Concepts
Teaching and Learning Newsletter
May 2012
Teaching and Learning @ Beedie
Teaching is a concept, a process and a goal. Our dedicated teachers and educators in
the Beedie School of Business promote and encourage active learning. They bring new
knowledge into the classroom, based on research and experience, which enriches
students’ learning environment. Innovations in course design and delivery allow our
teachers to support active and participatory learning at all levels. This newsletter
highlights the accomplishments of our Faculty as well as promotes news, events and
workshops to learn more about teaching and learning.
In this issue:
• Professor Carolyn Egri receives
Oustanding Educator Award
• Jan Kietzmann on Designing SFU
Mobile
• Creating a Vision for Beedie’s
Teaching & Learning Group
• Interactive Polling and Student
Engagement
• News, events and workshops
TEACHING EXCELLENCE
Events & Workshops
Professor Carolyn Egri receives
Outstanding Educator Award
Dr. Carolyn Egri, a professor of management and
organization studies at the Beedie School of Business
at Simon Fraser University, has been announced as
the recipient of the David L. Bradford Outstanding
Educator Award for 2012 from the Organizational
Behaviour Teaching Society for Management
Educators (OBTS).
The award, named after David L. Bradford, the
founder of OBTS, recognizes an individual or group
demonstrating lifetime achievement with a focus on teaching and learning excellence,
who impacts the field as a whole, with their innovations and ideas extending to a wide
audience. Egri will be presented with the award at the Organizational Behaviour Teaching
Conference, to be held in June 2012 at Brock University.
Egri has taught in the EMBA program for over two decades, and is a past winner of
SFU’s TD Canada Trust Distinguished Teaching Award, the highest teaching honour of
its kind at the Beedie School. The Bradford award comes after Egri was recently named
the Beedie School of Business’s inaugural William J.A. Rowe EMBA Alumni Professor.
In addition to teaching leadership at the EMBA level as well as sustainability and
research methodologies classes in the Segal Graduate School, Egri has also contributed
substantially to OBTS, having been a member since 1988, and serving on the Board of
Directors from 1995-1998.
Egri is currently an Associate Editor for Academy of Management Learning & Education,
and is a past Chair of the Organizations and the Natural Environment Division of the
Academy of Management. She serves on a variety of academic journal editorial boards
and has over 68 publications and 110 conference presentations on international
management, corporate environmental and social responsibility, leadership,
organizational change, and management education to her name.
About the OBTS
The mission of the OBTS is to recognize and enhance teaching and learning in the
management disciplines. The national OBTC 2012 Teaching Conference for Management
Educators will be hosted by Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, June
20–23, 2012. You can find out more and learn how to register at: http://www.obts.org/
http://beedie.sfu.ca/teaching
Instructional Skills Workshop
Dates: May 2–4
Time: 8:30 am–5 pm
Location: SFU Burnaby
This
internationally
recognized
forum for peer-based instructional
development will strengthen your
teaching skills through intensive yet
practical exercises in learning-centred
teaching. For details and to register >>
Symposium on Teaching & Learning:
Leading Change @SFU
Dates: May 16–17
Location: SFU Burnaby
Join other SFU educators as we explore
some key teaching and learning
initiatives, share recent work, and
discuss how our collective efforts can
transform the student experience. For
details and to register by May 4 >>
Your Teaching Portfolio, a SMART
Approach
Dates: June 12 & 26 (Burnaby) or June
13 & 27 (Surrey)
Times: 9am-12pm (Burnaby) or 1-4pm
(Surrey)
Locations: SFU Burnaby & SFU Surrey
This two-part series is offered at both
SFU Burnaby and SFU Surrey. In the
first of two workshops, we will discuss
the rationale for teaching portfolios,
examine a generic model (adaptable to
your discipline standards), and learn
a common language used to discuss
teaching and learning approaches.
To learn more and to register before
the deadline follow this link >>
For more information on events and
workshops visit the Teaching & Learning
Centre website: http://tlcentre.sfu.ca/
TEACHING DEVELOPMENT
Beedie Teachers are
Leading Change @ SFU
Jan Kietzmann on Designing SFU Mobile
by David Rubeli
Jan Kietzmann in the Beedie School of Business, was a co-applicant with Ted
Kirkpatrick (Applied Science), John Bowes (FCAT) and Rob Cameron (Applied Science)
for one of SFU’s newest teaching grants. They have been awarded the $10,000 large
teaching grant, which will be used to support and develop a project titled “Designing
SFU Mobile”. SFU Mobile will be a 15-credit, cohort based, multidisciplinary course
to be offered at the Surrey campus in Summer 2012. It will be co-taught by Faculty
from Business, Computing Science and Interactive Arts and Technology and will draw
students from those majors.
The course design draws
from the successful model of
SFU’s Semester in Dialogue
program but adds new
elements. Where the Dialogue
program emphasizes dialogue
as a field of study and practice
in its own right (students
enrol in DIAL courses),
SFU Mobile will emphasize
the skills students have
learned in their respective
disciplines, demanding that
they coordinate their talents
with other specialists in
service of a larger goal,
receiving 400-level credit in
their own department. SFU
Mobile will also emphasize
product
development,
delivering
road
maps,
concept demonstrations, and
business plans.
SFU Symposium on Teaching and
Learning
Beedie will be well-represented at this
year’s Symposium on Teaching and
Learning, which takes place at SFU
Burnaby on May 16-17. The theme of this
year’s conference is Leading Change @
SFU, and sessions will explore ways to
improve student learning experiences in
courses and programs. Several sessions
will cover topics of interest to Beedie
faculty members and staff, including
addressing student work experience, health
promoting classrooms, leadership identity
development, and empowering Generation
1.5 and EAL students.
Consider
supporting
our
Beedie
colleagues who will be presenting:
• Andrew Gemino will facilitate an
interdisciplinary plenary discussion on
“Practicing Engagement”.
• Jan Kietzmann, who will participate
in a panel discussion about upperdivision cohort programs, along with SFU
Surrey faculty leaders of the innaugeral
Semester in Innovation cohort program.
• Stephanie Bertels and colleagues
from Geography and Chemistry, will
engage in a dialogue about the idea of
engaged scholarship and how they use
this pedagogy to achieve education for
sustainable development.
The distinctly different intent
of SFU Mobile, its heterogenous participants, its aim of building on and polishing the
disparate disciplinary skills of the participating students, will require developing a
distinctly different structure and outcomes than have been used for the Semester in
Dialogue. The Teaching and Learning Development Grant is crucial for this process.
Critical is the hiring of an inquiry team (different from the teaching team) to help
facilitate development of the original learning outcomes, and independently evaluate
the success of both the course activities and the stated learning outcomes. During the
actual course, the inquiry team will maintain some distance from the instructors. This
will allow the inquiry team to maintain a disinterested perspective on the decisions of the
instructional team. It will also be important in sustaining the students’ confidence that
they can express concerns to the inquiry team without any affect on their relationship
to the instructional team and their ultimate grades. After the course is concluded, the
instructional and inquiry teams will collaborate to evaluate the course.
About Teaching & Learning Grants
These grants were created to recognize teaching development as scholarly activity and
to stimulate the development, implementation, and investigation of innovative teaching
and learning at SFU. Learn more about these grants and how you can apply at: http://
www.sfu.ca/teachlearn/tlgrants.html
http://beedie.sfu.ca/teaching
In addition, Julia Christensen Hughes,
Dean of the College of Management and
Economics at the University of Guelph,
will deliver the opening keynote address.
Dr. Christensen Hughes’s talk will draw
on research and insights from higher
education reform initiatives in Ontario to
discuss external influences and economic
pressures facing universities in Canada
and systemic barriers to change that SFU
and other institutions must confront.
For more information about the Symposium
or to register, visit the TLC website. See
the preliminary event schedule here. The
keynotes addresses and plenary sessions
will be recorded and resources will be
archived for those unable to attend.
Consultation Services
David Rubeli is the
Beedie School of
Business Educational
Consultant. If you are
working on an aspect
of your teaching,
revising a course or
program, or pondering
a big question or issue related to business
education, David would be pleased to hear
from you and happy to consult. You can
reach him at 778-782-2278, drubeli@sfu.ca
or @drubeli on Twitter.
TEACHING and LEARNING GROUP
Creating a Vision for Beedie’s Teaching and Learning
Group
On February 6, a wine and cheese gathering was held to get our teachers involved in
creating a vision for the Beedie School’s new Teaching and Learning Group. There was a
great turnout, with 22 people in attendance. Shauna Jones, Coordinator of the Teaching
and Learning Group, gathered input on the following questions:
1. What would you envision for the Beedie School’s
Teaching Group for the next three years?
2. What do you want from the teaching group?
3. What initiatives would best support your needs?
2nd Annual Teaching and
Learning Luncheon
The Teaching and Learning Luncheon will
be held this year in early November. It
will be structured similarly to last years
luncheon, which was a great success.
Each session will be supported with
literature on the topic of discussion, a
guest speaker(s), and discussions on the
pedagogical implications of the particular
topics. In the coming months you will
receive a ‘save the
date’ email, and we
hope you will be able
to join us.
From the input gathered at the initial kickoff, a draft of the
Teaching Groups Vision and Mission statement was formed:
Vision
The international business education community will
recognize the Beedie School of Business Teaching and
Learning Group as a leader in engaged and experiential
learning.
Mission
We are committed to the collective and individual
development of scholarly teaching within the BSB. We engage faculty and students
to foster effective outcome-oriented learning environments. We model and share
successful scholarly best practices that encourage great students.
For now, these are considered “draft” statements. Try them on and see how they
fit. If you have comments or suggestions, please submit them to shaunaj@sfu.ca.
Representatives from the Teaching and Learning Group will also be soliciting feedback
from students before the statements are finalized.
The input from the kickoff also demonstrated several key themes about what teachers
want: opportunities to learn with and from others, opportunities for teaching
development, and opportunities to share with others. There were some great ideas
about how this might be accomplished. It was decided to start this year with interactive
sessions and expand the offerings next year. Mark your calendars for the upcoming
sessions in 2012:
Interactive Polling - May 24 from 2:30-4:30pm
Language and Writing - October 2 from 10am-12pm
If you are interested in the full results from the kickoff session, they can be found here.
To ensure our 2013 offerings are pertinent to our teachers, your input is needed. Please
take five minutes to complete the following survey. Teaching Survey. Please use your
regular SFU login ID and password to access the survey. It will remain open until May 31.
The Teaching and Learning Group is open to all Faculty members, Sessionals and others
who are teaching. Your participation is a valuable asset in bringing to life the vision for
the Beedie School’s Teaching and Learning Group.
Interactive Polling and
Student Engagement
Would you like to learn more about
interactive polling and ways to use
classroom response systems to engage
with your students and to informally
assess their learning? Are you curious
about Poll Everywhere and how colleagues
at Beedie have been experimenting with it
over the last year?
Shauna Jones, Andrew Gemino and David
Rubeli will be co-hosting a session on May
24 (14:30-16:30) to explore best practices
from the first phase of the Poll Everywhere
pilot project in the B.BA program.
The session will review the goals and
outcomes of the pilot project, introduce
the basics of interactive polling pedagogy
and Poll Everywhere, and feature
discussion and dialogue amongst Beedie
faculty who have been experimenting
with Poll Everywhere over the last year.
David will present an analysis of some
quality assurance data that he and
Andrew Gemino collected in BUS 201 last
fall. Andrew Gemino will present some
proposed options for expanding the Poll
Everywhere pilot project in 2012/13 and
solicit feedback from the group to inform
his decision-making on how best to move
forward.
For a brief look at interactive polling
in Beedie: YouTube Video. For more
information and to pre-register contact
shaunaj@sfu.ca.
http://beedie.sfu.ca/teaching
Certificate Program for
Graduate Students
TECHNOLOGY and TEACHING
SFU’s WebCT Replacement Project
In December 2012, Blackboard Inc., the company that delivers the WebCT learning
management system (LMS), will stop supporting it. The platform will still work,
and SFU will continue to provide internal support for courses built in WebCT,
but Blackboard’s decision has prompted the university to start considering what
technologies it will use to support teaching and learning after that date.
The choice of a new platform will involve technical considerations, but above all it
will be about creating an environment that allows the SFU community – including
instructors, students, and staff – to develop imaginative and effective new approaches
to teaching and learning. The starting point for this initiative is an SFU-wide
consultation process to ensure that everyone with an interest in the decision can
contribute thoughts and comments. The end point will depend on what we hear. The
solution might be another learning management system, but it could also be a range
or combination of systems and technologies.
Specifically, the project proposal outlines three objectives:
1. Find a reasonable solution for the majority of faculty, staff, and student users, to
replace essential functionality and position SFU to take advantage of emerging trends
(e.g., mobile technologies, assessment and feedback capabilities, instant messaging,
whiteboard and application sharing, voice boards, peer-to-peer sharing tools, etc.)
2. Ensure that instructors, students, and support staff are prepared for the transition
3. Ensure that ongoing maintenance and support for the implemented solution are
adequate and effective
The implementation of new technologies to support teaching and learning will allow
SFU to enhance the student experience by adding capabilities for teaching and
learning in creative ways. It’s an opportunity not only to respond to, but to anticipate
the needs and demands of a dynamic teaching and learning environment at SFU. At its
very core, the search for appropriate technologies is about the development of new,
creative, expanded, and relevant approaches to enrich teaching and learning at the
university.
If you have input you would like to share, you can do so face-to-face, or via the project
website. Some key questions to think about and that you can respond to include:
1. What would your ideal online teaching and learning environment look like at SFU?
2. Have you used WebCT or another learning management system (please specify)? If
so, what were the best and worst elements of this system?
3. If WebCT were replaced by a smorgasbord of tools rather than a single learning
management system, how would it affect your teaching and learning?
You can contact the webct project replacement team at replacewebct@sfu.ca or visit
the website at: http://www.sfu.ca/replacewebct.html.
If you have any teaching news to report or you know of events or workshops around teaching
and learning, please contact us. Any feedback or comments is appreciated. Please send any
comments or teaching news to gis1@sfu.ca or shaunaj@sfu.ca.
http://beedie.sfu.ca/teaching
Do you have a graduate student who
intends to apply for a teaching position?
Are you a graduate student who wants to
improve and develop your teaching skills?
Then the Teaching and Learning Centre,
in collaboration with the Dean of Graduate
Studies, is now offering a four-month,
120-hour, Senate-approved non-credit
certificate program to assist graduate
students striving for employment in postsecondary institutions. The program is
offered in the spring and fall each year.
This program aims to:
•Provide participants with the knowledge,
skills, positive attitude, and confidence to
promote learning in their students
•Integrate learning and instructional
theory with an individual’s knowledge
of his or her subject, emphasizing a
scholarly approach to teaching
•Prepare program graduates to provide
educational leadership in their academic
endeavours
Applications for the fall 2012 program will
open shortly with an application deadline
of June 4, 2012. To learn more and to
register
visit:
http://www.sfu.ca/tlc/
programming/cputl/dates.html.
ETUG Spring Workshop
2012: What’s on Your
Horizon?
Innovation – a buzzword, but what does
it really mean? How do you incorporate
new ideas, tools and methods into your
practice as an educator, instructional
designer, educational technologist or
student?
This spring the Educational Technology
Users Group invites you to explore
“Innovation: What’s on Your Horizon?” at
Vancouver Community College located
in Downtown Vancouver. Come join us
at the ETUG workshop and share your
experiences of innovative practices and
emerging trends in higher ed in BC. There
will be a variety of sessions to attend on
topics such as ‘Innovative Teaching and
Learning Practices”, “Innovative use of
Educational Technology”, “Cultivating
Innovation” and more! Session details and
a schedule to come soon.
These workshops will take place
from June 6-8, 2012 at the Vancouver
Community College downtown campus.
For more information and to register, visit
the ETUG website here.