Holixec Education: The Right Direction but Too Far to Travel?

Abstract

The Commentary that follows is a collective effort. The opening assessment of Dr. Batat's “Introducing” paper is the work of Stan Shapiro, now long retired, but over a span of fifty years first the product and then an unquestioning career-long practitioner of the kind of atomistic education that Dr. Batat considers incomplete and inadequate. From that perspective, he found much of merit in the Batat paper, not only in the advocacy of executing skills but also the presentation of educational outcomes as various forms of learning capitals and the emphasis on adult development. On the other hand, the complete absence of any discussion of the role of research and the governing assumption, one with which Stan could not accept, that academia would quickly and willingly adopt the revolutionary approach Dr. Batat advocates were seen as weaknesses in the paper. Stan's overall conclusion: the right direction but “too much, too soon.” But was there any midway position that could gain widespread acceptance at this time? This is where Dr. Burnett makes her contribution. She is currently the Senior Vice-President of the Acsenda School of Management, a privately owned, teaching-focused, and provincially regulated undergraduate degree-granting institution. Located in Vancouver, Canada, Acsenda has a student body made up almost entirely of international students. Shortly after joining Acsenda, Dr. Burnett was instrumental in that School adopting both the Learning Methodology and the Workforce Readiness model she describes in the closing paragraphs of this Commentary. This material is being presented as an example of the significant pedagogical change that could be made even within the framework of research-focused universities.

Though I knew the assignment would be, to say the least, intellectually challenging, I was flattered by the invitation from Joe Sirgy, this Journal's editor, to write a Commentary on Dr. Batat's “Introducing” paper. Since I had already read her earlier JMK paper (Batat 2024), I knew this article would also both require and deserve careful consideration. And so the “Introducing” paper was read, then reread, and then, after considerable academic musing, read yet again.

I brought to this task considerable but admittedly dated experience. Though starting in 1961 I had a forty-year university-level teaching and administrative career, twenty additional years have passed since I last taught either a face-to-face or an online degree-credit course. That lack of recent exposure to the current generation of college students notwithstanding, I have periodically published articles on macromarketing pedagogy, the most recent co-authored with a team of younger colleagues still on academic active duty (Shapiro et al. 2021; Watson et al. 2022).

Looking backward, I see that what I have been advocating is not the far-reaching, indeed completely revolutionary approach Dr. Batat is championing, but rather a far less ambitious, and very definitely atomistic, vaccination of conventional marketing principles and marketing management courses with macromarketing content. This line of thought was fully developed by Watson and his collaborators (Watson et al.) who first collectively taught and then reported on having offered an entire introductory marketing course where the micro and the macro were given equal weight (Watson et al. 2022). The macro components of that offering were subsequently made publicly available on the Macromarketing Society website.

It's customary in Commentaries like this for the author to briefly summarize the paper being considered. In this case, however, it seems far more appropriate to refer readers instead to Dr. Batat's own abstract, a single paragraph that makes clear the far-reaching extent and, indeed, revolutionary nature of the approach being recommended. This abstract, coupled with an advance examination of the various figures would, in my opinion, pave the way for the most fruitful reading of this intellectually challenging article.

Each reader, of course, will emerge with a different mix of questions and conclusions after a careful review of this seminal piece. Mine were the following. First and foremost, I was left wondering whether Dr. Batat had provided us with a banquet that must be consumed either in its entirety or not at all. Personally, I would prefer to view her work as a pedagogical buffet from which I could pick and choose as I saw fit. If I had that degree of freedom, I would enthusiastically accept her emphasis on execution-oriented learning strategies, which function on the ability of students to do rather than on their skill at regurgitating.

There is also much to be learned by adopting as one's own both her guiding principles and the various forms of capital she presents as learning outcomes. With all due respect, however, I believe Dr. Batat's approach would more easily gain acceptance if it were presented independently and apart from any discussion of its MECCDAL roots. What really would be lost in doing that? I would also advocate, given the most generally accepted meaning of “humility,” rechristening the Humility Matrix as the Leadership Style Matrix.

Though there is much of value throughout this paper, the section on Holixec Education and Adult Development makes especially relevant reading. That this section's title reference is to “Adult” rather than to “Student” seems both significant and entirely appropriate. After all, adulthood is the much longer period and “a good life” is the end objective of the process. The questions associated with each of the four realms provide a logical progression to the enjoyment of both a successful and a socially responsible career. My only reservation in this area is the author's failure to describe the context within which students will, either individually or in groups, recognize the need to consider this sequence of questions. How does this happen?

The Development section is further enriched by the very useful discussion of how a luxury marketing course could be structured following the sequence Dr. Batat recommends. This illustration leaves the conceptual sphere and provides a very useful example of a “how-to” holixec course that could well be included among any business school's mix of courses. This is true even though one's initial reaction, especially among readers of this journal, might have been to prefer more of a macromarketing-oriented illustration.

For example, a sustainability-focused course could end with students first designing and then actually delivering a community-focused recycling program. Or a course with a distributive justice focus might lead to students volunteering for a period at a local food bank. However, the important point is that Dr. Batat has provided us with both a focus and an all-purpose framework that macromarketers should consider adopting.

Many other sections of the “Introducing” article also merit careful consideration. The discussion of the pros and cons of atomistic education and the detailed comparison made with both the holistic and holexec approaches is one such topic. The same holds true for Dr. Batat's discussion both of the four guiding principles of holexec education and of the humanistic values that she considers to be at the core of the holexec approach, an approach she repeatedly, and wisely, acknowledges as both revolutionary and far-reaching.

Dr. Batat, however, has failed to consider how the research focus of long-established traditional universities would be affected by the changes she advocates. Teaching is only one of a number of professorial responsibilities and by some it may even be viewed as a necessary evil. Further complicating matters is the current fixation with A-level or top 50 publishing that puts an unhealthy emphasis on “where” rather than on “what.” To what extent are academics living in such a world going to be prepared to convert themselves into “learning coaches” for each of a significant number of students, some far more motivated than others? For that matter, what are the changes in Ph.D. programs that a Batat focus on learning would require, and are such changes likely to be made in the foreseeable future? Is not the entire system's focus far more likely to remain on knowledge transmission, though with due attention now being paid to how rapidly developing AI technology will affect the process?

Careful reading of Dr. Batat's article also reveals a governing assumption I find hard to accept. She assumes our academic world is far more open to change than the one we actually have down here on earth. How likely is it that a business school functioning as part of a long-established traditional university would be capable of rapidly changing in the direction Dr. Batat advocates? My own experiences as a dean, for fifteen years at two different institutions, convinced me that when it comes to curriculum change, too many of my academic colleagues would enter the room looking backward. By that I mean they all too often started with a belief that any changes made should obviously be in the direction of making our program more similar to the one from which they had received their own PhDs. Progress could still be made in such a setting, but it was a process best described as “creeping incrementalism” rather than radical innovation. Have things changed all that much in recent years?

It took repeated reading of Dr. Batat's paper, along with a review of her predecessor publication (Batat 2024) before I reached my own conclusions as to where I thought her approach could most easily gain acceptance, in whole or in part. This is not in either the traditional, long-established degree-granting institution or the four-year public colleges now aspiring to that same status. Instead, the fit seems best with the new generation of recently established, and almost always privately owned, institutions, some granting degrees, others offering credentials focused on the acquisition of more specific skills.

These are schools that put the emphasis on doing as well as knowing. They attempt to produce the type of job-ready, promotion-eager, but still socially responsible, graduates Dr. Batat wishes to become the norm. Indeed, it is one of these organizations, the American Institute of Business Experience Design, that she cites as the prototype for what she has in mind. Dr. Batat's earlier “Revolutionizing” article (Batat 2024) spells out how AIBED has embedded the MECCDAL model within the pedagogical approach it employs. That approach can only be fully appreciated by careful reading of this predecessor publication, something also well worth the effort. However, AIBED comes across as a very atypical exception to the rule. For just about every other degree-granting institution, private or public, MECCDAL might well involve too much change to accept.

But concluding that a particular approach requires too much change is no excuse for staying with the status quo. A strong case can indeed be made for still significant but less revolutionary change. The remainder of this Commentary attempts to provide one such alternative possibility by describing the pedagogical approach recently adopted by the Acsenda School of Management, a privately owned and provincially regulated institution in Vancouver, B.C., offering undergraduate business degrees to international students from a wide variety of countries.

Though by no means an approach entirely reflective of Dr. Batat's thinking, there are many parallels and similarities. It is being advocated, not only as an interim prototype for those interested in moving further in Dr. Batat's recommended direction, but also as an entirely acceptable endpoint in its own right for those who believe that, even for privately owned institutions, the full Batat approach seems to be asking “too much, too soon” of both instructors and administrators.

This approach, or versions of it, is widely used, in part at least, across many post-secondary institutions both in Canada and the UK. Acsenda School of Management's new pedagogical focus has been built on the tried-and-tested model used by BPP University in the UK. This ‘flipped classroom’ was piloted at BPP University around 2016 and is now acknowledged as a highly successful pedagogy that ensures graduates can do as well as recall.

Summary of Acsenda School of Management's Approach to Pedagogy

Following significant research (desk and practical), experimentation, and piloting of pedagogical approaches, Acsenda School of Management (ASM) adopted a five-step learning model to enhance the student learning experience. This pedagogical approach ensures consistency in learning and teaching whilst allowing appropriate academic freedom and contextual subject-specific application in the classroom. As consistency is an important part of quality, alongside expectation management, this approach facilitates good quality education with an emphasis on doing as well as knowing. A brief summary of the Learning Methodology follows (see Figure 1).

ASM's Five-Step Learning Model

• 1. The Prepare Step is focused on the initial acquisition of new knowledge and requires students to familiarize themselves with key concepts and theories and to undertake personal reading, research, and tasks.

• 2. The Apply Step is focused on practice using the newly acquired knowledge.

• 3. The Collaborate Step is focused on deepening understanding of the knowledge through more advanced applications of it involving interaction with peers and various specialists.

• 4. The Consolidate Step is focused on embedding the knowledge in long-term memory by applying the knowledge in multiple applications.

• 5. The Assessment Step is focused on determining the effectiveness of knowledge mastery.

ASM employs diverse approaches to learning and teaching, which are customized to suit both the subject matter and instructional context. This approach facilitates effective, deep learning and includes lectures, labs, seminars, tutorials, academic advising, tutoring, guest lecturers, practical workplace experiences, field trips, and case studies. The learning activities are, of course, designed to reflect and align with Course Outlines and Learning Outcomes.

The instructor serves primarily as a facilitator of learning experiences. Students will progressively develop their competency through collaboration and teamwork to ultimately lead and manage diverse workforce groups. The learning methodologies used incorporate key themes and values such as Indigenous perspectives, reconciliation, emerging technologies, the environment, inclusivity, diversity, accessibility, and equity through the course design.

As well as the pedagogy at ASM ensuring that students can do as well as know in an academic context, there is a particular and intentional focus on graduates not just having workforce-ready skills but also being aware of them and being able to evidence them. These are often assumed and therefore overlooked.

At ASM being ‘workforce-ready’ means that students are required to develop a range of skills, attributes, and positive behaviors throughout their student experience that will enable them to fulfill their career aspirations. This may be to kick-start their career or to progress within their current career and enhance their chances of success.

To provide focus for the framework, we have set out 10 key workforce-ready skills identified by employers as critical to the success of their organizations and to the economy as a whole. Students need to be able to articulate and demonstrate these skills, attributes, and behaviors and ASM ensures that there are opportunities to develop and/or enhance these skills throughout the student experience. Workforce-ready skills are incorporated explicitly and implicitly in every course, and evidence is captured within each student's Professional Development Plan and Portfolio course. This workforce-readiness approach is based on:

1. Taking an employability focus: Employability is embedded in learning, teaching, and assessment and is at the heart of the student journey.

2. Following a comprehensive approach to graduates: Students are supported to fulfill their potential for employment, enterprise creation, and continuing professional development.

3. Relating to students as partners: Students are treated as partners in the design and delivery of employability.

4. Engaging with alumni: ASM's Career Services actively engages with alumni to support their ongoing professional development.

The 10 workforce readiness skills are summarized below (see Figure 2).

This approach, combining a very particular pedagogy alongside the intentional development (and evidence collection) of specific workforce readiness skills, has proven to be very successful in preparing graduates to be not only academically astute but also operationally ready to take on graduate-level roles, hitting the ground running. This is evidenced by the fact that 98% of ASM graduates reported they were employed two years after graduating, based on a survey response rate of 50% with 71% of respondents indicating that their work was related to their field of study.