Friday, May 04, 2007

Making a "tough" quiz for a "tough" OB course

For those who don't know this "OB" stands for "Organisational Behaviour"...

In MOC (my creativity course), I try to communicate to the students that our thinking and actions are influenced/constrained by how we perceive a situation (and so, if we change our way of perceiving a situation, new solutions would emerge)

The disadvantage of such a simplistic approach is that it is not sufficiently complex, lacks academic rigor, and since students learn it easily, there is no way one can make a tough quiz on this point, which they can't solve.

Today, luckily, I stumbled upon something called "Theory of Situated Cognition", which defines the above mentioned common sense in the following mysterious, complex and academically respectable format:

"A theory of situated cognition suggests that activity and perception are importantly and epistemologically prior - at a nonconceptual level - to conceptualization and that it is on them that more attention needs to be focused. An epistemology that begins with activity and perception, which are first and foremost embedded in the world, may simply bypass the classical problem of reference - of mediating conceptual representations."

I am sure, an ordinary sane person will find it almost impossible to make sense out of such inane drivel - and thus, this is a proof that OB is actually a tough subject, if one takes sufficient pains to prove so.

...and now, I also know how to make tough quizzes for the students!!! :0))

4 comments:

Nita said...

Sir,
Now I know where the origins of the "tough" OB quizzes we were faced with, lay :-) Am doing fine in Basel- work's good and am traveling around during the weekends, learning the culture- both work and otherwise. You take care sir- see you when we get back on Campus and over blogs of course
-Nita

Shruti said...

Hi, saw ur blog on Blog street..
Nice info abt cognitive theory..I dis study OB in my collage time..but not able to re-collect singl etheory in it..
Take care..

Prasad Kurian said...

Sir,

A subject like OB which could be too simple and too complex at the same time might not be very suitable for 'tough quiz making'. At least it is what you hope as a student !!!

Regards

Prasad

Musically Unmusical said...

Sir,
I have n't attend any classes, which you have been teaching since long, but hand outs gave me amazing sense of understanding about being tough to deal even the simple cultural aspect of human behaviour. I love your line, "madness is a kind of creativity".