e Choose a problem or a question that you worked hard on but didn’t get, and explain your
confusion about it.

e Choose a problem or a question from a homework assignment that you felt particularly proud of
yourself for solving or answering, and explain how you did it.

e Make a point about a controversial issue in decision science, then make a counter point. Which
one do you believe, and why? .

e What was the funniest thing that occurred in class this week?

Common to these exercises is a weekly review of the course, which reinforces the classroom experience.
Even the last question requires the student to review each class and select some event to discuss. Joutnal
assignments may be designed so that credit is automatic upon completion, without formal grading by the
instructor. Appropriate comments and reactions appended to the journal assignments by the instructor can
still provide powerful motivation for students.

A longer writing assignment can help students improve their understanding of quantitative methods and
to practice writing. For example, a case study can be presented, with a few kernels of relevant information
deeply planted within a field of verbiage. The student must identify a problem, develop alternative
solutions, examine those alternatives in light of a set of criteria, crunch some numbers, and reach a
conclusion. If the assignment is extended to include a report to management, the solution must be
understandable and persuasive.

Here are the germs of other writing projects, shorter or longer at the instructor's option, either graded or
given automatic credit.

1. An opinion article of about a thousand words, suitable for publication in the "My Turn" section of
Newsweek on how a quantitative technique might have facilitated a decision discussed in a previous
issue. (In case you get some really fine pieces, work with the student on them and let them be sent
off; accepted pieces receive around $1,000).

2. A critical review of all or part of a course textbook, directed at the instructor, or to future students
(peers) explaining what the rough spots are and how to overcome them.

3. Memoranda to classmates explaining successful methods and "tips" for studying and mastering specific
aspects of the course material. These could be collected and "published" for the benefit of the next
class as a study guide.

4. For an advanced class, a critical review of an entire issue of a recent journal in the field, addressed
primarily to peers and secondarily to the instructor. Each student could be assigned a recent issue of a
different periodical to make a brief oral report or to prepare duplicates of a typed report.

5. An entry in a papers competition sponsored by national and regional associations. Recognition of
one’s work is often a strong motivation, but the cash awards that often accompany the recognition
provide extra incentive.

6. For an advanced class, each student or group of two or three students could be assigned a problem
currently important in the discipline. The problems may simply be things you would like to know
about but do not have time to research.

Although writing assignments take time to invent, they can save teaching time in the classroom and
evaluation time in the office. Effective assignments can be small or large, reviews or extensions, light-
hearted or serious. Not every assignment need be instructor-evaluated to be a useful learning tool.

Education is a journey into the unknown, an endless process of discovery. My format here is directed

toward expedition leaders searching for equipment to make the quantitative sojourn more successful. I
suggest that salient among such tools are pen, paper, and the organizing minds behind them.

Bruce Blaylock
Finance and Business Systems

Abstracted with permission of EKU Teaching, Vol. 3, No. 2, November, 1986.

For further information, contact the author at Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY 40475.

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor
October 30, 1987, Vol. IX, No. 24

INNOVATION ABSTRACTS Is a publication of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, EDB 348, The University of
Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, (512)471-7545. Subscriptions are avallable to nonconsortium members for $35 per year. Funding in
part by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Sid W. Richardson Foundation. Issued weekly when classes are in session during fall and spring
terms and once during the summer.

© The University of Texas at Austin, 1987
Further duplication Is permitted only by MEMBER institutions for their own personnel. ISSN 0199-106X