I think that the themes do have some connection. Since this is an economics course on organizations, all the posts are about how organizations behave and function. For example the prompt about my experience with organizations basically asked me to think about how they function from within. While the prompt about a time I had the chance of being opportunistic made me ponder how organizations behave. The Illinibucks prompt was a way to get the students to think about different things that organizations can offer their customers to create a better environment for them, at a cost though.
I think everything the professor assigns us is assigned for a reason. In this case it is to get us to think about how organizations are. Consequently that spills over to the classroom where we discuss those ideas in greater depth. I personally think that everything we talk about during class is very relevant to what we write about in our blog posts. This is especially true when I am assigned something that I don't understand why it was assigned, although I know its for some reason. Then when we discuss it during class I see why it was assigned and make those connections. For example when I was assigned the opportunistic prompt I was wondering why the professor wanted us to talk about a time we could have taken an opportunity but didn't. Then when we discussed it it became more clear that it was because that is how organizations behave; they try to take any opportunity that will increase their profits even if it screws other people over.
My writing process has not changed significantly, but I do try to think about how the prompt connects to the class and organizations before writing. That way I am able to make a more accurate and focused response that is tailored to the prompt's underlying meaning instead of just simply answering the question.
Since I am not a professor or a TA I don't think I have enough experience assigning prompts, but if I had to choose one thing that I would like to see it would be a prompt that targets a specific part of an organization such as human resources or something like that. I honestly have very little ideas on what I would like to see since I don't know how the course will continue to be. This class is very different than other economics classes because of the format so I don't have much experience with these types of courses.
I'm not sure whether you are drawing the right lesson from our discussions. In particular you wrote -
ReplyDelete"Then when we discussed it it became more clear that it was because that is how organizations behave; they try to take any opportunity that will increase their profits even if it screws other people over."
The entire discussion of transaction costs, which we spent some time in considering, is to arrange things so some people don't screw over other people. The possibility is there. The possibility must be deterred. Otherwise, things can fall apart. The reason for writing about when you didn't act opportunistically, if there was something in the environment that helped to cause that it is creating that something which is the core of the transaction cost.
I appreciate that your experience with organizations is limited. Nevertheless, the take away from the course that you will have at the end of the semester is yours. So you should have some interest in what that is and how it might be useful to you. Writing about the HR function in an organization is a potential topic. As you will see, we will be concerned very much with labor market issues in the next part of the class.
I very much agree that all these posts are assigned for a reason, and they are assigned at that specific time based on the topics we are covering in class. By discussing the material on tuesday and thursday, the blog posts are a way to really reflect on if we've grasped the material.
ReplyDeleteI understand if your process hasn't changed at all in terms of the way you go about doing your blog posts. Do you see any improvements?
Hopefully, what we're covering in class and in these blog posts will help you with your future involvement with organizations.
The idea you brought up, regarding changing some of the prompts to have specific, real-life, examples relating to a course theme was interesting and worth looking into. I feel that if we had specific examples, from the real world, to look up on our own time, we could better understand some of the content. I think this would cause the overall responses to the prompts to be better because of the previous research we would do as students, through the example.
ReplyDelete