Feedback and Grading
The authors bounced back-and-forth about whether to include this section in the book. In the end, our desire to give students as much advantage as possible for demonstrating good writing and presentation skills by providing a peak behind the curtain won out. That is, we want to show you why your instructor may be so adamant about you writing better. At our educational institution, as with most universities, policies mandate instructors tell students how they’ll be graded. However, the way that is communicated is often not specified and may remain a mystery in some courses.
Here we are devoting an entire chapter of the book to helping students understand their work from an instructor’s perspective. We hope that, by knowing what they are looking for, you will craft your writing or presentation product to satisfy their expectations.
Employers value university credentials (degrees) because they are a relatively safe guarantee of an individual’s ability to think at a pre-identified level about a specific topic. Universities, colleges, and schools use external accreditation institutions (like the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International, AACSB, which certifies the authors’ college) to, among other things, certify to potential employers that its graduates meet a specific standardized curriculum appropriate for the business environment.
In turn, the faculty of the college determine how this curriculum of study will be allocated among the variety of course permutations to create the course catalog. This combination of external certification with faculty allocation is what makes one college’s business education similar to, but unique from, any other college.
The allocation of curriculum requirements is divvied up among courses within the framework of the certification authority into learning outcomes. The accreditation organization dictates a certain amount of overlap, redundancy, and sequencing such that a high school graduate can ascend to a college graduate within a relatively predictable timeframe and a standardized body of knowledge. Therefore, while there is some flexibility in how an instructor will teach a subject, what topics are covered in that course is usually beyond the instructor’s ability to alter.
Typically, the course syllabus is a result of the instructor’s interpretation of his faculty assigned learning outcomes. The unique education, experiences, and abilities of the instructor reflect in what they chooses as a textbook, what they cover in the coursework, and how they structure your assignments. One course may be heavy in reading, another in problem solving, and so on. But ultimately, all students should in theory have comparable knowledge, skills, and abilities upon graduation from a business college.