Brand Course for International Students
Management is both a science and an art. The attribute of management decides its generality, comprehensiveness and practicalness, and it requires the combination of theory and practice, dealing with the relationship between internationalization and localization, classicality and modernity of the teaching contents. It not only stresses the learning of management theory, but also the understanding of the management skills, the development of management wisdom, the enlargement of the international vision, and training of the ability of international communication.
1. Key Points of the Course
1) The basic concepts, theories and methods or techniques of management, manager, planning, organizing, leading and controlling.
2) The training of comprehensive managerial skills, the understanding and application of the core knowledge in management, and the development of the ability of creatively applying the knowledge to solve managerial problems.
2. Difficult Points of the Course
1) When directing the students to systematically learn the basic knowledge of management, it is very important for teachers to lead them to grasp the general management techniques and practical skills of recognizing, comprehensively analyzing and solving problems, to foster the international and professional managers with knowledge, ability and quality.
2) It is important for the students to master the methods of analyzing cases, to gain the basic thinking skills of management, and to recognize managerial problems, abstract a theoretical problem from a practical problem, find the corresponding theories, and draw conclusions.
3. Solutions
1) Integrated design for the course
According to the unique feature of management and the need of teaching in English, the team teachers design the course integrated with classical and modern, theories and practice, including teaching outline, teaching contents, textbook, exercises, cases, team-based exercise and related teaching resources. The teaching contents focus on the combination of basis and frontier, theories and cases, and explore the innovation about the teaching and learning ways between teachers and students. Teaching is organized on the basis of the teaching mode driven by "theory & cases", and the ratio between hours of theoretical teaching and practical teaching is 2 to 1, namely 32 hours for theoretical teaching and 16 hours for practical teaching. Theoretical teaching constructs the knowledge tree of management according to the core knowledge. At the same time, the latest research results in the management field at home and abroad are introduced, and the learning enthusiasm of students is stimulated. To enrich the students' knowledge, the teachers intentionally provide them large amount of expanded and related learning resources, including classics of management, academic papers, frontier in management theory, Chinese and foreign enterprise cases, management journals at home and abroad, the enterprise web site resources, etc. The practical teaching can develop students' ability of creatively applying knowledge to solve management problems through such ways of case study, team-based exercises, scenario simulation, management games, role-play management debate, in which the students are put in a real management position. Through inviting domestic and foreign well-known experts and entrepreneurs to give speeches, organizing students to participate in enterprise investigation and consulting practice, etc, students' ability of analyzing and solving management problems is improved, and their comprehensive management skills, spirit of cooperation, and the international communication skills are fostered.
2) Concentrating on the art of "teaching" and "learning"
Based on the attribute of management, teaching mode driven by "theory & case" is explored, which summarizes the teaching art of teachers like "free start", "sole control", "rhetorical question" and "attitude observation", and the learning art of students like "being personally on the scene", "active participation" and "mutual complementarities", to enrich the teaching ways of teachers, foster the comprehensive managerial skills and the spirit of team cooperation, and guide the teaching and learning from the prospective of methodology.
3) Elaborately designing and adopting diversified practice teaching method
In order to inspire student's independent learning, researching study and collaborative learning as well as develop their comprehensive management skills, this curriculum designs well with various flexible practice teaching methods such as case study, scenario simulation, management games, role-play, management (topics) debates, etc. Besides these methods, the teaching process is supplemented by the new edition book Cases Analysis of Management and managerial melodrama which both teachers and students engage in the writing, performing and shooting in order to help the students accumulate practice experience and provide a practicing stage for developing students’ comprehensive managerial skills.
Scenario—— A television drama, written and performed by instructors and students, is shot on the basis of the cases in management practice. By watching managerial melodrama, the students can experience particular management scenarios, and organize them to discuss and analyze management issues. Taking Martin’s Leadership Styles and Miger Company for examples, they are composed and shot by both teachers and students.
Case Study —— With cases in management practices, instructors give a comprehensive description of background and process of one particular operation or management. By letting the students experience particular management scenarios, and organize them to discuss and analyze management issues. The selected cases are typical and practical examples and have the characteristics of realistic, novel and high theoretical value. Through analysis of typical cases, instructors guide the students to acquire relevant theoretical knowledge and familiar with management “role” as soon as possible. Sweet Music, Starbucks, and Is This Any Way to Motivate Employees are examples of case study.
During the teaching process of a specific case, instructors may use a variety of teaching methods, such as special case studies, group discussion after class and viewpoints storms in class as well as information collection and analysis of cases in real life and so on.
Team-based Exercises —— Each team consists of 3 or 4 students, one of whom is a responsible person or main spokesman. Then the team does the exercise according to specific scenarios and requirements. Each team can search information on the internet or visit the company to find out the managerial mode and problems in the management of the company. The students can learn relevant management knowledge by active guidance. Though full participation, team-based exercises is aimed at promoting students’ abilities of discovering, analyzing and solving management issues to enhance their understanding of managerial theories and concepts, especially to develop their unity and cooperation spirits. Specific team-based exercises required for students are Create An Organization, Describe Master Managers, Construct A PERT Network, etc.
Scenario Simulation—— By condensing real problems to a virtual space, students can experience particular scenarios so that students can practice problem-solving abilities in a more relax and efficient way.
Management Games —— When teaching the decision-making, instructors can use decision-making game Contract Enforcement Decision to let students experience the decision-making process and figure out the decision-making skills. Through playing games, students can clearly understand the basic concepts of scientific decision theory and master scientific decision-making methods.
Role-Play——During this part, a particular scene is set, and roles are assigned and played. Then it will be made into a managerial melodrama or mini movie. Relevant knowledge points are presented, summed up and concluded in role-play such as An Effective Leader to develop students’ abilities of solving a certain type of problems.
Management (topics) Debate ——In this part, instructors set a particular knowledge point or management phenomenon to a topic, and organize debates both in compulsory and free forms between classes and groups within classes to present tacit understanding and cooperation among group members. Of course, the prerequisite is that group members must spend time on communication before the contest. At least one team should be selected from each class to engage in the contest for which a first prize, two second prize and three third prize are set up. If team members receive the above awards, each member can have scores of their final examination added by 10 points, 6 points and 3 points respectively. For example one of the management (topic) debates is Is Management a Science Or Art?
