In a classic Saturday Night Live skit in the seventies, Don Novello, in character as Father Guido Sarducci, skewered higher education by proposing to open the Five Minute University. The institution would teach basic statements which students would parrot back, in effect achieving what they would have retained five years after graduation. The skit was a huge success for Novello, because it characterized the state of learning in higher education at that time.
Over thirty years later, we seek to understand what is necessary for MIS students to truly learn and find that the discipline’s conceptualization of learning remains largely consistent with the practices mocked in the skit. Although academia’s main mission is to educate students, many faculty continue to rely on pedagogies that focus on memorization, and on assessments that focus on students parroting back answers. This essay explores the components of learning as outlined in Ambrose et al. 2010, applies them to MIS, and makes recommendations to the discipline for improving student learning