Comments on: The UOP Learning Model is Broken http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/ Just another WordPress.com weblog Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:01:00 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Chris http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-542 Chris Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:51:33 +0000 http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-542 Apparently DeVrone does not understand that one cannot teach oneself without resources! UoP provides the resources, and insofar as structure goes, including learning teams is ridiculous. The analogy to teams in the workplace is flawed. Coworkers can be fired; student team members cannot. Solid employers screen their employees, as to brick-and-mortar schools; UoP has no interest in keeping out any student that is capable of paying. It is disingenuous to suggest that the UoP learning teams are in any way analogous to any workplace team setting. I am nearly forty, I am a top performer at work, and I have never worked with coworkers that performed as badly as my student team members for longer than a couple of weeks - they were inevitably fired. I also rarely work in teams at work; writing memos, producing executive briefs, and preparing tax forms (I am in the MSA program) is NEVER done as a team. Team assignments should at least resemble a team assignment in the business world if UoP expects this model to be useful. Because the low performers will always be in favor of the learning team due to its favorable contribution to their grade, there will always be student supporters of this flawed model. Shame on UoP for not listening to the incessant complaints of its most gifted students. Apparently DeVrone does not understand that one cannot teach oneself without resources! UoP provides the resources, and insofar as structure goes, including learning teams is ridiculous. The analogy to teams in the workplace is flawed. Coworkers can be fired; student team members cannot. Solid employers screen their employees, as to brick-and-mortar schools; UoP has no interest in keeping out any student that is capable of paying. It is disingenuous to suggest that the UoP learning teams are in any way analogous to any workplace team setting. I am nearly forty, I am a top performer at work, and I have never worked with coworkers that performed as badly as my student team members for longer than a couple of weeks – they were inevitably fired. I also rarely work in teams at work; writing memos, producing executive briefs, and preparing tax forms (I am in the MSA program) is NEVER done as a team. Team assignments should at least resemble a team assignment in the business world if UoP expects this model to be useful. Because the low performers will always be in favor of the learning team due to its favorable contribution to their grade, there will always be student supporters of this flawed model. Shame on UoP for not listening to the incessant complaints of its most gifted students.

]]> By: DeVrone http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-521 DeVrone Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:13:55 +0000 http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-521 Aha! Josh most of the education obtained at UOP is designed to encourage you to teach yourself. So if you feel the education sucks, then you have your self to blame. Your class facilitator is obligated to assist you with things you don't understand and encourage you to figure them out, but ultimately it is on you. What better education is there than experience? UOP is trying to prepare you to be self reliant and to be smart enough to lead or find your place in a team setting. If you miss this after my response then I pity you. I wish you the best. Stay positive it will make sense when you least expect it. Aha! Josh most of the education obtained at UOP is designed to encourage you to teach yourself. So if you feel the education sucks, then you have your self to blame. Your class facilitator is obligated to assist you with things you don’t understand and encourage you to figure them out, but ultimately it is on you. What better education is there than experience? UOP is trying to prepare you to be self reliant and to be smart enough to lead or find your place in a team setting. If you miss this after my response then I pity you. I wish you the best. Stay positive it will make sense when you least expect it.

]]> By: Josh Smith http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-506 Josh Smith Mon, 31 Mar 2008 01:25:41 +0000 http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-506 UOP Masters- First of all, by your tone I can take a guess that you really think UOP is a great and wonderful place, and ideal education for the "business world". Otherwise why would you defend it so vehemently. 1. I never said other schools weren't out to make money. I did say, in mulitple posts, that most schools realize that the way to make money in education, is to increase your standing in the academic community. Look at places like Harvard, Yale, or any other Ivy league school. They make money based on their reputation as a good school that will help get people good jobs. UOP took a different approach, and focused on quantity not quality. Both can be successful business models, and the quantity approach is definitely more effective in the short-term. But that doesn't make them a good school, which is what I was saying. 2. If you think that the teams at UOP are anything like the teams in the corporate world, then you are experiencing one of three things. A. Your classmates are infinitely better than mine were. B. You have really low quality co-workers and team-members in your work. C. You have ingested large amounts of illegal substances and have lost touch with reality. 3. I am not going to defend OSU. I don't think they should have taken peoples homes. But just because UOP isn't the only school that is bad doesn't excuse their behavior. Besides, I have no personal connection with OSU, so anything I would say about them would be less than justified. 4. UOP didn't lie about taking my money. However, they did lie about the quality of the education I would receive. Maybe I just got a bad set of classes or a bad campus. Maybe you just happen to be in the smartest group to ever attend UOP. However, it doesn't matter why the education sucked, it still sucked. When you promise quality education for the money, and don't deliever, I think you give people a right to complain. UOP Masters-

First of all, by your tone I can take a guess that you really think UOP is a great and wonderful place, and ideal education for the “business world”. Otherwise why would you defend it so vehemently.

1. I never said other schools weren’t out to make money. I did say, in mulitple posts, that most schools realize that the way to make money in education, is to increase your standing in the academic community. Look at places like Harvard, Yale, or any other Ivy league school. They make money based on their reputation as a good school that will help get people good jobs. UOP took a different approach, and focused on quantity not quality. Both can be successful business models, and the quantity approach is definitely more effective in the short-term. But that doesn’t make them a good school, which is what I was saying.

2. If you think that the teams at UOP are anything like the teams in the corporate world, then you are experiencing one of three things. A. Your classmates are infinitely better than mine were. B. You have really low quality co-workers and team-members in your work. C. You have ingested large amounts of illegal substances and have lost touch with reality.

3. I am not going to defend OSU. I don’t think they should have taken peoples homes. But just because UOP isn’t the only school that is bad doesn’t excuse their behavior. Besides, I have no personal connection with OSU, so anything I would say about them would be less than justified.

4. UOP didn’t lie about taking my money. However, they did lie about the quality of the education I would receive. Maybe I just got a bad set of classes or a bad campus. Maybe you just happen to be in the smartest group to ever attend UOP. However, it doesn’t matter why the education sucked, it still sucked. When you promise quality education for the money, and don’t deliever, I think you give people a right to complain.

]]> By: UOP Masters http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-505 UOP Masters Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:02:55 +0000 http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-505 It amazes me how anyone with a connection in the business world can be shocked at what happens in educational systems; as if they were utopias where only learning and growing mattered. Universities, ALL of them, are out to make money and increase power and standing in the communities. That is an institutional setting does not reduce it, it just places more layers on it to the stakeholders.....Sports which draw huge crowds and money ALWAYS override tutoring for the students. I chose UOP for the teams; professionally to have a place to 'play' with the teams is what I needed. What do you think teams in the workforce do? I am already in the position I will have upon graduation. UOP offers me the chance to learn about people and teams without making 50,000 mistakes. As for information and content, read. Read international magazines; attend business seminars- and the next time you want to single out a university, try OSU in Stillwater Oklahoma; they took peoples HOMES to build a bigger stadium, to increase crowd size, to bring in more money. At least UOP makes no bones that it is a money maker; that is what pisses you and other off, they don't lie and give you this warm soft fuzzy about taking your money. Life is unfair- BOO HOO- go to Kenya and try hauling water 3 miles to grow an acre of wheat. It amazes me how anyone with a connection in the business world can be shocked at what happens in educational systems; as if they were utopias where only learning and growing mattered. Universities, ALL of them, are out to make money and increase power and standing in the communities. That is an institutional setting does not reduce it, it just places more layers on it to the stakeholders…..Sports which draw huge crowds and money ALWAYS override tutoring for the students.
I chose UOP for the teams; professionally to have a place to ‘play’ with the teams is what I needed. What do you think teams in the workforce do? I am already in the position I will have upon graduation. UOP offers me the chance to learn about people and teams without making 50,000 mistakes. As for information and content, read. Read international magazines; attend business seminars- and the next time you want to single out a university, try OSU in Stillwater Oklahoma; they took peoples HOMES to build a bigger stadium, to increase crowd size, to bring in more money.
At least UOP makes no bones that it is a money maker; that is what pisses you and other off, they don’t lie and give you this warm soft fuzzy about taking your money.
Life is unfair- BOO HOO- go to Kenya and try hauling water 3 miles to grow an acre of wheat.

]]> By: anonprof http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-501 anonprof Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:38:42 +0000 http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-501 I am an adjuct prof at UOP and I appreciate your comments. These are some good insights which I will use to improve my summer courses. In response to the above response, I have been pleased to see the corporate side of UOP not interfere with the academic side. As a result of a poor grade in my class, one student was put on academic probabtion and not allowed to register for more classes. I also reported one student to the admin for academic dishonesty. Although this reduced income for UOP, I was happy to see the administration stand by the established academic policies. I am an adjuct prof at UOP and I appreciate your comments. These are some good insights which I will use to improve my summer courses. In response to the above response, I have been pleased to see the corporate side of UOP not interfere with the academic side. As a result of a poor grade in my class, one student was put on academic probabtion and not allowed to register for more classes. I also reported one student to the admin for academic dishonesty. Although this reduced income for UOP, I was happy to see the administration stand by the established academic policies.

]]> By: samspade http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-446 samspade Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:56:39 +0000 http://uopeducation.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/the-uop-learning-model-is-broken/#comment-446 It is not a learning model-- it is a business model. In the world of work the the famous 80% 20% rule appies as well. It is not fixable. It can not be refactore or reformed. This is how the corporate world functions. It is worse in the public sector. In the end it is why large corporations are eventualy fail. Now if you think that UOP is in the education buisness then you may be forgiven for thinking that they may wish to reform, but in fact the system is designed to allow the maximum number of students to continue to pay for classes, with out exposing the fraud. The best way to do this is allow students to coatail on others-- they will not fail and the work will be done so the eduactors can pretend that eduaction has occured. I am sorry to break it to you this bluntly but the they system is functioning as designed and producing the iintended results-- income to UOP. In the business world all that matters is that the work get done-- it does not matter by whom,and it does not matter that they are fairly compensated for their efforts. It would seem that laying off deadweight would reudce costs, but that would also have the effect of elimiating many middle managment jobs -and as it happens these are the people to would need to identify the deadwood. There is a confilic fo interest here. In any case may of the manager are deadwood themselves. and would need to fire themsleves as well. If you realy want to change UOP you must realise that as long as you are willing to put up with it it will not change,and you must leave to make the point. Only when there is no longer anyone left to do the work at all will the system fail. Just like a work--then the real "creative destruction of capitalism can show its stuff. I am sorry to be so pesimistic but after 3 classes at UOP and 18 years in the corporte world I know of what I speek. Good luck and thanks for writeing this. I may save others from being defruaded as well. It is not a learning model– it is a business model. In the world of work the the famous 80% 20% rule appies as well. It is not fixable. It can not be refactore or reformed.

This is how the corporate world functions. It is worse in the public sector. In the end it is why large corporations are eventualy fail. Now if you think that UOP is in the education buisness then you may be forgiven for thinking that they may wish to reform, but in fact the system is designed to allow the maximum number of students to continue to pay for classes, with out exposing the fraud. The best way to do this is allow students to coatail on others– they will not fail and the work will be done so the eduactors can pretend that eduaction has occured. I am sorry to break it to you this bluntly but the they system is functioning as designed and producing the iintended results– income to UOP.

In the business world all that matters is that the work get done– it does not matter by whom,and it does not matter that they are fairly compensated for their efforts. It would seem that laying off deadweight would reudce costs, but that would also have the effect of elimiating many middle managment jobs -and as it happens these are the people to would need to identify the deadwood. There is a confilic fo interest here. In any case may of the manager are deadwood themselves. and would need to fire themsleves as well.

If you realy want to change UOP you must realise that as long as you are willing to put up with it it will not change,and you must leave to make the point. Only when there is no longer anyone left to do the work at all will the system fail.

Just like a work–then the real “creative destruction of capitalism can show its stuff.

I am sorry to be so pesimistic but after 3 classes at UOP and 18 years in the corporte world I know of what I speek. Good luck and thanks for writeing this. I may save others from being defruaded as well.

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