^{2016}-\log(x)}{x^{2016}}.
\]
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Software I use - part of a new computer decision process
Trying to decide whether to update (by buying a new one) my MacBook Pro, get a new MacBook Air, or switch platforms to Linux or even Windows. So I listed the software I use, and the first observation is that unless I'm willing to spend a lot of money on new programs, I'm hard-locked to the Mac platform...
TexShop. I write mostly in LaTeX. In the past I used LaTeX only for research but now I make almost all my handouts and discussion documents in LaTeX. (When I don't, they are almost always InDesign one- or two-page documents.) I know that there are WYSIWYG environments for people who want to write in a Word-like environment, but being a long-time programmer I prefer to edit LaTeX source code.
R. This is my main programming environment, having replaced Stata and MATLAB. I considered using Octave or Python, but in the end R is the best combination for my needs.
Mathematica. Every so often I need to do some tedious calculus, so I trust Mathematica for that. (When I do more than a few pages of calculus by hand, there's usually a missing sign or a transposed fraction somewhere.)
TextWrangler. Heir to the venerable BBEditLite, it's my mainstay text editor. I use it for all text that is not LaTeX, including programming, web posts, drafts of long emails, and outliner for talks. (I don't use a specialized outliner program for the reasons I gave in this post.)
Keynote. I used it as mostly a projector management system, with all content created on other tools, but now I use it for about one-quarter to one-third of all slides. Integration with iTouch and iPad allows for good control (which, I'm told, has existed in the Windoze ecosystem for several years now…).
Numbers. Not as good as Excel for most tasks that a manager would use a spreadsheet, but it's a simple way to mock-up quick models for class demonstrations. Anyone doing serious spreadsheet work must use Excel, though, since Apple seems intent on leaving the professionals behind. Really.
Pages. Although I don't use Microsoft Word as a text editor, I occasionally work with people who do. It's hard to believe that a word processor in 2015 doesn't allow facing pages (odd/even pages); were I to use a word processor rather than LaTeX, this would mean Word, not Pages. Apparently Apple is intent on leaving even school reports to Microsoft...
Adobe Illustrator. My main drawing program, for diagrams and illustrations. Even though there are now some minimally acceptable drawing tools in Keynote, they are still very weak compared to Illustrator.
Adobe InDesign. When I need to make diagrams that include a lot of text and not a lot of drawing, I prefer InDesign to Illustrator. InDesign is also my program of choice for making compact handouts, of the type I send for remote discussions or distribute at speaking events. (In the old days, I used to make my teaching handouts with InDesign, but once I went for long handouts, I switched to LaTeX.)
Adobe Photoshop. I use it for final production on many slides, though a little less now as I move towards a simpler aesthetic. It also serves as my photo editor, not that I edit photos that often.
Magical number machine. A good calculator for quick arithmetic, which I used to do with an HP calculator, but gave that away in my last physical decluttering. I also use it to do arithmetic on the projection screen while using boards or flip charts.
LaTexIt. Quick LaTeX rendering for inclusion in diagrams or slides.
Voila. Page capture on steroids; can capture entire web pages as well. It has some minor editing affordances, but I do all image editing in Photoshop.
Screenflow. Captures screen, mic, and camera, for webinar-style videos. I use it for all sorts of video editing as well. Haven't opened iMovie since I got Screenflow.
VLC. Because Apple's video players are terrible.
NetNewsWire. My RSS feed reader. I could move to the cloud, and have considered that, but for now I'm happy with this. I only open it once a day, in the morning, to get a sense of what's going on.
Google Chrome. It's less of a background hog than Safari, which isn't saying much, really.
Skype. To communicate with people. Despite Microsoft's best efforts to make it unusable, the network I have on Skype is still strong enough for me to use it.
Kindle app. I have lots of Kindle books, so this is a no-brainer. (I replaced a lot of paper books with Kindle books in the 2013 declutter, using the rule that if I was likely to reread a book and its Kindle price was low, I'd rather have the electronic copy and the free physical space.)
iBooks. I also have a lot of ePubs and even some Apple iBooks, so this is again a no-brainer. I think iBooks manages multimedia content better than the Kindle.
iBooks Author. Maybe. I'm considering using this to release an interactive version of some of my teaching materials, but the limited platform (Apple only ecosystem) and the volatility of the eLearning technologies are a concern.
Simple comic. It reads comic book formats, of course, but also some other formats such as 7z which can be useful under certain circumstances. Also, I have a number of old comics in .cbr format, for nostalgia sake.
iTunes. For now my music player; it's acceptable when fed through a quality DAC. Its strong point is organization, thought that's just relative to competitors: as far as art music is concerned, no program works well, just passably.
iPhoto, soon to be replaced with Photos. To organize photos, not really a serious competitor to Photoshop when it comes to edit them.
That's it. No Handbrake for a new laptop since they no longer have optical drives (though I might install it for video file conversion, which it does very well); no email program, since I use web interfaces to keep email checking to a minimum; and no games, since I have the three I play on my phone, iTouch, and iPad (falling tiles, mahjong, and solitaire).
TexShop. I write mostly in LaTeX. In the past I used LaTeX only for research but now I make almost all my handouts and discussion documents in LaTeX. (When I don't, they are almost always InDesign one- or two-page documents.) I know that there are WYSIWYG environments for people who want to write in a Word-like environment, but being a long-time programmer I prefer to edit LaTeX source code.
R. This is my main programming environment, having replaced Stata and MATLAB. I considered using Octave or Python, but in the end R is the best combination for my needs.
Mathematica. Every so often I need to do some tedious calculus, so I trust Mathematica for that. (When I do more than a few pages of calculus by hand, there's usually a missing sign or a transposed fraction somewhere.)
TextWrangler. Heir to the venerable BBEditLite, it's my mainstay text editor. I use it for all text that is not LaTeX, including programming, web posts, drafts of long emails, and outliner for talks. (I don't use a specialized outliner program for the reasons I gave in this post.)
Keynote. I used it as mostly a projector management system, with all content created on other tools, but now I use it for about one-quarter to one-third of all slides. Integration with iTouch and iPad allows for good control (which, I'm told, has existed in the Windoze ecosystem for several years now…).
Numbers. Not as good as Excel for most tasks that a manager would use a spreadsheet, but it's a simple way to mock-up quick models for class demonstrations. Anyone doing serious spreadsheet work must use Excel, though, since Apple seems intent on leaving the professionals behind. Really.
Pages. Although I don't use Microsoft Word as a text editor, I occasionally work with people who do. It's hard to believe that a word processor in 2015 doesn't allow facing pages (odd/even pages); were I to use a word processor rather than LaTeX, this would mean Word, not Pages. Apparently Apple is intent on leaving even school reports to Microsoft...
Adobe Illustrator. My main drawing program, for diagrams and illustrations. Even though there are now some minimally acceptable drawing tools in Keynote, they are still very weak compared to Illustrator.
Adobe InDesign. When I need to make diagrams that include a lot of text and not a lot of drawing, I prefer InDesign to Illustrator. InDesign is also my program of choice for making compact handouts, of the type I send for remote discussions or distribute at speaking events. (In the old days, I used to make my teaching handouts with InDesign, but once I went for long handouts, I switched to LaTeX.)
Adobe Photoshop. I use it for final production on many slides, though a little less now as I move towards a simpler aesthetic. It also serves as my photo editor, not that I edit photos that often.
LaTexIt. Quick LaTeX rendering for inclusion in diagrams or slides.
Voila. Page capture on steroids; can capture entire web pages as well. It has some minor editing affordances, but I do all image editing in Photoshop.
Screenflow. Captures screen, mic, and camera, for webinar-style videos. I use it for all sorts of video editing as well. Haven't opened iMovie since I got Screenflow.
VLC. Because Apple's video players are terrible.
NetNewsWire. My RSS feed reader. I could move to the cloud, and have considered that, but for now I'm happy with this. I only open it once a day, in the morning, to get a sense of what's going on.
Google Chrome. It's less of a background hog than Safari, which isn't saying much, really.
Skype. To communicate with people. Despite Microsoft's best efforts to make it unusable, the network I have on Skype is still strong enough for me to use it.
Kindle app. I have lots of Kindle books, so this is a no-brainer. (I replaced a lot of paper books with Kindle books in the 2013 declutter, using the rule that if I was likely to reread a book and its Kindle price was low, I'd rather have the electronic copy and the free physical space.)
iBooks. I also have a lot of ePubs and even some Apple iBooks, so this is again a no-brainer. I think iBooks manages multimedia content better than the Kindle.
iBooks Author. Maybe. I'm considering using this to release an interactive version of some of my teaching materials, but the limited platform (Apple only ecosystem) and the volatility of the eLearning technologies are a concern.
Simple comic. It reads comic book formats, of course, but also some other formats such as 7z which can be useful under certain circumstances. Also, I have a number of old comics in .cbr format, for nostalgia sake.
iTunes. For now my music player; it's acceptable when fed through a quality DAC. Its strong point is organization, thought that's just relative to competitors: as far as art music is concerned, no program works well, just passably.
iPhoto, soon to be replaced with Photos. To organize photos, not really a serious competitor to Photoshop when it comes to edit them.
That's it. No Handbrake for a new laptop since they no longer have optical drives (though I might install it for video file conversion, which it does very well); no email program, since I use web interfaces to keep email checking to a minimum; and no games, since I have the three I play on my phone, iTouch, and iPad (falling tiles, mahjong, and solitaire).
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Science popularization has an identity problem
Some influential science popularizers are doing a disservice to public understanding of science and possibly even to science education.
Yes, it's a strong statement. Alas, it's a demonstrable one.
With the caveats that I enjoy the Mythbusters show, especially the recent series with their back-to-origins style, and that this post is not specifically about them, the recent episode about The A-Team presented an almost-perfect example of the problem.
"Stoichiometry."
Midway through the episode Adam uses this word. It's an expensive way of saying "mass balancing of chemical equations" (not how it was described in the show). And then, well... and then Jamie proceeded to not use stoichiometry.
To be concrete: they were exploding propane. Jamie tried mixing it with pure oxygen and got a big explosion. Then they mention stoichiometry. At this point, what they should have done was to introduce some basic chemistry.
The propane molecule has 3 carbon and 8 hydrogen atoms, $\mathrm{C}_{3} \mathrm{H}_{8}$. It burns with molecular oxygen, $\mathrm{O}_{2}$, yielding carbon dioxide, $\mathrm{C} \mathrm{O}_{2}$, and water vapor, $\mathrm{H}_{2} \mathrm{O}$.
Chemists represent reactions with equations, like this:
$\mathrm{C}_{3} \mathrm{H}_{8} + \mathrm{O}_{2} \rightarrow \mathrm{C} \mathrm{O}_{2} + \mathrm{H}_{2} \mathrm{O}$
This equation is unbalanced: for example, there are three carbons on the left-hand side, but only one on the right-hand side. By changing the proportions of reagents, we can get both sides to match:
$\mathrm{C}_{3} \mathrm{H}_{8} + \mathbf{5} \, \mathrm{O}_{2} \rightarrow \mathbf{3} \, \mathrm{C} \mathrm{O}_{2} + \mathbf{4} \, \mathrm{H}_{2} \mathrm{O}$
Once we have this balance, we can determine that we need 160 grams of oxygen for each 44 grams of propane. For this we need to look up the atomic masses (to compute molar masses) of carbon (12 g/mol), hydrogen (1 g/mol) and oxygen (16 g/mol). (*)
Back on the Mythbusters, after mentioning stoichiometry, Jamie starts trying out different proportions of propane to oxygen. If he had actually used stoichiometry he'd already have the proportions calculated, as I did above, about four times more oxygen than propane by mass; no need to experiment with different proportions.
(Yes, there'a a lot of experimentation in engineering, but no engineer ignores the basic scientific foundations of her field. Chemical engineers don't figure out mass balances by trial and error; they use trial and error after exhausting the established science.)
This illustrates a major problem in the way science is being popularized: to a segment of the educated and interested audience, science is an identity product. Like a Prada bag or a sports franchise logo on a t-shirt, they see science as something that can signal membership in a desired group and exclusion from undesirable groups.
Hence the word "stoichiometry" inserted in a show that doesn't actually use stoichiometry.
"Stoichiometry" here is, like the sports franchise logo, purely a symbol. The audience learns the word, in the sense that they can repeat it, but not the concept, let alone the principles and the tools of stoichiometry. The audience gains a way to signal that they "like" science, but no actual knowledge. Like a sedentary person who wears "team colors" to watch televised games.
Some successful science popularizers pander to this "like, not learn, science" audience, instead of trying to use that audience's interest in science to educate them.
So what, most people will ask. It's the market working: you give the audience what they want. And there's no question that selling science as identity is good business. Shows like House MD, Bones, The Big Bang Theory, all take advantage of this trend. Gift shops at science museums cater to the identity much more than the education: a look at their sales typically finds much more logo-ed merchandize than chemistry sets or microscopes.
(Personal anecdote: despite having three science museums nearby, I had to use the web to get a real periodic table poster. A printable simple table from Los Alamos National Lab.)
"Liking" science without learning it is bad for society:
1. Crowds out opportunities for education. People have limited time (and money) for their hobbies and activities. If they spend their "science budget" on identity, they won't have any left for actual science learning. Many more people read Feynman's two autobiographies than his Lectures On Physics or his popular physics books.
2. Devalues the work of scientists and engineers, by presenting a view of science that excludes the hard work of learning and the value of the knowledge base (trial-and-error in lieu of mass balance calculations, for example). Some people end up thinking that science is just another type of institution credential (or celebrity worship) instead of being validated by physical reality.
3. Weakens science education. Some people who go into science expect it to be easy and entertaining (in the purely ludic sense), instead of hard but rewarding (deriving satisfaction from really understanding something), as that's what the popularization depicts. They then want schools to match those expectations. While colleges may not want to simplify science and engineering classes, they put pressure on faculty for more "engaging" teaching: less technical, more show. (**)
4. As science becomes more of an identity product to some people, and increasingly perceived as identity-only by others, it becomes more vulnerable to non-scientific identity threats, such as derailing a major scientific and technical achievement in space exploration by talking about sartorial choices and sociological forces in academia.
So, what can we do?
First, we should recognize that an interest in science, even if currently trending towards identity, can be channeled into support for science and science education. As societal trends go, a generalized liking for science is better than most alternatives.
Second, there are plenty of sources of information and education that can be used to learn science. There's a broad variety of online resources for science education at different levels of knowledge, free and accessible to anyone with an internet connection (or indeed a library card; books were the original MOOCs).
Third, current "science as identity" popularizers may be open to educating their audiences. Contacting them, offering feedback, and using social media to otherwise proselytize for science (as in scientific knowledge and thinking like a scientist) might induce them to change their approach.
The most important thing anyone can do, though, is to try to get people who "like" science to understand that they should really learn some.
(Final note on the A-Team episode: Adam should have played Murdock, not Hannibal.)
- - - -
(*) I learned to do this on my own as a kid, but the material was covered in ninth grade chemistry. (A long time ago in a country far away, in ninth grade you chose a technical or artistic area in school; mine was 'chemical technology' because my school didn't have electronics.) A side-effect of my early interest in chemistry is that I have quasi-Brezhnevian eyebrows: you burn them off five or six hundred times, they grow back with a vengeance.
(**) Some schools protect their main reputation-building degrees by creating non-technical versions of the technical courses and bundling them into subsidiary degrees. So, for example, they have information technology courses, which sound like computer science courses but are in fact nothing like them.
Another approach is the encroachment of humanities, arts, and social sciences "breadth" requirements into science and engineering degrees. When I studied EECS in Europe, we had five years of math, physics, chemistry, and engineering courses. A similar degree in the US has four years and usually a minimum of one-year-equivalent of those "breadth" requirements, though some people can have more than two-year-equivalent by choosing "soft engineering" courses like "social impact of computers."
Yes, it's a strong statement. Alas, it's a demonstrable one.
With the caveats that I enjoy the Mythbusters show, especially the recent series with their back-to-origins style, and that this post is not specifically about them, the recent episode about The A-Team presented an almost-perfect example of the problem.
"Stoichiometry."
Midway through the episode Adam uses this word. It's an expensive way of saying "mass balancing of chemical equations" (not how it was described in the show). And then, well... and then Jamie proceeded to not use stoichiometry.
To be concrete: they were exploding propane. Jamie tried mixing it with pure oxygen and got a big explosion. Then they mention stoichiometry. At this point, what they should have done was to introduce some basic chemistry.
The propane molecule has 3 carbon and 8 hydrogen atoms, $\mathrm{C}_{3} \mathrm{H}_{8}$. It burns with molecular oxygen, $\mathrm{O}_{2}$, yielding carbon dioxide, $\mathrm{C} \mathrm{O}_{2}$, and water vapor, $\mathrm{H}_{2} \mathrm{O}$.
Chemists represent reactions with equations, like this:
$\mathrm{C}_{3} \mathrm{H}_{8} + \mathrm{O}_{2} \rightarrow \mathrm{C} \mathrm{O}_{2} + \mathrm{H}_{2} \mathrm{O}$
This equation is unbalanced: for example, there are three carbons on the left-hand side, but only one on the right-hand side. By changing the proportions of reagents, we can get both sides to match:
$\mathrm{C}_{3} \mathrm{H}_{8} + \mathbf{5} \, \mathrm{O}_{2} \rightarrow \mathbf{3} \, \mathrm{C} \mathrm{O}_{2} + \mathbf{4} \, \mathrm{H}_{2} \mathrm{O}$
Once we have this balance, we can determine that we need 160 grams of oxygen for each 44 grams of propane. For this we need to look up the atomic masses (to compute molar masses) of carbon (12 g/mol), hydrogen (1 g/mol) and oxygen (16 g/mol). (*)
Back on the Mythbusters, after mentioning stoichiometry, Jamie starts trying out different proportions of propane to oxygen. If he had actually used stoichiometry he'd already have the proportions calculated, as I did above, about four times more oxygen than propane by mass; no need to experiment with different proportions.
(Yes, there'a a lot of experimentation in engineering, but no engineer ignores the basic scientific foundations of her field. Chemical engineers don't figure out mass balances by trial and error; they use trial and error after exhausting the established science.)
This illustrates a major problem in the way science is being popularized: to a segment of the educated and interested audience, science is an identity product. Like a Prada bag or a sports franchise logo on a t-shirt, they see science as something that can signal membership in a desired group and exclusion from undesirable groups.
Hence the word "stoichiometry" inserted in a show that doesn't actually use stoichiometry.
"Stoichiometry" here is, like the sports franchise logo, purely a symbol. The audience learns the word, in the sense that they can repeat it, but not the concept, let alone the principles and the tools of stoichiometry. The audience gains a way to signal that they "like" science, but no actual knowledge. Like a sedentary person who wears "team colors" to watch televised games.
Some successful science popularizers pander to this "like, not learn, science" audience, instead of trying to use that audience's interest in science to educate them.
So what, most people will ask. It's the market working: you give the audience what they want. And there's no question that selling science as identity is good business. Shows like House MD, Bones, The Big Bang Theory, all take advantage of this trend. Gift shops at science museums cater to the identity much more than the education: a look at their sales typically finds much more logo-ed merchandize than chemistry sets or microscopes.
(Personal anecdote: despite having three science museums nearby, I had to use the web to get a real periodic table poster. A printable simple table from Los Alamos National Lab.)
"Liking" science without learning it is bad for society:
1. Crowds out opportunities for education. People have limited time (and money) for their hobbies and activities. If they spend their "science budget" on identity, they won't have any left for actual science learning. Many more people read Feynman's two autobiographies than his Lectures On Physics or his popular physics books.
2. Devalues the work of scientists and engineers, by presenting a view of science that excludes the hard work of learning and the value of the knowledge base (trial-and-error in lieu of mass balance calculations, for example). Some people end up thinking that science is just another type of institution credential (or celebrity worship) instead of being validated by physical reality.
3. Weakens science education. Some people who go into science expect it to be easy and entertaining (in the purely ludic sense), instead of hard but rewarding (deriving satisfaction from really understanding something), as that's what the popularization depicts. They then want schools to match those expectations. While colleges may not want to simplify science and engineering classes, they put pressure on faculty for more "engaging" teaching: less technical, more show. (**)
4. As science becomes more of an identity product to some people, and increasingly perceived as identity-only by others, it becomes more vulnerable to non-scientific identity threats, such as derailing a major scientific and technical achievement in space exploration by talking about sartorial choices and sociological forces in academia.
So, what can we do?
First, we should recognize that an interest in science, even if currently trending towards identity, can be channeled into support for science and science education. As societal trends go, a generalized liking for science is better than most alternatives.
Second, there are plenty of sources of information and education that can be used to learn science. There's a broad variety of online resources for science education at different levels of knowledge, free and accessible to anyone with an internet connection (or indeed a library card; books were the original MOOCs).
Third, current "science as identity" popularizers may be open to educating their audiences. Contacting them, offering feedback, and using social media to otherwise proselytize for science (as in scientific knowledge and thinking like a scientist) might induce them to change their approach.
The most important thing anyone can do, though, is to try to get people who "like" science to understand that they should really learn some.
(Final note on the A-Team episode: Adam should have played Murdock, not Hannibal.)
- - - -
(*) I learned to do this on my own as a kid, but the material was covered in ninth grade chemistry. (A long time ago in a country far away, in ninth grade you chose a technical or artistic area in school; mine was 'chemical technology' because my school didn't have electronics.) A side-effect of my early interest in chemistry is that I have quasi-Brezhnevian eyebrows: you burn them off five or six hundred times, they grow back with a vengeance.
(**) Some schools protect their main reputation-building degrees by creating non-technical versions of the technical courses and bundling them into subsidiary degrees. So, for example, they have information technology courses, which sound like computer science courses but are in fact nothing like them.
Another approach is the encroachment of humanities, arts, and social sciences "breadth" requirements into science and engineering degrees. When I studied EECS in Europe, we had five years of math, physics, chemistry, and engineering courses. A similar degree in the US has four years and usually a minimum of one-year-equivalent of those "breadth" requirements, though some people can have more than two-year-equivalent by choosing "soft engineering" courses like "social impact of computers."
Friday, January 9, 2015
Three lessons from teaching MBAs in 2014
Use longer, content-heavier handouts; integrate local and up-to-date content; and show numbers and math.
Change 1: Longer and content-heavier handouts
The only significant complaint from previous cohorts was regarding the lack of a textbook. I post a selection of materials to the course support intranet (consultancy reports, managerial articles, academic papers, book chapters), but a few students always remark on the lack of a unifying text for the class.(There's no unifying text because -- in my never humble opinion -- most Consumer Behavior textbooks are written from a consumer psychology point of view, while I prefer a more marketing engineering point of view.)
Taking that into consideration, I made longer, denser handouts, each like a book chapter rather than just support for in-class activities. The class is participant-centered, with minimal lecturing, so these longer handouts help students feel that they have a coherent framework to fall back on.
Handouts changed from a median size of four pages of mostly diagrams, in 2012, to a median size of eighteen pages of text, diagrams, and numbers, in 2014. (Just a reminder, since there's some confusion about it, that handouts and slides serve different purposes.)
Change 2: More local content
I used local content in most class sessions: local products, merchandizing from local retailers, and examples from local advertising. In particular, using outdoors from around the campus allowed students to recognize their location, for a little a-ha moment that improves mood.The main advantage of local content is student familiarity with it. Examples are more effective when students don't have to learn new brands, new product categories, and other regional differences. A disadvantage is additional preparation work, but that work also signals to the students the instructor's commitment to the class.
A secondary advantage of local content is as evidence of instructor competence. Local content, and up-to-date content, requires confidence, ability, and practice. For this reason alone, it's worth the additional work, even if old or foreign examples would be equally good for teaching.
Change 3: More numerical content
The rise of analytics is a highly visible trend in marketing; marketing courses are therefore increasingly quantitative. Still, most Consumer Behavior courses shy away from math.Our course was different: there were plenty of numbers and models. I did most of the work, not the students, since the objective was not to teach them analytics; but I did do the work, so the students were shown modern marketing techniques rather than a lot of hand-waving.
For example, to illustrate the effects of memory on different types of advertising timing, I used a computer simulation of a learning model: instead of rules-of-thumb for media planning, students saw how learning and forgetting rates change the effectiveness of blitz versus pulsing media timing.
(References to technical materials were provided for students wishing to learn more, of course.)
Results
Despite objectively covering more material than before and using harder assessment measures, student grades were higher. In other words, these changes achieved their primary objective: students learned more material and learned it better.Class dynamics were better than before, though they were pretty good in previous years. When I pick up my teaching evals in 2016 (they're on paper), I'll know whether I kept my top-5 ranking from 2012.
Addendum: In short events since the MBA class, I replicated these three changes, yielding performance improvements along all dimensions: participant learning (as measured by in-event exercises), participant experience (as measured by client-run event evaluations), follow up contact with the participants, and word-of-mouth.
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