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Seven years ago the primary author was first asked to teach a variant of a first year information systems course for business (non-IS) students. Students were introduced to the standard first year Management Information Systems textbook approach (see Oz, 2006, for an example). At this time, the course was very much what could be described as first-loop learning oriented (Agryris & Schon, 1996) and deep underpinning concepts were not tested, explored, or developed. Students were instead exposed to a series of concepts about information systems (such as lectures on decision support systems, expert systems, management systems and the tried and tested SDLC--systems development life cycle), and without the proper 'critical' (Mezirow, 1990) transformational aspects of a course that is considered to be part of the adult learning experience (see Meyer, Land, & Davies, 2006). Due to the rigid structure of the course, and the perfunctory nature in which topics were presented and delivered, the course suffered at the hands of student evaluations and lacked discernible learning outcomes. Students were not able to move beyond the standard learning of 'facts' and recalling definitions because conceptually the course promoted and incentivised surface level learning approaches. Deep learning and scaffolding were not possible due to the linear structure based on what the authors call the 'shotgun' or 'scrugged' approach to IS. By focusing on a series of concepts about IS instead of the fundamental role of IS in a business context, the students were not able to reflect beyond the series of unrelated concepts to the meta-concepts or core themes of the discipline. Deep learning in this sense became impossible because each week saw a new conceptual structure, new knowledge and in some cases very little thematic content for students to reflect upon. The course began as a somewhat traditional service course to the Griffith University Business faculty and was aptly named Business Information Systems. In 2007, the course had become unpopular and resulted in what at the time a senior management Professor called the worst rated course in the entire management school, even falling behind Business Statistics! Others researching in the area have come across similar problems (see for example Scime, Andoh-Bandoo, Bush, & Osatuyi, 2009; Von Hellens, Neilsen, Clayton, & Beehuyzen, 2009) in regards to the massive scope of information systems teaching. A new team was formed and the resultant processes lead to a reconceptualisation of the subject into the current offering: Business Informatics. During this process the course went from a surface level approach to an approach that focused on deep learning. The Lecturers in the course noticed (semester 1 2009) that the shift has produced some evidence of deep learning around some the core concepts of IS instead of the shallow learning that seemed to follow the previous model. This paper presents the shift between the two approaches and argues that there is a case to be made for changing courses in IS from a 'scrugged' approach in which shallow learning prevails, to a more thematic offering in which the meta-concepts of IS are teased out, analysed, and reflecting on. The paper introduces the two conceptual structures to show the key differences between the course then and now, and then proceeds to an analysis of recent student data that shows some evidence of learning and reflecting around the deep concepts of IS. The paper concludes with a brief discussion around what the authors hold to be some important implications for IS teaching. Deep Learning in IS In the literature surrounding adult learning, 'Threshold Concepts' (Meyer et al., 2006) bring to attention the idea that some ideas are transformational in that they have the power to open up a deeper learning cycle, at the assumption-shifting level (Agryis, 2008; Mitroff & Linstone 1993) where students questions their assumptions about what they know and move to the deeper realm of reconceptualisation of ideas and into reflective thinking. …

Making Information Systems less Scrugged: Reflecting on the Processes of Change in Teaching and Learning