The Glasgow University business course with a difference

Today's class is all about data, and it begins with an introduction to a project by two information designers, Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec.

Called ‘Dear Data’, it saw each of them collect, measure and depict real information from their lives, before sending it across the Atlantic in the form of postcards. The end result was an exploration of fascinating and personal data that, depicted in all sorts of innovative, engaging and playful ways, provided powerful insights into human life.

But what does any of this have to do with leadership, which is what these fourth year Business and Management students at the University of Glasgow are supposed to be learning about?

Leaders, we are told, need the right data – but they also need to know what to do with it.

Used properly, data can enable story-telling, support the exploration of alternative perspectives, and encourage deep, critical thinking about the past, present and future. It can also uncover the biases that otherwise become embedded in all sorts of different systems and structures, allowing a good leader to find solutions to problems that would otherwise have remained hidden.

It’s a persuasive argument, but it’s also the sort of thing I’d probably expect to hear in a sociology class. This clearly isn’t a typical Business course, but then Matt Offord isn’t what you might think of as a typical Business lecturer.

It’s not just the long hair, or the years spent as a Royal Navy submariner and mine clearance diver – although both no doubt play a part. On top of that, there’s a powerful, and I think very youthful, sense of enthusiasm that, even when we met before the class started, I thought would be apparent in his teaching style. I was certainly right about that.

The class I’ve come to see is an elective, final-year module, and a central feature is Offord’s incorporation of ‘eco-pedagogy’, a teaching and learning philosophy that seeks to recognise and utilise the connections between people, the societies in which they live, and the environments within which they exist.

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So instead of a data class focused on definitions, spreadsheets and formulas, this one involves sending the students out into the real world – or, in this case, Byers Road. Their task is to identify, collect, interpret and represent – in the form of their own data postcards – some form of information that could be useful to someone in a leadership position.

And that’s about it as far as instructions go.

For the most part the students still seem a bit unsure of exactly what is expected of them, but to some extent that is the whole point of an exercise like this one. As Offord himself says to one student: “This is, in a sense, meant to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Challenging learners in this way is an important part of teaching, but it is also one of the most difficult to get right – success depends on creating a culture of trust in which students understand that the journey is an important part of the experience, and that getting things ‘right’ is not in fact the main concern.

Forty minutes later, our data-hunters return.

One has been to a nearby shop where they tried to analyse the variety of products available and the range of materials used to produce them; another stopped by the local Subway station, where data about train movements is constantly shared with commuters; someone else decided to observe customer patterns in a cake shop.

We hear about a restaurant that uses booking information to gather and share allergen data in an effort to keep customers safe, and a coffee shop where students were able to compare subscription-based engagement with one-time sales.

In one especially fascinating example, a student talks us through the system behind parking tickets, and the discussion about the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems sparks further consideration of ethical profit-making and the way in which a “web of data” might start to emerge once we analyse the patters and processes all around us.

As each student talks through their chosen example, and explains the way in which they have chosen to visualise this data on a postcard, Offord listens carefully. He then comments on their work, highlights achievements they might not quite have recognised, explores the implications of the findings, and links it all the wider considerations of the course.

It’s definitely a business class, but it’s one that feels very much aligned with many of the English and social science classes I have taught over the years.

What becomes clearer and clearer as the process continued is that this approach, and the incorporation of that eco-pedagogical principle, does seem to have encouraged a level of engagement and thoughtfulness that would have been far harder to generate via a traditional lecture or workshop model.

There really is something to be said for learning by doing, even in the seemingly cold and calculating context of data generation and analysis, and if that process is challenging to the point of being a bit uncomfortable then all the better.

As for the students, they feel the benefits as well.

“I have ADHD”, Saskia tells me, “and I find it difficult to focus in lectures that go on too long. Having something interactive like this is really good for me.”

Another, Angelita, echoes that sentiment, praising the “creative element” of the course and the “practical nature” of the classes themselves.

“It’s so different from any elective I’ve ever done,” she adds.

Perhaps that’s something that needs to change.