OxBowBusiness: May 2007

TB

Forgot to say what the TB stood for in my last posting: tera byte ... I saw my first ever TeraByte hard drive on sale last night and fell down in admiration. One day ... !

DW

TB and Tiger Woods

I bought a 250Gb external drive last night for the equivalent of just £55. A bargain since I bought a 120Gb external drive for Young Mr W lst December for anlmost twice that in another part of the world!

Went and entered the quiz last night with Mick and Tim on the team: we came fourth! Right behind us was s team of boisterous South Africans and Zimbabweans: the answer they gave to the question, which golfer is known as the great white shark, one of themsaid Tiger Woods. I thought that was just hilarious!!!

DW

Ethical issue worth thinking about

The HBR case study in the May 2007 edition of the Harvard Business Review is an interesting one. Let me simplify it because I think it's a case that AS and A2 level students can usefully discuss.

The scenario is that someone works for an insurance company and they're looking to do a deal with a major retailer. The deal is for the retailer to sell some of their loyalty card-based data to the insurance company: it would comprise 10 years' worth of data on the shopping habits of the its customs. The insurance company wants the data to carry out some analysis that would attempt to correlate the shopping data with the health data of the people in the area in which the shop is found. For example they might want to correlate the consumption of high-fat foods with coronary heart disease; cigarettes with lung cancer; fresh produce, well, with no problems at all.

On the face of it this is an excellent idea I think. After all if the insurance company does all the research and proves links or suggests causality then shouldn't society be are prepared to pay for that? That's the stance of the insurance company anyway. Remembering that it's only a case study, the retailer seems keen to make the deal as well.

Some of the challenges with this deal include, of course, confidentiality; the fact that not everyone who shops with that retailer will be covered by the deal because not everyone will use a loyalty card. There is also the issue that the insurance company may be gaining an unfair advantage over its competitors by carving out this deal for itself.

What do you think?

If you were the retailer would you do the deal? If you were the chairman of the insurance company would you be happy with this deal? If you are a loyalty card holder with the retailer what do you think? If you shop with the retailer don't use it a loyalty card, what do you think? As a number of society do you think this deal should go ahead so that society can be better informed?

The case study are several pages long so you can see I summarised it enormously. In the full version there are four separate solutions given by practising managers who have been asked by the Harvard business review to provide their attempted solution. In my opinion two of these business people give good and credible solutions or I should say suggestions. The other two are actually spending more time selling their businesses and they are in answer the question... in my opinion.

Duncan Williamson

Tescopoly

I have just finished reading a book with the title of Tescopoly: how one shop came out on top and why it matters.

This book is a damning indictment of Tesco in particular and the large supermarket chains in general. I didn't like the style of the book that much but I have taken the message to heart and have decided not to use Tesco again, at least until I hear that the matters spelled out in the book have been addressed by the company.

There are some shocking things in the book and I recommend that all business, accounting and economics students and teachers read it: it only costs £7.99

You can read my review by starting here: http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/bookrev.htm

Duncan Williamson

Hyphens

A simulcast!

It's getting to me: all of these hyphens, I mean. I read a lot of books and articles and cases and pamphlets and if I get my hands on an electronic copy of anything, I can spend ages getting rid of these wretched things. I find absolutely no use for hyphens except in the most rare of cases.

The latest, although quite old now, craze is the attempt to kill off the colon. That's : and not the large bowel of course.

I came across this exercise just the other day that was kindly provided by a colleague in good faith:

Insert hyphens in the following sentences, where necessary.

1     The letter was sent by second class post.
2     He was a very well mannered young man.
3     Ninety two people attended the concert.
4     The students co operated with the teacher.
5     The Vice Principal is Ms Baker.
6     The visitors are expected at tea time.
7     The recreation ground is used by the local football team.
8     John recreated the picture he saw at the art gallery.
9     The master bedroom has an en suite bathroom.
10      Forty eight pounds is a lot to pay for a table cloth.

My answer is that NONE OF THEM requires any hyphens whatseover. End of story. Give me an A*.

I may refer to this topic again.

As a matter of interest I had a discussion with an American colleague last night and as I thought of it as we were talking I asked him why an American says to a bar maid or barista, for example, "Can I get a drink ..." His reply was revealing as he said, "I don't. I say 'May I have'". I asked him why do we hear can I get then and he said it's laziness. Well, that was good to hear. I have long said that these bad language habits (Can I get, lack of use of adverbs, poor prepositional sense ...) are confined to uneducated people and this chap is a PhD holder who clearly knows a lot better!!! I then said the other annoyance is when someone says they will "Bring that to your house ..." Erm, you mean you are already at my house? They mean TAKE that to your house of course. Another bete noir explored a little.

DW

Incentive

Just got into a taxi at the Deira City Centre to come back to my hotel and the driver handed over a card to a couple of chaps as we were setting off and in return he received a can of Pepsi Cola and a sandwich.

He told me that taxi drivers don't like going to the City Centre because they get bogged down in havy traffic, night and day. The drink and the butty are incentives, then ... Well done someone but how many sandwiches can a taxi driver eat?

I got the can of Cola, by the way and can report that it was absolutely heaving with gas. Whatever happened to good old fashioned pop?

Duncan Williamson

Leeds United

The relegation of Leeds United from the Championship to division 1 has come about as a result of the application of Company Law.

What they have really done at Leeds is to put the company temporarily into the hands of its creditors. They NEED the company's creditors to agree to write off its debts. The clube is to retain its assets as far as I know. However, football related debts including £11m owed to staff, players, former managers and other clubs, will transfer to the new owners.

You may be shocked to learn that a company can do this, effectively wiping out £25 million of debts simply by willing it to happen. I was recently involved in a similar scheme for a limited company although the amounts of money were much less. That company wrote off over 95% of its debts by going into liquiditaion.

Back to Leeds, though, by going into administration before the final game of the season, Leeds will have the 10 points deducted that the League says it must deduct while they are still in the Championship. Alternatively, if they had gone into liquidation next season they could have had the points deducted then and that could have seriously damaged their prospects of promotion back to the Championship.

Duncan Williamson

Education not Teaching

The series that Chris has put together on how to teach a subject that is unfamiliar to you has now been combined into one PDF file and included in the bundle of lesson plans that OxBowBusiness has for sale at just £5.

There are loads of excellent plans and they have received high levels of praise from all over the country: you will be well rewarded by buying them.

Not only do the files contain lesson plans but loads of supporting materials, ideas and exercises.

All for just £5 and you can buy them here: http://www.oxbow.org.uk/php/shop.php.

Duncan Williamson

New Resources

I have written some new resources for accounting: mind maps and notes on the accounting equation and double entry bookkeeping: go to the site and then the Accounting section. These resources are free of charge for everyone.

Chris has written a final test/mock style exam of sorts for the AQA Unitsnd 3 Case Study on Smiles Magazines ... free for all of our investors in our market leading resources.

Duncan Williamson

Update - 1

I saw Nina today for Unit 1 AS Politics.

We've now finished the Unit.

She showed me the notes she got from the Philip Alan conference.

Page after page of poorly photocopied, dated notes about voting behaviour and the like.

Boring; boring; boring.

"Are these useful to you?" I asked.

"No, I'll never look at them" she said.

In teaching as well as content we must also consider presentation...

(That said some of the week-end notes were in Q/A format and they were useful, she said.)

Chris Sivewright

More...

Remember, all the time I have been creating an environment in which learning takes place without any great subject knowledge.

Nina has continued with her Politics lessons at her school but she says she much prefers mine as she 'learns a lot more and I am asked questions which never happens in class'

In fact she is recommending me to other pupils in her class.

Over the week-end Nina attended a Philip Alan revision course. Two very very experienced teachers. One she said was excellent. The other she thought was very poor.

No doubt someone who knew the subject but couldn't teach well, at least from Nina's point of view.

When I started teaching Economics my preparation was similar (though Tutor and Oxbow etc were a long way ahead on the horizon.)

I'd do all the research etc and then present the pupils with a structure. The more I taught, the more I learned and the more my pupils learned. I remember teaching ACCA (Accounting professional exams) to a pupil. (Mature student.)

He said he thought I was the best teacher he'd ever had.

Although he didn't know it I was studying for the same exams myself we took the same examsand he did better! The reason being that he had 'learned' whereas I had 'prepared'.

The preparation for Politics takes a long time but I am paid £50 a teaching hour and this covers the various resources I have bought. The interesting thing is that I could no use all these notes for other pupils and this would require no extra preparation. Individual tuition is often far faster than for class (in class we have plenty of 'in groups discuss') so my lessons for Nina could easily cover weeks at a school.

Last week, for example, I ran a one day seminar for Psychology students.

I have never studied Psychology but the point of the seminar was to involve students, to get them to learn and rehearse and practice.

They were very satisfied and only once was I caught with a question. (My response was to tell the student to ask her peers as learning from peers is also useful meanwhile I checked my A-Z handbook!)

So, what is the point of these long blogs?

The point is that to those of you who 'worry' over your subject knowledge, worry that you cannot teach Economics as you've never studied it cannot teach Business Studies for the same reason stop worrying.

Concentrate on your teaching skills.
Concentrate on researching the topic, creating a structure to cause learning.

That way you'll be very successful, your pupils will be successful and the preparation this year will stand you in good stead next year.

(I cannot send my Politics notes to people because, as stated, parts of them are copy and paste from Exambuster (tutor) and the tutor site otherwise I would.)

Chris Sivewright

More on skills rather than subject knowledge

Although I know little about Politics as an academic subject I take a slight interest in Blair etc insofar as it impacts on Economics and Business Studies. Thus I am broadly familiar with Labour and Tory policies.

I am also familiar with reading newspapers and using the internet.

As we needed to cover AS in 8 lessons I set about planning what would be done.

Firstly I contacted tutor2u (contrary to what others may believe, I often buy resources from tutor2u). I bought their Exam Buster for AS Politics (Edexcel). I also had a whole load of notes on AS Politics from another student. Plus I bought Edexcel Politics Study Guides from Philip Alan. Plus a Letts Revision guide.

Thus I had the necessary resources.

I then split each of the three modules into two sections i.e. one section per lesson. (Each lesson was 2 hours)

I copied and pasted key elements of the notes from the exam buster into Word. Then using gap-fill I was able to create worksheets. In addition for past questions I used the tutor2u site plus Edexcel site plus the Philip Alan study guides. I'd type out a question, leave a gap for the pupil to fill in during tutorials and then we'd go through the suggested answer/notes.

For party ideology I used wikipedia (no gap fill) but then when the pupil turned the page, she had to list the main points from the articles.

To encourage reading I used tutor2u FPTP sample articles from the magazine plus I have subscribed to Prospect Magazine which has a lot of online articles.

This is all to encourage the pupil to read round the subject.

This procedure was then highly personalised as I'd put little comments throughout the text e.g. 'Now Nina, we've just done Pressure Groups, list the five points covered' and then leave a box for her to fill in.

This way Nina (pupil) now has a whole set of notes and questions to practice on that directly cover the Edexcel syllabus.

This procedure - notes, summaries, looking at exam reports, key points, past paper questions, Study Guide questions, mock exams done to time - will be used for A2 politics too.

Yesterday she and I were talking about A2. 'I don't know how I will remember it all' she said. 'But look at me!' I said, 'I have to cover A2 from scratch in 2-3 weeks!'

Which is correct as I have never read anything about A2 Edexcel Politics - America BUT we (OSL) do have a mind map book about it so I could use some of those.

The key thing is organisation and confidence.

I know she is following the right path because we're limpet-like sticking to the syllabus. She is being tested regularly. Her notes (from several sources) are pre-printed or gap-fill, which saves time. We also spend a lot of time on definitions and short-answer questions (I have the answers, she just has the questions).

Plus, using the Guardian and BBC I update material there a lot e.g. the May Elections now will be included in the next set of notes with a comprehension question on them.

Chris Sivewright

Skills are more important than knowledge

Over the past few years I have often seen posts from people on the TES site where they say they are worried about 'teaching X' as it 'wasn't in my degree' etc etc.

Sometimes I see posts from those with a degree in Economics, worried as to whether they can teach Business Studies.

I have always taken the view that it is the ability to teach rather than subject knowledge that is important for Economics, Business Studies and similar subjects.

A case in point is the ex-pupil of mine who taught for several years in Oxford when he had never even studied the subject or had only recently passed it at A level. (When I started teaching in school I had no degree and had not studied Economics for 15 years.)

He was a good 'teacher' though.

The reason I bring this up is that I have just started teaching Politics.

I have never studied Politics.

I haven't a clue about Politics as a subject at A level.

But I am still teaching it.

This is how it came about.

One of my pupils is attending another college in Oxford for Economics, Politics etc. She was going to change to Oxford School of Learning but her Agent, on commission, talked her parents out of it and so she stays where she is but comes to me for extra tuition.

The pupil and I get on very well. She passed the European paper in Economics after 1 week of tuition. The rest of her class have been studying Europe for 3 months and are still not ready.

For some time now she has been unhappy with her Politics lessons. She finds them boring; the subject very uninteresting.

And yet she has her AS (resit) and A2 in 6 weeks time.

She asked me if I would teach her.

I explained to her that I knew nothing about Politics - especially A2.

I tried to find her a suitable teacher but couldn't. Yes, all very well qualified but hardly inspirational.

Hardly good 'teachers'.

So I made a deal.

I agreed to teach the pupil provided if at any time she felt she was not learning, not progressing then she could stop lessons, no harm done.

In return I wouldn't pretend I knew a lot about Politics but I (I hope) do know a lot about teaching.

So I would prepare lessons, set her mocks etc etc and we'd see how it went.

I'll explain what I am doing in the next blog

Sixty percent?

A whilse ago Chris pointed out some nonsense from a Council in Derbyshire relating their complete misunderstanding of how percentages are calculated.

Along the same lines, I saw this in an advert in a newspaper supplement this morning ... Spot the inconsistency this time!

Duncan Williamson

OxBowBusiness AQA CAse Study Materials for June 2007

Dear All,

I am happy to share the following with you: it's part of a letter I have just written to a colleague who is in the process of hiring Chris to run one of his hugely successful one day seminars on behalf of the Oxford School of Learning (www.osl-ltd.co.uk) and buying our AQA June 2007 Units 2 and 3 study materials:

. .. As far as the case study materials are concerned, let me point out that if you were to buy them from tutor2u, for example, you would have to pay them around about £365 given the number of students you will have present at the conference/using our materials. Let me suggest that you pay us £100 and since we don't charge VAT, that is all you pay.

I didn't point in that letter that we have refined our materials yet again so that each file relates to a specific section of the case AND they are generally just one or two pages in length: manageable teaching and learning resources. NOT those massive and unmanageable mega files that others in the industry are still producing. Huge and complex glossaries aren't any good either: they don't add any value and they are all in your textbooks already so we don't produce them. Don't be put off by their fancy two page summary documents either: they are just a sop and will get you nowhere.

Best wishes

Duncan Williamson

Risk averse?

During a presentation on capital budgeting today one delegate said that a payback period of 1.7 years was too slow: he would prefer a payback period of 1 year. Another delegate explained that this view is normal and in the region we are in, such risk aversion is normal and that is why many people simply stick their money in the bank and leave it at that!

Duncan Williamson

OxBowBusiness

31 May 2007

TB

TB and Tiger Woods

22 May 2007

Ethical issue worth thinking about

20 May 2007

Tescopoly

11 May 2007

Hyphens

10 May 2007

Incentive

07 May 2007

Leeds United

05 May 2007

Education not Teaching

New Resources

04 May 2007

Update - 1

More...

More on skills rather than subject knowledge

Skills are more important than knowledge

Sixty percent?

OxBowBusiness AQA CAse Study Materials for June 2007

02 May 2007

Risk averse?

Contributors

Links

Previous Posts

Archives