This little piggie went to market…

This little piggie went to market... Pig Out!... Pig-Pie in the sky... When pigs fly...

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Marketing departments take their share of hits it the corporate world. Don’t believe me? Oh Yeah? Well I read the Dilbert comics, and Scott Adams tells the truth! If he says it, then it must be so!

Seriously, marketing is what it is, whether in business or education. Wait…strike that. They’re the same aren’t they? Education is a business. Institutions of higher learning are out to make a buck, too. C’mon, it’s OK. Admit it. Educational endeavors aside, they are, in fact, businesses. Their marketing departments just go by a different name: student recruiting. There. Let’s move on now.

…to sell his online product to school districts and to institutions of higher learning as a side-item, à la carte, if you will. When it comes to corporate-driven professional development, educationally-sponsored offerings are quite dissimilar. They are also marketed differently. Markedly different.

Enter the marketing department of the corporate world. Bulk sales matter. Sell the product from the West coast to the East Coast and points between. Rack up the numbers. Turn a profit. Again, make money for the parent corporation. Fair enough, right? So…how is the product packaged?

Here’s what I’m (rather intimately) familiar with: Unbox the product. Inside you’ll find a subscription costing $300/user/year. This entitles each patron to access to as many courses as teach can take within that one year subscription. Not a bad deal at all! A short course lasts 3 weeks. A full length course – six weeks….with as many as 50 students per section.

All courses are facilitated by certified educators with (minimum) graduate or post-graduate/doctoral degree. Their credentials are top-notch. Many are published, and nationally renowned leaders in their field. They are innovators, cutting-edge, early-adopters, and share a sense of community within the ranks of faculty members on staff at the corporation for whom they work. None have received a pay raise in the past 10 years that I’m aware of, so they’re not in it for the money. All have full time jobs and other venues to pursue.

The curriculum is rigorous and scaffolded with a variety of resources. The assessment rubrics are provided in advance. The mode of communication is asynchronous. Projects are expected for all but a very few, rudimentary courses. For these, participation serves as the project. Participation standards require substantive reflection to prompts, and presence in discussion forums on multiple days throughout each week.

Participants may register in a variety of ways: they may elect to audit, participate as a general level leaner, to receive continuing education units, or to receive graduate credits. For the latter, an additional fee and possibly extra requirements from the issuing institution may be required. Facilitators (“Guides”) wouldn’t know what, if any extra requirements are expected because they don’t assess them. That’s left to the institution awarding the hours if, indeed, additional requirements (other than filling out a check) are expected.

Pig out! (or “Belly up to the buffet and bring some Brioschi!”)

“Unlimited-access-to-as-many-classes-as-you-can-take-in-a-one-year-period“: Wouldn’t you agree that the adult segment of the population should possess a more developed repertoire of self-regulating behaviors; an “academic hypothalmus” containing a functional satiety center that prevents learners from overindulgence or excess?

Recall your Freshman year in college. One your academic adviser’s responsibilities was not only to map the courses to take to meet your program’s requirements, but to protect you from yourself. How?

As rather naive freshmen, many assume they can take on more classes than they can actually handle. In most institutions, the absolute maximum that an adviser will (reluctantly) approve is 21 hours, or seven courses per semester; each course lasting seventeen weeks. The corporate entity I’m familiar with allows unlimited access to as many 3 and 6 week courses as one can handle or an entire year! What motive$ do you $uppose drive that kind of busine$$ model?

More importantly: What kind of “profe$$ional” would knowingly perform an act of gluttony by con$uming $o many cour$e$ that none could be completed with any $emblance of proficiency, unle$$ all they intended to do wa$ complete the minimal expectation$ to in order to get the $alary increase that their di$trict offered for cramming all year long? What kind of district P.D. entity would even dream up $uch an idea, anyway?

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right? Following that same line of (flawed) reasoning, then these same “professionals” should be satisfied in accepting the minimal efforts of their students in order to get the credits necessary to “skate by” in their courses. Right? Right? Whip out he rubber stamps with the upper case “A”. Buy several! They’ll wear out quickly on all of those report cards. Oh? You use computers to generate report cards? Get extra “A” keys.

I’m certain those same “Professionals” would feel comfortable conveying their personal philosophy of learning and corresponding student expectations to the public, administration, peers, students, parents, and board members. After all, that’s their personal philosophy as it relates to learning right? Yeah, right. Better yet, the P.D. councils at the district level (if they exist) should gather up their P.D. strategic plans and data from the P.D. sessions (if they exist) and use them to persuade onsite accreditation agencies that their “all you can eat” strategy is producing results in the form of student achievement and highly qualified practitioners.

I can hear it now, “Please, Mr. and Mrs. Onsite reviewer, come visit our classrooms! Witness the engaged learners collaborating in student-centered instructional activities requiring higher-level cognitive skills, using high-yield instructional strategies that were developed by our teachers this past summer when they took as many as ten courses in a six week period! Aren’t we good little district leaders? Here…have a danish and some Brioschi while we try and locate our professional development plan. (Now where is that thing?)“

Refocus: Marketing department – Does the institution you represent have a policy addressing course load limitations? That’s a yes/no question. Are you informing your prospects of this policy? That’s a yes/no question.

Pig-pie in the Sky

The attitudes described above toward professional development are doomed. Think “Pie-in-the-sky” here. It’s only a matter of time before the transparency of the teacher, the corporation’s business model, the district’s P.D. model, and their stance regarding teacher accountability become manifest. Are dreams of accomplishment or perhaps delusions of grandeur built upon such folly? For those who think this self-deception goes unnoticed, all I can says is…

When pigs fly!

Institutions guided by ethics seek to strive for a balance between student achievement, accommodations for traditional and non-traditional learners, expanded course offerings, and provisions to recruit additional clients. They should, if they don’t already, advise students as to the number of classes one can take at any given time. This is important for the sake of institutional and academic integrity, rigor, and the integrity of the programs. Policy addressing course load limitations should be in place protecting the interests of stakeholders at all levels.

The focus here is marketing and professional development as it relates to practitioners, not to 18 or 19 year old freshman college students. Shouldn’t ethical institutions, both corporate and educational, provide guidance to students so as to protect the interests of all? Shouldn’t that guidance extend to the permissible course load? Alas, if institutions fail to do this, that responsibility falls upon the clients.

This bears repeating: Does the institution have a policy addressing course load limitations? Did the marketing team make the client aware of that policy when pitching the product? If no such policy exists, it’s time to “wag the finger” at someone!

You should know better!

Thankfully, there remain those who still have their heads on straight; who seek to learn so as to better themselves for the sake of their students and who possess a genuine lifelong love of learning. Those who selectively and conscientiously choose the number of courses to take and complete them with a spirit of excellence are guided by a finely tuned inner moral compass. More importantly, they know when to say “enough”; to leave the professional development buffet so as to avoid gorging themselves on academia to the point of bulimia. They have a matured mental mechanism that enables them to strive to do their best in the (reasonable, responsible number of) courses they sign for.

Sadly, there are far too many who will never learn to curb their overestimated capabilities and continue to perform acts of gluttony at the professional development buffet; an ugly, frantic feeding frenzy, originating from a self-centered perspective. They remain handcuffed by their arrested developmental attitudes.

To those prone to taking on more than is wise, they should crack open the Bible to Ecclesiastes chapter 9, verse 10. Don’t like what it says? They need to take it up with the Author. He’ll counsel them if they’ll listen. Will such individuals ever find the keys to freedom from this self-serving mentality?

I would never say “never”, but unless they undergo a Divine inner transformation, how about…

When Pigs Fly!

Next up: Learner Accountability