J. David Riel
Principles of Instruction
EDP740 – Teaching Profile
2/16/2015
Part I – Student and Educator Experiences. Describe your experiences as a student.
Describe your experiences as an educator. NOTE: If you have not taught before, then respond to the
following prompts on what approaches you might want to use.
My student experiences will be broken down by schooling types:
Pre-school: I didn’t experience a traditional pre-school environment, but my dad was a
stay at home dad who was very interested in getting my intellectual path started at an early age.
He had purchased my first computer (in 1980, at age 4) before I started kindergarten and in
which he had started to teach me simple programming skills in BASIC. He also started teaching
me math skills, and I dfistinctly remember being able to calculate multiplication tables up to 12
before I had started kindergarten. I don’t recall too much more from my response to his
teachings as it was a very young age, but I did seem to latch onto what he helped me learn
pretty quickly.
Primary School: Throughout all grades up to Secondary, I was basically a straight A
student. I was placed in some honor’s classes, though not of my own volition. I performed pretty
well in school, not because I was highly motivated to learn. In fact, I felt like I was able to get by
in my schooling because of my natural abilities, which in some cases may have been a downfall
of mine as it created a sort of lack-a-daisical approach to school. In any regard, my strongest
areas of learning were in Math and Science. In math, for example, I was placed in a grade
higher math course than all of the other students as I was excelling in this area. I look back on
that and I realize that it was my teacher that had a keen interest in my math abilities and pushed
me to excel. I did well all through primary and into secondary, both in math and all of my other
courses.
The introduction to Secondary school was a bit rougher for me. I’m not sure what the
cause was, as I was actively involved in many things; sports, music, chess club, etc. that all
seem to have positive effects on cognition, sociability, psychology, but maybe I was too actively
involved and was no longer able to rely just on my wit to get me by. I continued to enroll in
honors classes and some other classes that were of interest along the core, and did well. It
would be hard for me to compare the differences in an honors vs. non (since I didn’t take both
versions obviously!), but if I had to, I would say the honors courses were more excelled, used
functions or theories that may have been from a future class, or non-required class but for those
deeply interested in the subject. My feeling is that if you were able to keep up with the pace of
the class, and the added amounts of work, then you could do just fine in those classes.
In High School, I also continued in the same regard. Some honors classes and doing
well in my core studies, but I really wasn’t interested in school at this time. I was much more
likely to want to go hang out with my friends, play music (which I was greatly into at the time), or
wander outside of the school instead of being a book nerd. I did always respect authority and
the classroom, but I had a tendency to skip classes in High School which never happened in
previous years. I think the environment just didn’t jive with me like some of the other students.
The anomaly of this was the fact that I was still heavily active in sports, chess, and music,
among other things. Though I do believe being an athlete helped me in many ways to build
particular characteristics, as well as music and chess helped to mold and shape my cognitive
ability.
In my undergrad, I didn’t go straight from high school, and I would say this was a product
of my disinterest in school at the time. In fact, I waited to go to school until I was 24, and it was
to a technical institute (PTI). I went to get a certification from Microsoft called the Microsoft
Certified Systems Engineer, which was pretty popular for computer minded people interested in
becoming network and system engineers without going the four year route. It was a grueling 1
year of 4 day 4 hour sessions straight from January to December (while I worked two jobs). It
however was a great course because you were taught from someone in the industry that new a
lot about how domain relationships and server creation worked, which allowed us to better learn
the material (and not just from what we read or attempted to create). Having this component
definitely made a difference in my learning in this degree.
My undergrad was done also while working full time. This was also the first time I had a
crash course in really needing to be proactive about certain aspects of my college career. I
never met with my advisor, only following the recommended curriculum for my degree. In a way,
this made my college experience a little drab as I didn’t have a complete sense of what courses
would go well in my professional career, more leaning towards what I thought was fun to take at
the time. So this was a valuable lesson to me which I took into my graduate studies.
In my masters, I felt more of an inclination to meet at least once a semester with my
advisor to get a good feel of what I should be concentrating on. Some of the coursework was a
little rougher than others, mainly because I am more of a visual learner, and some classes
tended to be very theory/lecture based and were hard for me to concentrate on for 3+ hours at a
time. I also wanted to pay more attention to courses that would be beneficial to my professional
career, even taking some classes that would not be seen as “fun” to the average student. I also
got back into some extra-curricular activities that I didn’t do in my undergrad, which created
more of a social connection to the school as well as helped me network and get a good feel for
what I wanted to do next, My PhD, which is where I am at now!
As an instructor, I have only taught in graduate level classes, so in some ways, this has
been easier on me. One aspect that is easier is the motivation of the students. They are more
interested in the work, working hard, and really entering into a competitive style of learning. This
makes the grades very important to them, which can create different motivations, some not so
good (such as academic integrity issues), but generally this works well for them and for me. My
style is more in the discussion than the lecture. I’m more interested in throwing some ideas out
there and having the feedback from the students start to take over the driving, with my
knowledge and experience helping to navigate them through the course. Some of the courses
are different in their requirements. GIS, for instance, more requires them to do specific tasks in
1 or maybe 2 ways, but usually something fairly specific with a little leeway in the design. It’s
much more in line with the practicality of what the class has to offer. In another class, Digital
Transformation, it’s more about the deeper analysis of a problem and working through solutions,
based on their experience and knowledge of specific subject matter in business and technology.
Much more theory is involved, and though there should be a legitimate solution proposed, the
answers can tend to vary widely. My job is to make sure that the answers are in line with the
case, make sense, and are viable solutions and are using the tools that I teach them in the class
to apply to the problem and/or solution.
Being able to teach both practical and theoretical classes allows me to expand my
thinking, and in my future academic profession this will be invaluable to be able to concentrate
on theoretical research as well and teach practical coursework. It’s interesting to look back at
my academic career and see the pattern of adjustment that I had to take. It’s almost like it took
me just a little longer to truly understand and respect education and learning, but it really
couldn’t have happened at a better time for me; more mature, motivated, and interested.
Part II – Teaching Approaches. What major teaching approaches have you used? Discuss
learning outcomes, strategies, assessment, and technology use when appropriate. What
conditions were necessary for these approaches to work?
I will approach teaching different dependent on the type of class. In GIS, the approach is
very visual based. The class will be broken up into sections based on lecture (going over the
material to be learned for that upcoming week), a visual walkthrough of the methods used to
complete the type of assignment being assigned for the week, a visual representation of what
the assignment will look like when completed, and grading the assignment will be based on
particular functions being present and also performed correctly. The class also requires three
quizzes which will determine if the student is understanding and memorizing what certain terms,
functions, and methods are and what they are used for. This helps create the foundation for
working in ArcGIS and other software and that makes learning the “language” of GIS important
because of how it’s applied to understanding the assignments and readings. The outcome
should show that the student is proficient in utilizing ArcGIS and understanding GIS terminology,
which is assessed by a final project that incorporates many of the tools and topics covered in
the class while allowing the student to creatively come up with a topic they would like to
research utilizing GIS technology. The conditions that are necessary for this class to work are
the fundamental tools (ArcGIS book, software and computer to run it on, access to Blackboard
for supplemental info and outside of class discussion), in class participation and discussion, and
outside reading and researching. This class doesn’t necessarily require student participation in
class, though it helps in their development to ask questions as they arise.
A class like Digital Transformation is more a call-response, discussion oriented class in
which I discuss particular theories, ideas, examples, and styles of applicable solutions to a
particular focus (such as discussing competitive advantage in micro and macro environments,
and the differences between them and the difference in what your solution might be to fit that
type of market). Likewise, it’s important for students to look into their own methodologies to the
problem; there isn’t necessarily incorrect answers so the solutions shouldn’t be the same (which
really points to plagiarism if they are). This also allows for more analysis and growth in the
individual students when it’s time to discuss the cases in class, which allows critique and
exploration into these solutions. This fosters much more thought and creativity, which is rare of
a technology oriented class! So the class really uses a couple of approaches; a discussion
approach (weekly class meetings that include the students presenting a proposal with Q&A from
the class, and Blackboard use to discuss the cases), a direct approach (assignments and final),
and a research approach (researching the companies involved, looking into particular markets
to research specifics of companies in these markets). The outcome of this class is determined
by an essay based final that looks into the key managerial and technological contributions of the
class, and gives the student to provide 360 feedback on their peers (in their assigned group for
the projects) and rate their dyad’s individuals based on the experience working with them. For
this class to work appropriately, the student must engage in both the presentation and Q&A
sessions in class, address the lectures for application to the case studies, collaboration with
their dyad, research of both the technical and business aspects of the module they are working
in, and the specific case it’s being applied too. Tools like Blackboard are available for out of
class discussion and posting of literature relevant to the class and specific cases studied, as
well as the modules covered. The class doesn’t allow for specific passive learning as it’s
required of all students to at least participate in the presentation side of the case studies.
Part III – Teaching Views. How have your views on ((a) learning (both student and as a
professional), (b) teaching, and (c) students evolved over time and helped you to arrive at the
WORDS you cited in Teaching Lens assignment?
a) As a student, I have the experience of having been on the side of student that I’ve
taught. In the four classes that I have an experience TA’ing and/or teaching, I have also
experienced them as a student. This is invaluable experience in knowing how I evolved and
succeeded in these classes, and can use this to my advantage when teaching the curriculum.
Of course I realize that the approach that worked for me may not for others. The concentration
is going to be in my specific experience and what I can convey over to my students, and in
some way may be a bit of trial and error. I believe this is how I identified the words “Critical
Thinking” and “Engaged”, because in my experience on both sides, as a student and as my
students, we have had this kind of motivation. As I had mentioned in my earlier writing, I may
have been a bit blessed in the fact that the students that I have worked with in this capacity over
the last 3+ years have been highly motivated individuals that are ready to enter in and take over
the workforce.
b) As a teacher, I identified the words “Create Intellectual Growth”, which has to be the
paragon of what we want to accomplish as instructors. Regardless of the style or type of
education that you are conveying to the students, it applies to both practical and philosophical
approaches to learning. Particularly in practical applications, where some of the intellectual
aspects of learning can be lost, I would encourage more analysis into the subject matter and try
to demand just a little bit more from the students to really get them thinking not just about the
problem in front of them, but why the problem exists, where it came from, and then apply the
practical solution to it.
c) I think the evolution of students, in general, is more into practical applications,
specifically addressing the changes in higher education. Higher Ed seems to be geared more
towards preparing the student for a specific result, to get them prepared for making money and
surviving. This is in contrast to how higher education used to be which took philosophy and
theory much more seriously, and where knowing these domains was much more important. This
does not reflect on my teaching lens words, which state “Learning and Teaching”, but the
question posed doesn’t lead me to those words. I’ve only been in my teaching career for a very
short time, so as time and I evolve with it, I can look back at this question with a more robust
answer.
Part IV – Peer Reaction. Send your draft of Parts I-III to someone to review, someone that is
familiar with your teaching, and get their feedback. Summarize here and comment on your
reactions.
Two of the classes not mentioned above that I TA and have partially taught is
Negotiation and Advanced Negotiation, both courses available to IS/IT and Public Policy
graduate students. I allowed one of my current students (Brandon) to handle the peer reaction
section, in which I will retort to his reflection on the class that we are both currently in.
“After reading sections I-III and having had the opportunity to attend a class led by David, I was
able to find some interesting correlations between the two. First and foremost, education seems
to have come very naturally to Dave. I mean this in the sense that he adapted to his educational
environment as a student and as an educator. He most recently led my negotiations class.”
I would agree with the natural response. I feel like education, and more particularly,
working with students in a discussion capacity works very well with my style. I feel like
working with students is a natural feel, much like what Brandon mentions. Coming up
with thoughts, reflections, ideas, even disruption is all a part of the progression that I
enjoy as an instructor. Any way I can break up the normality, or the redundancy to
increase learning potential is something that I am interested in doing. Much like in
cooperative/inductive inquiry, I like the enriching process of information, breaking it
apart, categorizing it, and putting it back together in different and unique ways.
While guiding our discussions, he was calm and under control. He was able to manage
conflicting ideas thrown out by students, and shaped them into a neatly organized
lectures/discussions. His teaching style for the class seems to be very similar to his previously
taught Digital Transformation.
This reflection is very good for me, because I feel that internally, I am a nervous wreck
every time I get in front of a class. I could be that I’m still acclimating myself to it, and
only having done it on a small scale for a few years hasn’t given me that “comfort zone”
that I’d expect to happen at some point. I feel that especially in teaching at CMU, I feel
the pressure to be very far above and beyond the required breadth of knowledge for the
course requires. In a way, I have some fears of this; fear of the unknown, fear of not
having the right answer, things of this nature. So it’s refreshing to hear a student’s
perspective that I display myself as poised, calm, and enlightening.
Dave seems to have had many experiences throughout his life that have helped shape him into
the educator that he is today. He has a good sense of his learning and teaching styles, and in my
experience, was able to successfully apply them to a graduate level course.
I fully agree with this comment. Looking back on my experiences, I feel like it gives me a
solidly, well rounded approach that I don’t think traditional PhD’s have. I’m hoping to
expand on this approach and create a pedagogy that meets the requirements of those
that don’t necessarily relate to coursework in the traditional sense, and maybe turn some
of the traditional students onto my approach.