The focus of the
research project has been to redesign a large introductory undergraduate business course with an annual enrolment of 400 high-potential students. The challenge has been to move from a traditional and instructor-driven pedagogical approach to an interactive, collaborative teaching strategy for empowering student learning and management soft skills development (example, critical thinking, teamwork, creativity, etc.). To date, this Hewlett-Packard
(HP) technology for teaching (higher education) project has benefited over
2,000 students in various ways and success has been publically acknowledged in articles and awards. This paper offers insights and practical advice for those interested in implementing blended learning teaching strategies to reimagine their classrooms by tightly integrating the use of various technologies within a high interactive face-to-face environment.
Definition of a lecture: From the notes of the professor to the notes of the student without going through the heads of either.
– Gareth Morgan
“Higher Education as Bucket-Filling”
Times Higher Education (1971)
The e-powering Tomorrow’s Leaders research project focuses on redesigning a large introductory undergraduate business course, Managing Contemporary Enterprise, with an annual enrolment of 400 high-potential students, all of whom receive entrance scholarships to university. This paper offers practical advice for those interested in implementing a blended learning teaching strategy that can help move from a traditional
‘bucket-filling’ lecture-driven pedagogy to a more open-ended, interactive style by tightly integrating the use of a range of web technologies, software and hardware within a faceto-face environment. The insights, ideas and lessons learned are the outcome of a multiyear action learning research project generously funded by Hewlett-Packard (HP) and
* Assistant Professor in Policy, Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada.
E-mail: jadams@schulich.yorku.ca
13

undertaken at York University’s Schulich School of Business. Schulich, Canada’s Global
Business School™, widely acknowledged as a leader in corporate social responsibility.
Founded on values that embrace Innovation-Globalization-Diversity, a highly accomplished community of faculty and students from around the world have been drawn to the School’s undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate and executive development programs. In the words of our Dean, Dezsö Horváth, we strive to “graduate men and women who will become business leaders of the highest caliber, and to prepare them to succeed in a constantly changing world”—making Schulich a very dynamic, welcoming context for advancing the scholarship of teaching and learning.
To date, this HP project has benefited over 2,000 students in various ways and its success has been publically acknowledged in articles and awards.
Without doubt, the HP technology for teaching philanthropic program has proven to be a powerful catalyst for positive change. The research outcomes discussed in this paper have been made possible through the generous contribution of 21 HP Tablets one year, 42 more Tablets the following year along with other hardware and a significant amount of research funding. The HP hardware contribution created the opportunity to clearly demonstrate the importance of having laptops used in business courses to core faculty and key decision-makers, something that was not widely embraced previously
(i.e., laptops were predominantly viewed as distracters, not learning enablers). As well, since the Tablets were available for students to borrow in every class on a rotational basis, the hardware helped students without laptops to see the value, and those with laptops to see the advantage of pen-based options. The Tablets are now also used in the Schulich School of Business annual outreach program where students and their parents are invited to a sample class experience hosted as part of York University’s
“Spring Gala” event for prospective students. This experience has created a lot of excitement as high school students enjoy a firsthand “Schulich experience”, while parents sit back and observe. The School’s reputation as an innovator has been widely acknowledged, including mention in Maclean’s (Pagliaro, 2009, pp. 98-100), where the
HP research project was reported along with examples of technology being used in other universities. Likely the most significant opportunity that has materialized as a result of the addition of HP Tablets to the course, however, has been the ability to move from paper-based exams to online exams, and thus, online grading—an extremely positive change that would never have been considered, or authorized, without the HP Tablets.
Similarly, the success of the program would not have been possible without the research funds that were included with the HP grant. While the hardware was essential for changing attitudes and practice, research funds were equally important for bringing in the changes and iterating processes through a continuous improvement action research strategy. The project began with a select team of ten Research Assistants and has grown steadily to a team of over 50 upper students who now assist in various aspects of the
14 The IUP Journal of Soft Skills, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2012

research, including setting direction and monitoring results. And lastly, I must acknowledge the importance of the annual HP teaching and learning conference that brings together researchers from around the world and across disciplines in a vibrant, highly collaborative forum. Without the opportunity to share ideas with other experts in the field at this annual forum, it is highly doubtful that my project would have been as effective. The HP initiative is an inspiring example of responsible business practice.
One of the major challenges for educators in large first year undergraduate university business courses is to find effective ways to engage students in meaningful learning that is relevant and has the potential for high-impact on personal practice now and in the future. These large classes typically have students with a wide range of skills, backgrounds, experiences and interests. In addition to the differences in personal characteristics, students also have diverse expectations for their first university course.
For example, many of today’s young people, sometimes referred to as Net Gen and the
“we generation”, place high value on working and learning together using technology, which can create both challenges (example, easily bored by traditional lectures) and opportunities (example, passion for knowledge creation and sharing) in their courses.
This paper tells the story of how, over a period of five years, the teaching and learning environment at the Schulich School of Business has been completely reinvented from a paper-based lecture-driven instructional environment favored by my predecessors, to a ‘high-tech’ collaborative environment where my students interact in real-time with me and their colleagues, both virtually and face-to-face as they work and learn together inside and outside of class.
The Schulich School of Business, ranked among the world’s leading business schools with over 21,000 alumni located in over 90 countries worldwide, offers executive, postgraduate, graduate and undergraduate programs. The introductory course, Managing
Contemporary Enterprise , is a core course for all incoming students in the BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration)—a comprehensive four-year program with a breadth that spans nine different areas of specialization (example, accounting, entrepreneurship and family business, marketing and finance), and the iBBA (international BBA)—a four-year degree with a truly global perspective. The course covers management concepts and theories on a wide range of topics (example, strategy, marketing, finance, leadership) all within a “sustainability mindset” highlighting the societal, economic and environmental context of contemporary business. It has been created to provide a solid foundation for helping students to develop general management soft skills such as critical thinking, teamwork, communication and self-awareness required for success in the dynamic workplace of the 21 st century. Each year about 400 young people, 16-18 years old with high school graduating averages exceeding 92%, are admitted to the BBA/ iBBA program. Not only does every student have at least one entrance scholarship, each e-Powering Tomorrow’s Leaders: Soft Skills Development in Management Education 15

brings extremely high expectations for personal learning and growth—a consequence of the enormously competitive nature of business education in today’s global context.
The research project was undertaken to explore different blended learning strategies to integrate the use of HP Tablets with various web technologies and software to revitalize teaching and learning, especially through collaboration and collective learning. Before teaching the course, I spoke to upper year students who reported skipping classes because they were bored and found the material irrelevant. These students had lots of suggestions, primarily around making classes more interactive—a tall order in a large core course. My research interest and expertise is in pedagogical innovation for supporting management and leadership soft skills development at a graduate level and in management training and development. I was somewhat hesitant to accept the challenge of redesigning the undergraduate course. How could I relate to 17-18 year olds? I had decades of management experience—most undergraduate students have no working experience. What won me over was the appeal of how young people were drawn to social media and the opportunity this held for advancing research in this area.
Broadly speaking, my goals when redesigning the course were to:
• Shift from a traditional lecture style, instructor-in-control pedagogical approach to one where students were empowered to learn by taking a far more active role in their own learning;
• Integrate the use of collaborative technologies in the course to support soft skills development such as critical thinking, teamwork, creativity, and so on; and
• Explore the possibility of open book/open laptop online exams making innovation in collaborative team-based grading an opportunity.
One of the defining features of this research-driven project is the way it has embraced a continuous improvement philosophy, an outcome of the action-learning methodology
I adopted. Each term I assessed what worked and what did not. New technologies have been added and changes in teaching practice implemented based on personal experience and feedback from a large team of Research Assistants (RAs), as well as comments and feedback from each cohort of students who have participated in the course—over 2,000 students to date.
In the first year of this course redesign project prior to the HP grants (i.e., 2006 is the base year for comparison), I introduced NewMindsets online content. This “second generation” e-learning system embodies as self-organizing philosophy which enabled the instructional flexibility I desired for teaching and, more importantly, for empowering student learning in classes, tutorials and self-directed projects. Figure 1 offers a succinct summary of the difference between a linear versus self-organizing ecology model (Morgan and Adams, 2009, p. 136).
16 The IUP Journal of Soft Skills, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2012

Figure 1: Typical ‘First’ and ‘Second Generation’ Learning Paths
‘First Generation’ Design
A Traditional Course Model
Start
Here
End
Here
‘Second Generation’ Design
A Self-Organizing Ecology Model
= Course topics
= Linear learning paths
= Hyperlinked learning nuggets
= Indicates different nonlinear
learning paths
With this approach, there tends to be
‘one’ sequential learning path with a predetermined start-end.
With this approach, there are ‘hundreds’ of nonlinear learning paths—learners can start and end anywhere, driving the learning process according to learning needs.
As for the self-organizing online content, I also included traditional print content— largely because my colleagues were uncomfortable with me teaching the course without a print book. Handheld ‘clickers’ were included to allow polling capacity using a
Classroom Response System (CRS)—part of a university-wide pilot project that first term. At the end of my first term, I found the online content quite effective—a pleasant surprise since online content was not widely used in undergraduate programs at that time. Students were more likely to go online before, during and after class to review the online materials than they were to use the course text book. When I asked questions in class referring to print content, there was generally a glazed look in the eyes of my students. However, when the topics were from the online NewMindsets readings, it was easy to get discussions started. The use of ‘clickers’, however, received mixed reviews— the software was very intrusive and interfered with the flow of the class session. I felt trapped behind the classroom computer to launch and retrieve polling responses— students mentioned the same thing in their course feedback. The hardware was also problematic—batteries went dead, students forgot or lost the devices, the CRS did not pick up all of the responses in the large class. I was very disappointed. Instead of empowering student learning by making the classroom more interactive, clickers had e-Powering Tomorrow’s Leaders: Soft Skills Development in Management Education 17

simply reinforced the instructor-in-control pedagogy. As I was scratching my head on next steps, I was invited to apply for an HP teaching for technology grant (2007). This remarkable opportunity for exploring pedagogical innovation aimed at improving student learning was a major turning point. The school received 21 HP Tablets with pen-based interactivity. The ability for students to use text and hand-drawn visuals was particularly important. It was a core to the research because it enabled me to encourage business students to break out of traditional communication mindsets by using images and storyboarding to present their ideas—a way, it was theorized at the time, to help them develop management soft skills such as creativity, critical thinking and teamwork. The
HP technology package (example, router, etc.) also created the capacity for collaboration.
Figure 2: Screen Grabs of a Group Exercise About Giving Feedback
Part 1: Things that come to mind when your best friend asks for feedback
(example, “I did well, right?”) about a poor presentation.
18
Part 2: A multiple-choice question for your classmates about how to respond to their best friend’s request for feedback.
Note: It was created during a tutorial session, and then used as the focus of a polling question in class.
The IUP Journal of Soft Skills, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2012

My Research Assistants worked with IT experts to facilitate online group exercises using
OneNote software and NewMindsets content. Figure 2 is an example of the work completed by one team.
These collaborative exercises completed on the HP Tablets were a huge success.
When I showed the student work in my large classes, I had their total attention. I could hear a pin drop; students were sitting forward in their seats. Using student work to seed the discussion about management topics was very effective. I was able to cover key concepts much faster and easier than I had in the previous term by using the
‘student’ scenarios to open the topic, and then asking them to apply the ideas to management contexts and work situations. There were, unfortunately, technology problems that detracted from the overall experience. For example, the time to create a shared connection for small groups was prohibitive. More often than not, the connection failed at a crucial point. And, even more problematic, screens froze in the middle of collaborative exercises, meaning all work was lost—very frustrating. As well, the collaborative exercises had to be completed in tutorials, the student work extracted from the HP Tablets over the weekend, and the material inserted in the class slides for the following week. This took hours of my time. I was faced with a dilemma—using student work in class was very effective and well received, but the process was onerous and very time-consuming. As well, ‘clickers’ were still a problem. Since students used laptops in class, clicker hardware devices got in the way (i.e., at the time online clicker software was not available). Using technology to reinvent teaching was far more timeintensive than I had ever anticipated. It was highly unlikely my colleagues would ever go down this road as things stood—‘even I was having second thoughts’. Once again,
HP came to my rescue in two ways! Firstly, HP awarded a second research grant— a technology for teaching leadership grant—to advance my research based on the success of the research project (i.e., student soft skills had improved!). This provided 42 more
HP Tablets and other hardware to enable further pedagogical exploration. Secondly, the annual HP technology for teaching conference for grant recipients brought academics across disciplines from around the world together in a dynamic forum where we compared what we were doing. I came away from that experience feeling part of a global team, highly committed to reinventing higher education. I passed along the things I had learned to my colleagues at my own school, who helped me develop new strategies to build on what worked the previous term, and overcome what did not. One of the ideas was to pilot DyKnow™ collaborative software, designed to support real-time collaboration in a seamless manner with features enabling the real-time ability to create random virtual teams, retrieve student work directly from their laptops and display it for the whole class to view and discuss. It also had polling capacity which meant students could respond to questions from their laptops and, hence, eliminating the cost
(and problems!) of clicker devices. A side benefit was that even more students came to class with laptops—an important instructional goal (i.e., How many managers do you know today who do not have laptops?). Students had my slides, personal notes, and collaborative discussions and exercises in a personal file retrievable anywhere, e-Powering Tomorrow’s Leaders: Soft Skills Development in Management Education 19

anytime through the Internet; whereas approximately 60% of students regularly used laptops in the first year of the course redesign, there was 100% laptop use within two years. Guests often remark about the ‘sea of laptops‘ (Figure 3) when they visit my class.
Figure 3: A ‘Sea of Laptops’
This pattern of trying new approaches, debriefing teaching experiences with colleagues and learning more at HP conferences has been repeated annually since the project began. It has been a critical factor in the success. Innovation rarely thrives in isolation. In the most recent year of the redesign project, a wide range of new technologies have been used in tutorial sessions: collaboration tools (IBM’s SmartCloud
Engage, Google Docs, DimDim) for virtual teamwork; mind-mapping tools (PersonalBrain, xMind, FreeMind) for creative thinking and nonlinear note-taking; career tools
(InterviewStream, Mahara e-portfolio) for career planning.
It is not an exaggeration to say that I have completely changed my teaching practice.
What I am doing now in my classroom—thanks in no small part to the HP Table project— is completely different than what I could do before. Ways of engaging student learning that were simply a dream back in 2006 are now a reality in 2012. The best part is that
I am having fun! Classes are an exchange of ideas now—a combination of teaching and learning. The ability to assign, retrieve and showcase student Tablet-work revolutionized my classroom—it has completely changed everything from the way I prepare, to how
I cover material and evaluate progress and learning. The technologies have enabled me to tightly integrate pedagogical principles of the Soft-skill Learning Triangle (SLT) presented in Figure 4 (Adams, 2010, p. 440) in all aspects of my course. Students learn
20 The IUP Journal of Soft Skills, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2012

Figure 4: The Soft Skills Learning Triangle – Interactivity for Supporting
Management Soft Skills Development and ‘Performance Learning’
Content Context
The Learner content (i.e., learner-content interactivity) and more importantly, can apply theories and concepts in practice (learner-content-context interactivity).
To illustrate my teaching practice now, Exhibit 1 offers an annotated sequence of ten slides I use to teach students about a complex management problem (i.e., vicious loops: problems that go from bad to worse to even worse) and how to turn them around.
Exhibit 1: Annotated Sequence of Ten Slides Used to Teach ‘Vicious Loops’
My first slide introduces the topic while I explain it. The second slide refers to the article students have already read before class. Note the embedded link to the NewMindsets ™ content as a reminder.
The third slide provides more details—it also has a direct link to the relevant NewMindsets screen.
I could never cover concepts as easily as I do now without online content. The fourth slide is about application of the theory to a practical, relevant exercise. Students need to submit this in class.
I spend a few moments making sure everyone is familiar with the roller coaster stock market stories e-Powering Tomorrow’s Leaders: Soft Skills Development in Management Education 21

Exhibit 1 (Cont.) that have been front page news for months. In a business school, this most certainly has the attention of every student. Many are market investors already! So the scenario rings true and provides a very relevant example. It also ties to previous lessons we have covered in earlier classes in the term.
Students work in small groups for a few minutes to complete the exercise, then they submit it.
Below are the student responses that were submitted by groups. Note that the instructions are always provided in slides—the students simply need to fill in the space. I have found this particularly effective.
At this point in the class, I pull up and project ‘all’ of the work students have submitted. Yes, there are occasionally some surprises—pictures and comments that give us all a bit of a laugh. Being flexible enough to have fun in this way builds trust in the class so that everyone can participate in a meaningful manner.
Next step in the lesson is to teach students how to stabilize and/or reverse the vicious loop. Direct links to the NewMindsets content are included in the slides as a reference and reminder for students.
22 The IUP Journal of Soft Skills, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2012

Exhibit 1 (Cont.)
Below are a couple of student responses—both taking a different approach to government intervention. We discuss this further to gain more insights about the stock market example, and also about the challenges involved in moving from vicious to virtuous loops. The large class forum is ideal for a topic like this because there are so many different viewpoints.
The last slide in this short lesson is student work from a previous term—an upper year student now. I feature previous student work to showcase creative approaches that prompt more new ideas and more discussion in class. Using examples from upper year students also encourages programwide conversations and collaborative learning between cohorts on common management topics— the foundation for a vibrant learning culture that is thriving at the Schulich School of Business.
e-Powering Tomorrow’s Leaders: Soft Skills Development in Management Education 23

As can be seen from the sequence of ten annotated slides offered in Exhibit 1, the blended learning approach I take in my classes now puts students firmly in the driver’s seat. I know exactly what they can do, and where problems in understanding and application exist as I’m teaching. I go in with a class plan that is flexible enough to allow me to adapt to student needs. For example, I plan my lessons in 20 min increments—this lesson on vicious loop was designed to be completed in 20 min.
If students had trouble with part 1, I would have spent more time there before moving to part 2. Similarly, if they had trouble with part 2 I would have spent more time there and deferred another 20 min lesson to later. This flexible, highly interactive 20 min mix-and-match modularized approach I can take in my classes now means that I cover a lot more content, more easily, than I ever could have in the past. The key is the submission of student work. That enables me to showcase, review, comment and evaluate student work in real time. For students, it provides a rich experience reinforcing what has been learned. Everyone wins. In the second part of the term, I invite practicing managers to join my classes as guests for panel discussions to give students the benefit of firsthand experience. I always include some interactive exercises on the topic to showcase student work and expertise. Needless to say, my guests love to see how we are reinventing teaching and learning—it reinforces the schools’ reputation for innovation.
To monitor ongoing effectiveness of the teaching project, data was collected and analyzed in various ways:
• Quantitative data was gathered as before-after self-assessment skill questionnaires, year-on-year comparisons of course and instructor evaluations (versus base year prior to HP Tablets were introduced), surveys and in-class polling questions. Where appropriate, statistical software was used to evaluate data and analyze trends.
• Qualitative data was collected in online discussion forums, interviews, observations documented in research field notes by the instructor and a team of Research Assistants who were involved in the project since inception, and artifacts of student work and success. Analysis included developing emerging themes from our data and then exploring or testing them the following term to learn more.
The redesign project has proven to be very effective. Figure 5 (Adams, 2010, pp. 461-62) shows the results of before-after skill assessment scores confirming that student soft skill levels did improve. This has been the case every term over the past four years.
Course evaluation scores for improvement in critical thinking have also consistently improved each term.
24 The IUP Journal of Soft Skills, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2012

Figure 5: Analysis of Pre- and Post-Course Competence Development Scores
Aptitude Total Construct *** (0.13)
Creative Thinking * (0.02)
Critical Thinking * (0.04)
Quantitative Analysis *** (0.05)
Quick Thinking * (0.02)
Strategic Thinking ** (0.02)
Action Orientation ** (0.03)
Comfort with Risk ** (0.02)
Day-to-Day Responsibility *** (0.03)
Decisiveness ** (0.03)
Delegating *** (0.05)
Flexibility * (0.02)
Leadership ** (0.03)
Multiple Focus
Persistence * (0.01)
Political Skill ** (0.03)
Power Orientation * (0.02)
Recognition of Opportunity * (0.02)
Resilience *** (0.06)
Time Management
Work Ethic
Ability to Compromise *** (0.05)
Ability to Teach ***
Assertiveness ***
(0.04)
(0.04)
Comfort with Difference *** (0.07)
Conflict Tolerance *** (0.04)
Empathy Skills *** (0.05)
Gaining Trust *** (0.04)
Influence *** (0.08)
Listening Skills *** (0.04)
Merit Orientation *** (0.08)
Motivational Ability *** (0.08)
Openness to Criticism *** (0.08)
Oral Communication *** (0.12)
Organizational Priority *** (0.03)
Projection of Confidence *** (0.09)
Respect for Others *** (0.06)
Self-Control *** (0.03)
Sensitivity and Tact *** (0.06)
Sociability *** (0.13)
Written Communication *** (0.10)
4.0
4.5
5.0
5.5
6.0
6.5
Pre
Post
Paired-sample t -tests were conducted to investigate these score changes. If differences existed, the tstatistic was stated along with its p -value. Also, effect sizes were calculated to determine the magnitude of the differences between means. Effect size interpretation follows Cohen’s (1973) guidelines for partial eta-squared (  2 ). These guidelines are illustrated in Table 1.
All indices (except work ethic and time management) were significantly different from pre-course to post-course. Sociability, oral and written communication, and projection of confidence were indices that saw changes with the strongest effect sizes. The mean scores at both time periods can be seen in summary (Figure 5).
e-Powering Tomorrow’s Leaders: Soft Skills Development in Management Education 25

Range
<0.01
0.01-0.09
0.10-0.24
>0.025
Table 1: Effect Size Guidelines
Magnitude of Effect
Trivial
Small
Medium
Large
My students have also been winning national and international competitions since the course was redesigned. Although this cannot be attributed solely to my course design, students were not winning these awards previously, so it is reasonable, in part, to link their success to the course redesign. Lastly, since adopting this highly interactive strategy, my teaching has been acknowledged in different ways, example, in articles, case studies. I have also been honored to receive York University’s “University-Wide
Teaching Award for Teaching Excellence” at a convocation from York University
President Shoukri—the first time a faculty member from the business school has ever done so.
Based on my experience, here are my top five lessons learned:
Lesson 1: Think about what you want to do—before you do it: Avoid adopting new technology based on novelty-factors. This generally ends up in disaster because the technology becomes little more than an add-on, rather than a powerful tool for advancing student learning. Instead, select technology to enable your pedagogical strategy.
Lesson 2: Collaboration and visibility are essential: Introducing collaborative technologies requires a lot of behind-the-scenes collaboration. Although this may seem obvious, be careful not to underestimate the time and effort this takes. A wide base of support will help you resolve issues as they arise, and ensure resources are available when you need them. It is also a good practice to monitor results of the changes and publicize what you and your students are learning as you go. Give credit where it is due.
Lesson 3: Minimize risk, without diminishing positive impact: Redesigning a course is a risky venture. It is impossible to predict exactly what will happen, regardless of how much research and planning you do. Therefore, it is important to think about how to minimize risk, without diluting the potential impact. Instead of trying to do everything in one term, I spread my risks by introducing new technologies systematically, evaluating
26 The IUP Journal of Soft Skills, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2012

them quickly based on feedback from various stakeholders, and then deciding whether to adopt or drop them in the following terms. My context supports innovation—it is in our school’s mission. This meant I had support at the top—the Dean’s office. Look for ways to build on the issues that are important for your organization to tip the scale in your favor.
Lesson 4: Interactivity can have unexpected spillover effects: When you ask students what they think, the will almost always tell you. And, that will not stop at the classroom doors. It will have spillover effects outside the classroom. Students will seek you out in e-mails, online discussion forums, requests for meetings. Students from years ago are still contacting me with ideas and feedback. Consistency seems to be important
(example, why encourage participation in class, only to shut students out later?) My advice: be prepared for more interactivity and feedback than you may be expecting.
Lesson 5: Learn from your mistakes: There will inevitably be unexpected problems.
Sometimes it will feel as if whatever can go wrong, will. Murphy’s Law! Make sure you have a backup plan. Be prepared to acknowledge the issues students may be facing, give them strategies for dealing with them, and share the rationale for your decisions and choices. I have found that transparency builds trust and therefore, tolerance.
To conclude, one of the main aims of this paper has been to give practical guidance to those interested in using technology to enhance teaching and learning, whether in organizations or higher education institutions. It is important to realize that continuous exploration and innovation are essential to shift from instructor-controlled to empowered, learner-driven learning. A mandate to reinvent higher education seems more important than ever, especially in business education, with the global economic pressures making it essential to find effective ways to improve student learning and soft skills development to meet global leadership challenges that lie ahead (Bloom, 2010; and Bloom and MacBride-King, 2010). The other important message is how adopting a mix of technologies can revitalize student learning—especially in large classes. Even a small change can have a significant and positive effect.
Acknowledgment: This project would not have been possible without support from my colleagues Ron McClean, Gareth Morgan, Kurt Binnie, Ali Makooie, Tony d’Agostino, the IS&T
Team, Jamie Savage, Ian Lumb, my Research Assistants and Deszo Horvath—Dean of the
Schulich School of Business. I would also like to thank HP for the technology of teaching grants awarded to my school. A special ‘thank you’ to Jim Vanides of HP for his tireless support and contagious enthusiasm for innovating higher education. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge my debt to all my students, many of whom have graduated and are now empowering employees on their own.
e-Powering Tomorrow’s Leaders: Soft Skills Development in Management Education 27

1. Adams J (2010), “The Soft Skills Learning Triangle: A Learning Model for
Supporting Online Management & Leadership Development”, Journal of
Interactive Learning Research , Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 437-463.
2. Bloom M (2010), “The Office of the 2020: We Need It Yesterday”, Globe & Mail ,
April 9, 2010, A17.
3. Bloom M and MacBride-King J (2010), “Navigating Through the Storm: Leaders and the World of Work in 2020”, Conference Board of Canada, available at http:/
/www.conferenceboard.ca/documents.aspx?did=3541
4. Cohen J (1973), “Eta-Squared and Partial Eta-Squared in Fixed Factor ANOVA
Designs”, Educational and Psychological Measurement , Vol. 33, pp. 107-112.
5. Morgan G (1971), “Higher Education as Bucket-Filling”, Times Higher Education .
6. Morgan G and Adams J (2009), “Pedagogy First! Making Web-Technologies Work for Soft-Skills Development in Leadership and Management Education”, Journal of Interactive Learning Research, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 129-156.
7. Pagliaro J (2009), “Networking U: How IT is Helping Educators Engage Students in New Way”, Maclean’s , November 16, pp. 98-100.
1. For a case study about this project written by DyKnow, see http://www.dyknow.
com/company/eotm/2009/jadams.aspx
2. For an HP case study written about this project, see http://h10084. www1.hp.com/ canada/portal/public/success_stories/yorku.html
3. For more details about e-Powering Tomorrows Leaders HP Funded Research Project at Schulich School of Business, see http://hpresearch.schulich.yorku.ca/
4. For more details about NewMindsets for New Times Collection of Learning
Resources e-Learning System, see http://www.newmindsets.com
5. For more details about DyKnow collaborative software, see http://www.dyknow.com/
6. For the Ontario University Computing Conference (OUCC) presentation in Ottawa
(May, 2010) by Kurt Binnie and Jean Adams about this project, see http://2010.
oucc.ca/program/presentation-panel-e-learning
Reference # 50J-2012-06-02-01
28 The IUP Journal of Soft Skills, Vol. VI, No. 2, 2012