Current Teaching Philosophy

Through my experiences as an instructor, and life in general, I believe that everybody learns differently, and there is no one method or setting that works equally for everybody. I believe it is my role as an educator to work with students and provide a flexible multiple‐method learning environment which challenges and inspires them so that they ultimately feel capable of applying their new knowledge and understanding to their chosen profession.

The material itself must be contemporary and relevant. While elements of courses may be theoretical, my courses are in the applied fields of business and information systems so I constantly seek engaging activities, case studies, and timely examples from the real world to provide to students. This demonstrates to students the relationship between material in class and how it is applied outside of a classroom setting.

I believe a learning environment with multiple teaching techniques is more likely to pique student interest and enhance any personal learning preferences students may have. When leading a course, typical methods I use include lectures, demonstrations such as worksheets and videos, collaboration exercises such as group work and group assignments, experiential exercises using industry tools, case methods, practitioner guest presenters, and student presentations. I also employ the use of stop‐start‐continue evaluations after three or four classes to tailor the remaining parts of the course for students’ needs.

I feel it is also important to challenge students for responses by asking questions throughout a lecture. This is to make sure they are engaged, are thinking about the material, and understand previously covered material which relates to current content. These questions benefit students by cultivating independent thinking, creative problem solving, and reinforcing previously covered material.

Besides multiple‐method learning, I also believe in multiple testing and evaluation techniques to balance out individual strengths and weaknesses students may have. Assignments should be challenging, but with sufficient time and materials all students should have the capability to do well. They are given to individuals to test and confirm knowledge, and given to groups to foster teamwork, as teamwork is integral for many careers. I provide difficult practice problems to prepare students for the worst that they may encounter in the course, but for formal evaluation I provide a mix of easy and tough problems such that students who did the work and know the theory will excel. My examinations feature true‐false and multiple choice questions, problems, and short answer essay questions. Students have evaluated my exams as being extremely fair.

As far as supporting students outside of the classroom, my availability is not restricted to a weekly classes. I facilitate continual learning and accessibility through the integration of an online course management system to maintain open lines of communication and provide students with supplementary learning resources, problems, solutions, and a schedule of future learning topics so that students can test, accelerate, and extend their learning if they desire. I am also able to address any unanswered questions from class, and share the information with the entire class at once. In addition to the online system, I also make myself accessible for consultation throughout the week via email and phone, and I will schedule appointments or Skype chats as required. This allows me to be more accessible and productive by eliminating fixed office hours for students who may not appear, may have to compete for limited time and attention with other students, or may have scheduling conflicts.

Finally, I provide and encourage students to review and write prior samples of my examinations so they understand my expectations of them on what material is to be known and how it will be tested.