MOMENTAUFNAHMEN: Covid, micro-credentials & the language of business school rankings

 

Today I had the honour to speak at a panel. The old style, (zoom-)spotlights on, attention all on me and my two fellow-panellists. With the funky twist that everyone in the audience probably earned 20x more than I do. Uff, how greatly uncomfortable this still feels, even after a year. Can, should a human ever get comfortable with the first seconds on a (virtual) stage? Not being able to see the faces of your audience is one of the oddest and most alienating things I've ever experienced. 

Don't get me wrong, the panel turned into an exciting, highly eloquent and science-grounded conversation with many important points that are oh-so-worthy to share with this world: 

A lost generation: Responding or reacting to covid?

The panel had been called together under the title 'New type students -new type curriculum?', inquiring whether the 'loss of education' for high school students due to covid would require an adjustment of the higher education curriculum, and the accession process, in the future. Is this an opportunity? What are the windows of change that are opening right now, as symptoms such as anxiety, depression et al become oh-so-obvious in relation to the pandemic context? An important question, and a question that makes my alarm signs ring: please, don't just treat the symptoms of a sick generation. Yes, covid has accelerated all of this - but truth is that our culture in business schools and far beyond has been insidiously infected for the past decades already, 'producing' functioning machines that are more probable to burn out than to have a thriving, fulfilled life. Like smartphones, the duration span of a business student in one of the big four: 2y? 3y? I don't know. What I know is that yes, this is a window. A huge one!  And it also includes that we all might have to step into vulnerability, let our masks down and acknowledge what we don't know. That we have to integrate the 'skills', that now seem to trend in the face of uncertainty, across the curriculum and into our own practice. By far, we are not there ourselves, we probably never will . This is a process of life-long learning and increasing sensitivity that allows us to respond, as the trees to the change of seasons. 

And: there are spaces out there where we can already find related practices driving changes on a deeper level. Higher education could take a big leap forward through acknowledging what is already there - the places where students have been gaining experience and learning through informal education for the past decades already, without any sign of acknowledgement or accreditation. I'm talking about student associations and other institutions or movements like eg. the art of hosting or even warm data. Why not partner up, why not open a window or a door even? The answer came up in the form of the next question: how to assess the learning of students, if not in numeric scales? Well, how much do you trust learning to unfold outside of your control? Do we really think that it happens inside the classroom or through rigid examination? Let me say it gently: I doubt that. So what is this question actually about?

Micro-credentials - or: the thingy I didn't know it had a fancy business name

Talking about skills, the audience raised a question about micro-credentials. I felt like thrown into a cold bathtub when I was meant to answer. For once, Google couldn't enlighten me in my 3-second search and I was blank. So, heya vulnerability: To all of you out there, asking for the meaning of a word in a panel discussion is actually a thing you can do. Came out that I was well aware of what we are talking about, but that it had a new name. Micro-credentials basically are short courses or segments one can take, and in several cases these are currently being provided by private organizations, enabling the working population to 'skill up'. What is the role of this building block format in higher ed? We all could agree that flexibility is an incredible added value. Customized journeys for customized individuals, providing what the employers want and need. And: we also agreed that this cannot come at the cost of the integrated journeys our education is meant to open to us. Just as important as having extra courses, or maybe even more important: integrating this new 'set of skills' into our practice throughout the curriculum. It doesn't help to teach systems thinking while still, in parallel, sitting in an outdated, purely neo-classical economics lecture that is 'slides only' and far from the real world. I love what my panel partner, from Minerva project, was adding here about learning sciences. Education needs deliberate spaces with formative feedback, to help the learner unfold the whole richness and open up new perceptions. It needs cross-contextual integration with the feet not only touching the ground of the territory. Why not jumping deeply into the muddle, getting hands dirty and reflecting with peers afterwards? If there was one window towards this, it might be how we educate and empower our teachers. How do we offer them access to contemporary pedagogy, allow them to practice vulnerability, and evolve on their own journey together with their students?

The language of business school rankings: evolving ecologies of communication

Another question came up, this time about the chance & importance of a 'Positive Impact Rating' in comparison to a 'Financial Times' or 'Corporate Knights' Ranking. Would students be willing & ready to look into these other indicators & summaries when making their choices for their future education? Is the difference between the methodologies clear & transparent, is it well-communicated and valuable for the audience, and therefore valuable for the school? I am actively letting go of looking at students as commodities, which is incredibly hard in the context of business school rankings. In 2022. Still. My thoughts around this question: 

As humans, or even living beings, we easily get used to a certain language, eg. to the one we get thought as we grow into a certain environment (a hello means hello in English, but not in Chinese; a wave with the hand might very likely be interpreted as hello all over the world). And: as we are growing up, we are incredibly able to learn further languages which make our understanding of the world richer, show us new perspectives and give us access to new information & relationships (Spanish, Hindi, Sign language?). Even if we do not understand everything of these languages in the process of learning, we get a sense of their texture & context. We have the capacity to respond if we allow ourselves to be sensitive to it.

Now, how does that link to business school rankings? Each of them could be seen as a language. They might belong to one family of languages, but their nuances are very different. They live in and contribute to an ecology of ideas around them.  
At the end of their studies, students get put into the position of making a big choice that is claimed to be fundamental for their lives. They seek guidance, orientation in a world that is still new and strange. What is important? Where do they want to belong? How do they have to show up? When I graduated from high school I didn't know what I was looking for. I was open, had certain directions in mind but that was it. I researched & listened to what I was told, trying to find a place that sounded like the great future I was envisioning. The rankings then come as much-invited information, offering guidance.

Looking at the ways most of nowaday's rankings & ratings are framed, we often are told that they provide holistic information, ultimate truths. That the scale in the ranking is important, probably more than what is actually looked at in the ranking. They teach students this language, which is bringing together information and clues for moving into this world, beyond the aspect of supporting their choice. Taking the comparison to languages one step further, this indicates that schools should increase their awareness of this & the options they have, and then make a choice. They can make a statement in the ways they communicate, in the ways they select the rankings they associate with & why. Slowly but steadily shifting the ecology of communication, of what is ok to be said, of what the purpose of participating actually is or could become. Why not start with widening the context by talking multiple languages at a time (eg. the FT & the PIR language) and thereby supporting and allowing a real choice that is fed by a diversity of perspectives. Our ways and shifts in communicating are shifting the field. Students are ready for this, students ask for more information. Students are willing to contribute information, even more. Let's set a tone and offer multiple descriptions to them while hearing their voices in the process so that they can actually influence their future pathways.