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Conclusion

Our campus collaboration has been successful, producing a high-quality product while simultaneously affording students the oppor-

tunity to collaborate with faculty and Printing Services personnel to

create high-quality documents, assisting art and technical communi-

cation students to build their portfolios, and offering students a way

to gain recognition for their work.

References

Burnett, R. E. (2006). Technical communication. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth.

Drucker, P. F. (1959).Landmarks of tomorrow. New York: Harper.

Kostelnick, C., & Roberts, D. D. (1998).Designing visual language: Strategies for professional

communicators. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Lee S. Tesdell teaches in the technical communication program at Minnesota State

University, Mankato. His current project is to organize an international online learning

consortium linking instructors and students around the world. Address correspon-

dence to Lee S. Tesdell, 230 Armstrong Hall, Minnesota State University, Mankato,

MN 56001; email: [email protected].

BIZBLOCK: A CROSS-DISCIPLINARY TEACHING

AND LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Mary Y. Bowers

Christopher M. ScherpereelNorthern Arizona University

DOI: 10.1177/1080569908317083

UNIVERSITY BUSINESS EDUCATION is often criticized for not

meeting the needs of its stakeholders: students, graduates, and the busi-

ness community. Such criticism stems from evidence that business edu-

cation fails to deliver the cross-disciplinary learning required to build

essential business knowledge and competencies. To better serve busi-

ness school stakeholders, Northern Arizona Universitys W. A. Franke

College of Business (FCB) developed a course called BizBlock.

BizBlock integrates core undergraduate business content into a cross-disciplinary learning experience.

FOCUS ON TEACHING 221

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Traditional business school curriculum is designed to functionally

train individuals who will fit into vertical organizations. Course con-

tent focuses on specialized disciplines that provide students with athorough grounding in their respective disciplines. This focus results

in a silo mentality: Students become technically proficient within

their discipline but never learn to effectively share and integrate

discipline-specific knowledge. Although businesses express the need

for change in pedagogy, business schools, especially at the under-

graduate level, continue to deliver the core body of knowledge com-

partmentalized by discipline.

BizBlock Overview

In the fall of 2000, the FCB recognized the need for change and

developed a cross-disciplinary course called BizBlock. Although the

course has evolved considerably during its 7-year history, the con-

cept of meeting stakeholder needs has remained the primary driver

for curricular design and implementation. The BizBlock design

mandate was simple in theory: Take the required, core 3-credit-hour

undergraduate courses in management, marketing, and businesscommunications and integrate the material for delivery in a single

9-credit-hour course block. The key directive of this mandate was

to integrate the three core courses, not just deliver the discipline-

specific content of the three courses sequentially.

Students in BizBlock are organized in teams of five to seven,

depending on class size. Student teams are presented with the prob-

lem of identifying a consumer need and developing a business plan

that fills that need. Lectures, assignments, exams, and activities aredesigned to motivate students to develop, improve, and augment

their understanding of their plan.

The resulting business plans are developed and revised throughout

the semester-long course. Before submitting the finished plan for

grading, students add details, reinforce concepts, and make correc-

tions to drafts. They then present the plan to the class and faculty

teaching team four times throughout the semester to gather extensive

feedback and improve delivery. Final plans are presented in a compet-

itive format before a panel of three to five venture capitalists, which

provides outside validation of the students work The team judged by

222 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / June 2008

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the venture capitalist panel to be most deserving of funding is declared

the winning team and often given the opportunity to revise the plan for

organized undergraduate business plan competitions.BizBlock is facilitated by a team of three faculty instructors rep-

resenting the three disciplines included in the course. The course

meets twice a week, in four half-hour time blocks. Each instructor

issues a grade for the equivalent of 3 credit hours; thus, students will

receive three grades on their transcript, representing each of the three

discipline courses included in BizBlock. Each instructor grades inte-

grated assignments independently, and students often receive differ-

ent grades on the same assignment that reflect their ability to applydiscipline-specific knowledge in a cross-disciplinary context.

Teaching methodology includes facilitated discussions, breakout

sessions, guest speakers, and a limited number of interactive lec-

tures. The three faculty members remain in the classroom for the

entire class session to participate in discussions and encourage class

participation; instructors allocate lecture time based on what topics

or information the students need to complete the next section of the

business plan. Planning sessions occur before every class to distributelecture time. The faculty team also meets with individual students or

teams in cross-disciplinary consulting sessions.

The biggest hurdle in the development of BizBlock was faculty

perceptions of what basic course concepts from each discipline

should be included in the final course design. Faculty are trained to

become the classic sage on the stage, believing that each element

of content within their discipline is critical to student success.

Overcoming this hurdle required BizBlock faculty who were willing

to challenge the traditional teaching paradigm and embrace newer

methods, such as team teaching and cross-disciplinary integration.

The Relationship Between Cross-Disciplinary

Teaching and Integration

To be successful, a cross-disciplinary course must be integrated on

three levels: the primary assessment outcome (in BizBlock, this out-

come would be the professional business plan and presentation), lec-

tures, and the syllabus. The cross-disciplinary objective cannot be

effectively achieved by integrating only one or even two of these


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components. Such extensive integration requires commitment and

shared vision on the part of the faculty. It also requires the faculty to

constantly plan and then be flexible enough to change the plansometimes minutes before a class. In addition, cross-disciplinary

teaching requires faculty who are knowledgeable, or at least com-

fortably familiar with, the other course disciplines, to provide con-

sistent guidance for student learning.

Integrating the Assessment Outcome

As stated earlier, cross-disciplinary courses are not stand-aloneclasses taught sequentially but rather discipline-specific courses

delivered in an overlapping or overarching manner. The first step in

developing a cross-disciplinary course is to find an assessment out-

come or primary student assignment that can only be completed

using the topical material from each of the classes included in the

cross-disciplinary course. In the first iteration of BizBlock, this

assessment outcome was the actual formation of a business. After two

semesters, faculty decided this goal was too complex and difficult for

undergraduate students to complete in 16 weeks. The outcome

assessment was changed to a business plan, and this approach has

evolved and been enhanced during the past 7 years.

Students complete the business plan in sections called drafts. Each

draft is due and submitted after class discussion of relevant topical

material. Because the plan is written by student teams, each team sub-

mits three identical drafts, and each BizBlock faculty member then

reads and assesses the draft based on his or her discipline-specific

perspective. The marketing faculty member comments on the mar-keting content, the management faculty member comments on man-

agement content, and the business communication faculty member

edits the draft for grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and clarity.

These drafts are returned to the student teams for further revision.

After all the drafts have been through this process, they are combined

to create the final business plan. However, teams first submit the com-

pleted plan to the business communication instructor, for one final

edit. The turnaround time on this draft is usually 3 days, so the teamscan make any necessary revisions before submitting the final plan.


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Integrating Lectures

Students write and submit drafts after relevant material has beenintroduced and discussed in class. For example, before the market

and industry analysis draft is due, students will have learned about

performing a SWOT analysis (management), conducting market

research (marketing), and referencing source material (business com-

munication). Although it may not always be the outcome, the goal is

for each faculty member to explain material that dovetails into the

other discipline lectures or is necessary for the next assignment.

Integrating Syllabi

As every educator knows, creating and modifying a syllabus can be

a time-consuming, complex task. This task becomes even more

daunting when one syllabus is actually a combination of three.

However, because the students first real introduction of BizBlock is

through the syllabus, it must reflect the cross-disciplinary nature of

the class. By presenting one integrated syllabus the first day of class,

students immediately begin to understand and appreciate how cross-

disciplinary teaching and learning occur.

Such integration requires that faculty enforce the same classroom

policies and procedures and adhere to the class assignment and

activities schedule presented in the syllabus. A faculty member who

changes the syllabus on a regular basis without consulting the other

instructors on the team confuses the students and, more important,

models ineffective team behavior.

Conclusion

Many business programs have recognized the need to respond to their

stakeholders challenge to more effectively develop essential business

knowledge and competencies. Curricular redesign efforts have resulted

in courses such as BizBlock that achieve greater integration across dis-

ciplines. By stretching functional boundaries, cross-discipline integra-

tion efforts appear to better prepare students for work in decentralized

organizations. In addition, these courses give faculty a new apprecia-

tion for the challenges of preparing students to effectively function ina complex, interdisciplinary work environment.


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Mary Y. Bowers is a senior lecturer in management in the W. A. Franke College of

Business at Northern Arizona University. She received her MBA from the University of

Toledo and teaches courses in business communications and organizational behavior.

Her research interests include gender communication, team teaching, and group

dynamics. Address correspondence to Mary Bowers, W. A. Franke College of

Business, Northern Arizona University, PO Box 15066, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5066;

email: [email protected].

Christopher M. Scherpereel is an associate professor of management at Northern

Arizona University. He holds degrees from Notre Dame, Georgia Institute of

Technology, and New York University and received his PhD in industrial engineering and

management science from Northwestern University. His research interests include

decision-making analysis, real options, entrepreneurship, simulation, and strategy.

Address correspondence to Chris Scherpereel, Northern Arizona University, W. A.Franke College of Business, PO Box 15066, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5066; email:

[email protected].

THE VALUE OF STEPPING OUTSIDE YOUR NORMAL

ROLE: LESSONS LEARNED FROM SERVING ON

CROSS-DISCIPLINARY TEAMS

Kathleen VanceBritish Columbia Institute of Technology

DOI: 10.1177/1080569908317083

FOR MY ENTIRE CAREER at my technical institute, I have been

working with faculty in other departments to acquire in-depth

knowledge of the communication tasks and attitudes that will be

expected of my students in their future workplaces so that I can

teach them the strategies and principles of business communicationmost likely to guarantee success. I have worked with, among others,

faculty in financial management (Vance & Fitzpatrick, 1994), in

occupational health nursing, and, most recently, in mining and in

my institutes Learning and Teaching Centre (LTC) to develop

an Internet workspace for students to use to complete their gradua-

tion projects. This most recent cross-disciplinary work has rein-

forced earlier lessons and brought home new ones on how we, as

communication faculty, can best benefit from our cross-disciplinary

experiences.


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