{"id":1979,"date":"2019-05-29T07:07:17","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T11:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/?p=1979"},"modified":"2019-05-28T15:08:12","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T19:08:12","slug":"an-invisible-problem-and-unrealized-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/2019\/05\/29\/an-invisible-problem-and-unrealized-opportunity\/","title":{"rendered":"An Invisible Problem and Unrealized Opportunity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post was written by Andre Paul ’19<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cPains\u201d of a Sustainable Innovation MBA Student<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capacities of time and energy fill up rather quickly for Sustainable Innovation MBA (SI-MBA) students, especially during finals week (and there are roughly eight finals weeks, or two per module, by my count). During the busiest weeks of SI-MBA, workload quickly outpaces recovery, mental health declines, and so does learning, in my estimation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by\u00a0Aaron Burden<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Such are the challenges of an\naccelerated program. If you want to earn a Master\u2019s degree in a year, then you\nought to make the requisite sacrifices. You have to \u201cpay your dues\u201d so to\nspeak. Most nights call for hours of reading, most of which a student cannot\ncomplete because he or she simply lacks the reserves of either time, energy, or\nattention span (or all three).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Might we be able to reduce a\nSI-MBA student\u2019s sacrifices while improving his or her learning outcomes? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Possible Solution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hypothetically, let\u2019s replace\nthree hours of reading per week (across all classes) by three hours of\nlistening to some form of audio media (primarily podcasts) that covers the same\n(or similar) material. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SI-MBA students undergo 33\nweeks of full-time course work. This simple intervention could therefore save roughly\none hundred hours over the course of the program, doing the quick math. SI-MBA\nstudents could then apply those hundred hours toward networking, proactive planning,\nand restorative activities (sleep, perhaps!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few professors of the 2019\ncohort assigned podcasts for homework, though only as supplemental materials. Multiple\nprofessors assigned occasional TED Talks as mandatory material, but while videos\nmay require less mental effort for students to digest, I argue that they\ninvolve most of the same trade-offs as reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To explore this possible\n\u201csolution\u201d, I\u2019ll walk through three of the main advantages of audio media over\nreading and video:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Podcasts are More Effective Media than Books or\nE-Readings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Podcasts Allow You to Multi-Task<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    People have busy lives, which\nis why very few will read this blog post and even fewer will actually read\nevery word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Hundreds of pages of reading\n(assigned on most nights in the SI-MBA program) become quickly exhausting. This\nis probably why I did not hear a single student claim that he or she read every\nassigned reading \u2013 not even for a single class. Students therefore head into\nclass discussions having absorbed varying breadths and depths of the\npre-assigned material, which leads to disparities in discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Podcasts, by allowing students\nto multi-task (thereby preserving time and energy), could ameliorate such\nchallenges. To illustrate without belaboring this obvious point, here is just a\nshort list of activities that one might perform while listening to a podcast:<\/p>\n\n\n\n