The material included below provides insights into my teaching philosophy and the way that it manifests itself in my courses with specific examples. This section also includes sample course projects and exercises (which demonstrate student success), letters of support from faculty and community partners, sample syllabi, evidence of advising, and student references.

Teaching Philosophy

The ultimate goal of the educational experience is to help students acquire skills (tools), experiences, and perspectives that will help them lead...

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Meaningful education takes dedication and hard work on the part of the student and the teacher.  We need to create an environment, that challenges students to do more than they know they can do, in a way that is both fun and interesting.  The teacher must be willing to learn from students as well.  We all have so much more to gain by establishing a collaborative partnership with educational excellence as the objective. 

Teaching Philosophy In Practice

So, with these thoughts in mind…  Here is how they translate into practice.

In the classroom, the focus is on having a guided discussion with students rather than just lectures.  I ask questions to get students engaged in the discussion. A portion of the grade for my on campus courses includes attendance and participation.  When students are not participating actively, I call on them to get them more involved in the discussion and help build their participation points.  I like to know (and call on) my students by first name in order to make the conversation more personal.  This type of interactive learning can help keep the class material interesting and keep students connected to the topic(s).

The class sessions are guided with PowerPoint slides. This helps with the structure and flow of class.  The slides are posted on Canvas in advance of class.  A liberal amount of video clips and exercises are used throughout the discussion. The whiteboard is used to highlight important points and walk through specific examples.  The variation in learning medium helps break up the flow to keep things fresh and interesting.  Students these days are used to consuming video on their smartphones and computers.  By embracing this medium, and other digital tools, we can create more engagement then a canned lecture would provide.

When selecting discussion topics and videos, I try choose topics that are related to popular culture or current events.  Class discussions become a lot more meaningful for students when they can see these same concepts at work in everyday life. There are discussion segments that investigate “the numbers” behind the Super Bowl, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even Cinco de Mayo – in our economy there is a business component to most holidays.

It is one thing to talk about buyouts, takeovers, and the dangers of having too much leverage (debt) in a firm’s capital structure.  It is quite another to play news reports covering the Haggen acquisition of 146 Safeway/Albertson stores in 2015 (growing from 18 to 164 stores overnight); and then tracking their progress in factoids and news clips; including the high profile bankruptcy that occurred less than 12 months later. In classes where we have this discussion, most of the students can point to a store in their home town, or someone they know, who was affected. This not only gives us the opportunity to discuss the course concepts (e.g. finance, marketing, strategy…), but also how this type of behavior impacts students and the entire community (social responsibility).

In marketing class, rather than just talking about differentiation and positioning for consumer products, I show students different brands of macaroni and cheese – most students can identify with this example.  We talk about their own preferences and buying behavior.  Some students have a brand preference for national brands like Kraft, and are willing to pay the premium for it; while others would prefer the house brand to save a couple bucks. We explore pictures of the packaging and see that not all house brands are the same either.  We can talk about different product variations (e.g. boxed, packaged with liquid cheese, canned, frozen, warm from the deli counter, …) and what providers are trying to accomplish with each offering.

In many cases, I take this one step further and get the students to step outside the class and engage with their environment as well. So, in this example, I send students to the store and tell them to take pictures of the offerings, along with displays (if any), and come back to class prepared to discuss what they saw. This tends to make the concepts even more concrete and gets students actively involved in the topic.  

In marketing class, to re-enforce a discussion on creativity and innovation, we created our own episode of Chopped, modeled after the Food Network TV show, with macaroni and cheese as the featured ingredient. Students worked together to create the rule for the contest, I provided the noodles and a host of different ingredients, and the students had to create offerings to reach different (consumer) audiences. The woman’s softball team came in to judge the event for us. The students who were in this class still bring it up when I see them. In fact, some students who were not in the class, ask me when we will offer this again.

Now to specific classes

In marketing promotions, I worked with students to make a list on the board of all the possible places they could go to buy a pizza.  We worked together to prioritize this list.  Then the students broke into groups and each group went to visit one provider on the list.  They took pictures, interviewed at least one person working there, and got information on pricing and delivery (where available).  Then they came back to class and we mapped each offering based on target audience, price point, key attributes of the offering (pizza, location, setting …), and other relevant factors. As the exercise developed it became much easier for students to identify specific market segments and the marketing mix associated with each offering.  

These students were able to discover the lesson, based on their own experience, and working with a topic that was meaningful to them.  We finished off the session with a pizza from Domino’s. We also hosted a session with Jessy Watson, owner of the local Domino’s franchise, and Assistant Coach of the men’s soccer team, so that he could share the challenges and rewards of competing as a pizza provider in the local market.

We’ve had students conduct surveys on campus and in the community, visit local stores and businesses, and experience offerings we are studying first-hand.  We can’t do this kind of thing for every lesson, but when we can, the students appear to be much more engaged, and recall seems to improve.  I do my best to connect the classroom to the outside world, and the community, whenever possible.  
 

In addition, in all my classes we embrace technology like email, Canvas, Zoom, and YouTube. Courses, both online and on campus, are organized in Canvas by weekly module.  The readings, discussion topics, and assignments for the entire term are laid out. All assignments must be submitted on Canvas (no paper). Quizzes are also administered on Canvas which saves valuable class time and also provides students with immediate feedback.  This also allows students to track their grades and even perform “what if” analysis on future assignments (grades).  Our graduates will work in a world where technology and automation are commonplace and both will continue to advance quickly. Our students need to be comfortable working in this environment with contemporary tools.

Finally, one of the most powerful techniques is to expose students to hero’s – those who have been successful in a professional environment – business people, entrepreneurs, elected officials, thought leaders…  Our students need to be exposed to successful people, learn from their experiences, and take away the idea that “if they can do it, I can too!”  We invite these inspirational leaders to class either in person or virtually using tools like Zoom.  Pub Talks (see eClub) were established on the same basic principle.  Here is representative sample of class visitors (30+) we have hosted.

Representative Class Visitors
 

Now to specific classes…

BA 498, Business Policy & Strategy, is the capstone for undergraduate business students, and is a course that I’ve taught for many years, at several different universities.

The goal of the capstone is to bring together everything that students have learned from their degree program – accounting, finance, marketing, management, operations, and more.  We do this on two different levels.  First, students are required to cover the core business policy and strategy curriculum presented in the textbook – augmented with current examples/readings.  This includes readings, class discussions, and online exams to help evaluate progress.

Students are also required to complete a real-world group consulting project with a community partner. The projects chosen benefit the community in some way, but they also give the students the opportunity to apply their skills in a practical fashion. The projects also have enough substance that they can be used on the students resume and they also have the opportunity to build professional contacts that could help in the future.

Unlike problems pulled directly from the textbook, these problems do not have just one right answer. I build relationships with the client and manage the projects for the class.  However, students have to negotiate a Statement of Work (SoW) and a set of deadlines directly with the client.  They need to manage common problems like incomplete data, unrealistic client expectations, phone calls that are not returned, team partners who do not contribute fully or communicate well …  This is just like the real world.

This is a new experience for most students. There are many who just want “the answer” – even though there may not be one “right” answer.  Honestly, in life, there are times when there are no good answers. Sometimes we just have to choose the least objectionable of the bad outcomes that are available.

I work hard to coach and nurture them through the process.  We discuss obstacles and different approaches and tie them to concepts that are discussed in the curriculum.  Students can sometimes have a “deer in the headlights” look for the first six weeks and then break-through and deliver. There is tremendous pride visible pride once students have presented the final results to the client.  

The projects are presented to the client in person for on-campus courses – online students develop a YouTube presentation to share with the client. Students are required to present their work professionally, answer questions in real-time, and explain/defend their results and recommendations.

In general, clients are pleasantly surprised with the results and grateful for the help. This sentiment is communicated by clients in the reference letters to the right. In fact, at a recent Pub Talk event (1/9/2019), Nicole Lewis, a rising country music star, praised the work of our BA 498 students, and shared their work with the audience.  The bulk of our current work comes from the referrals of prior clients.

Client References

1. URAC re-appointment
2. 2017 awards
3. 2017 process feedback
4. 2016 awards