This month, we’re excited to interview Alex De Melo, who teaches Risk Management for our PDP program. Alex applied some of the same risk management tools and techniques that he teaches when he took some big risks by integrating a wide variety of unique assignments into his course. Below he shares some insights into what inspired his engaging and memorable assessments strategy.
A Bold Choice
Your course starts off with a dramatic scenario from the somewhat obscure science fiction film Sunshine. What prompted this choice?
My daughter introduced me to Sunshine after she and some of her friends viewed it. Everyone found the first half of the movie to be very engaging, so I was intrigued to watch it myself to find out why. As it turns out, the opening scenario provides an excellent introduction to risk management. I decided to use it to help kick off the course because it served to do the following:
- engage students immediately with its dramatic and memorable hook;
- ensure everyone starts on an equal footing because no prior knowledge is needed;
- motivate students by illustrating some applications of risk management.
In my experience, students are more likely to invest their time and energy into a course when they recognize the benefits of applying what they’ve learned to their own lives. I always like to start with the “Why?”, meaning “why are we learning this?” And though the movie’s scenario itself is quite unrealistic, I decided to take the risk of using it because the film clearly illustrates how risk management strategies can help with the decision making process in the middle of a lot of uncertainty.
Here’s what some students had to say:
“I appreciated the activities that were provided throughout the modules. They were well connected to the content and fun to actually complete.”
“The content the teacher selected was very engaging – articles, videos, movie clips… were about really interesting and relevant topics that supported learning about risk management.”
Identifying Risk
In the next module, you shift to the real examples of the introduction of “New Coke” and later the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster to help students explore risk identification. What inspired these choices?
During my Executive MBA at Kellogg, the “New Coke” case study left a permanent mark on my memory. It covers a project with a very straightforward goal and describes a real case of a company making a significant investment on using risk management tools and techniques. One of the biggest lessons is about how risk identification is not something that can be done only at the initial phases of a project; it is an activity that needs to be done constantly throughout the entire lifecycle of a project.
I also wanted to warn students that risk identification is not enough. As I was preparing this course, the New York Times published a documentary about the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster. The risks were well known to everybody in a position to stop that disaster, and yet we all know what happened. My goal is to motivate students by helping them recognize just how essential risk analysis is in preventing disasters happening on their projects .
Using Gamification
In the final module you let students test their new knowledge and insights with a Risk Management Game. I’ve read some of your students’ reviews and this appears to be a favorite. What inspired this assignment?
The first time I came up with the idea to create a game to motivate students was back in 2000 when I was teaching an engineering course for a university in Brazil. The class was in the evenings and most of the students had full-time jobs and worked all day before coming to the class. I could see that they were tired, and it was really hard to keep them engaged.
Then I remembered how I could get my daughters excited about learning something from their school by making a game of the topic. So I divided my engineering students into teams, giving them small projects to complete for each class and they competed with each other on providing the best solution. I was surprised on how that motivated my engineering students to the point that some of them even told me they couldn’t sleep until the results of the game were posted.
I decided to use a similar strategy in my Risk Management course. The game I created is based on investment decisions that the students need to make involving three projects, each one with different levels of risk and opportunity. The decisions are made across a simulation of five years. To avoid any bias or even students trying to find any pattern, the results of each project for each year are based on a random number generator that I have no control over.
Based on the feedback I have received from my students, they really enjoyed playing the game. One student even wrote: “The learning examples were great and I really learned a lot more than I thought I would. The final game was super enjoyable.” I’m glad students were so invested in the game that allowed them to apply what they’d learned earlier in the course, and that helped solidify those learnings with a memorable experience.
Thinking “Outside of the Box”
Lastly, how does using creative, outside-of-the-box assessments align with your own teaching philosophy?
As a professional, I really enjoy developing and applying simple and practical approaches to addressing complex project problems in an impactful way. I tried to follow the same principles in my teaching. I hope you noticed in my previous answers how I mentioned “I decided to take a risk” when creating those assessments. Each opportunity to have a significant positive impact on students comes together with significant risk too. But the fact that there are risks associated should not prevent you from pursuing the opportunities if you are willing to manage the risks.
A major factor in feeling comfortable taking risks with this course was based on the fantastic experience I have had for the past 10 years working with amazing professionals from NU SPS. From the administration staff (special thanks to Tim!) to fellow lecturers and many other professionals involved with this program, I can really feel their support and commitment. I am also grateful to the DL department for their help translating what was originally an in-person/on campus course into an online experience. I had so many doubts and almost gave up on this idea, but Courtnay and Patty addressed each one of my concerns and as a result, I believe the online version became even better than the original in-person one.
Thank you, Alex, for all of your hard work and dedication, and for being willing to take and manage the risks that made your course such a success! We hope, like Alex, others will let the DL team support them in taking risks to create more fun and engaging assessments for our students!
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