Beedie School of Business News

Our own Teaching and Learning Group launched Talking about Teaching Brown Bag Lunch Sessions on February 1. The purpose of Talking about Teaching is to create a learning community for our teachers. The initiative brings teachers together, in community, to share things they are doing to engage students, provide opportunities to discuss and model characteristics of quality teaching, to get support with teaching challenges, and to try out new ideas or concepts before introducing them to students. The intention behind Talking about Teaching is to engage participants in discussions about pedagogical goals and promote the practice of critical reflection, as well as increase the awareness of the scholarship of teaching and learning.

For a learning community, like Talking about Teaching, to be successful we need to create a space where participants are free to engage in open discussions about teaching (Knowles 1980). To ensure this, some guiding principles have been developed on the basic principles of adult education.

Sessions will be offered monthly (presently at Burnaby and Surrey, and hopefully soon at Segal) on different days to allow for people to have a chance to attend. They run over the lunch hour from noon to 1:30pm, so bring your lunch.

At each session, one person who volunteers prior to the event to present, will share a teaching activity or experience that worked well or a challenge s/he would like to receive input on from the group. Key concepts and resources will be shared with participants, as well as being posted on the Teaching and Learning website. The size of the group is limited to approximately 15 people to allow for engaged discussion.

Since this is a new initiative, it will likely shift, morph and evolve over time.

Our First Talking about Teaching Featured Kathleen Burke and Adam Mills and began with Kathleen Burke discussing how she uses poetry in her Ethics classes to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. Burke, who comes from an Arts background and has been teaching since 1998, recited a poem from Sharon Olds entitled “The Summer Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb”. The intention of using poetry is to speak in a slant – to get the students to hear a message that comes at them from a different angle or, rather more implicitly than explicitly.

Adam Mills, one of our PhD students, considers himself lucky because he gets to do something he loves – teaching. He likes to create experiential opportunities for students. He described how, in his Entrepreneurship class, he has student teams create businesses. He likes to provide an opportunity for students to get first-hand experience, to integrate their learning more so than with a cognitive or case a case-based approach.

During the feedback process at the end of the session, participants liked the opportunity to hear about innovative things others are doing, having the focused discussion at the beginning, and hearing what others do. They also liked the size (13 people) of the group and found the discussion inspiring. It was suggested that we have only one speaker per session to allow more time for discussion. Also, it was suggested to hold monthly sessions, which already was the plan. Participants mentioned they would like more examples and, possibly, would like to play the role of student in order to fully experience the examples provided by the presenter.

All in all, people were happy with the opportunity to come together and share and learn with one another. Oh, and did I mention the chance to actually “eat” lunch?

Resources
Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach by Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scriber
Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead by Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scriber
Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses by L. Dee Fink
A Self-Directed Guide to Creating Significant Learning Experiences. Dee Fink’s online guide.
The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb. A poem by Sharon Olds.
The Wanderer. A poem by Antonio Machado
The 5 Why’s for Problem Identification

Tags: Adam Mills, Beedie, Kathleen Burke, learning, shauna jones, Teaching, Teaching and Learning Group, teaching seminars

The Teaching and Learning Group announces a Team Based Learning session.

Date: November 22, 2012
Time: 9:00-11:00am
Location: WMX 2230

Team-Based Learning was born in the University of Oklamhoma Business School. The methodolgy focuses on having teams make difficult decisions and then publically report and defend their decisions. The methodology has since spread to other disciplines and gives us very powerful method to bring deep learning to large classroom settings. The method effectively addresses two important aspects of our classroom experiences – what happens when we can have our students come to class prepared? and what happens when we effectively engage our students in disciplinary decision-making?

In this very hands-on workshop – come experience what the Team–Based Learning (TBL) methodology is all about! Learn about this instructional strategy, how it changes the teacher and student experience, and what is necessary to get the course, teacher and students ready.

Instructor Bio
Jim Sibley is Director of the Centre for Instructional Support at the Faculty of Applied Science at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. The Center for Instructional Support provides pedagogical and technology support to over 200 faculty in the 10 Engineering programs, a School of Architecture, School of Community and Regional Planning and a School of Nursing. As a faculty developer, he has led a nine year implementation of Team-Based Learning in Engineering and Nursing at UBC with a focus on large classroom facilitation. At UBC, he has been a tireless advocate for TBL giving over 20 workshops to over 250 faculty at the university. Jim has over 30 years experience in faculty support and training, facilitation, web design, and managing software development at UBC. He also has developed and led a new faculty campus orientations series, intensive course design seminars and series, and led the development of the iPeer online peer evaluation software (open source with over 7000 downloads).

Jim is an active member of the Team-Based Learning Collaborative (TBLC) serving on the board, membership committee, and web strategy committee (as a member of the web strategy committee he serves as the webmaster for www.teambasedlearning.org). He continues his work as a mentor in the TBLC’s Trainer the Trainer program. He is an international TBL consultant having worked schools in Australia, Korea, Pakistan, Lebanon, United States, and Canada to develop TBL programs.

Tags: large classrooms, student engagement, Teaching and Learning Group, team based learning, workshop

The Teaching and Learning Group’s Interactive Polling Session took place on May 24 at 2:30pm. Andrew Gemino opened the presentation with questions about engagement and how students learn at our university. The 16 attendees were split into smaller groups to discuss more deeply the questions about how our students learn and the types of skills our School should develop. It’s clear from their discussion, that our teachers feel there is no singular technique to use to engage students but that it is important to engage students in meaningful ways.

Maureen Fizzell and Andrew Gemino piloted Poll Everywhere in their BUS 201 courses this past year. As first year students, those in 201 were eager to do well and join in the use of the technology, with 99% participation in each class, according to Gemino. Maureen said that changing up and doing something different really brought students back and got them re-engaged with the lecture. Andrew noted that the students were more energetic and interactive when they used the software. Nima Sarhangpour, the teaching assistant for BUS 201, was a critical component in assisting Maureen and Andrew to set up Poll Everywhere. He provided the technical support and assisted them with data collection at the end of each semester.

So how does Poll Everywhere work? Nima demonstrated to the group both the features and limitations of this software. Poll Everywhere is an example of a Bring-Your-Own-Device classroom response system. Poll questions are created in advance and embedded into a PowerPoint presentation. The questions must be made active by clicking on a link and then also closing them at the end the poll to prevent further answers being input later. Responses are real time and data is compiled as it is received. Using moderator controls, the instructor can limit how and when poll responses can be shown (to reduce groupthink).

Poll Everywhere is more than just a software response tool, it can be a flexible teaching tool. David Rubeli, Beedie’s educational consultant at the TLC, pointed out that instructors can use it to determine if students are grasping key concepts, to discover students’ opinions, and to provoke critical thinking. A particularly effective teaching strategy to use with Poll Everywhere is to pose a thought-provoking, interesting question, and have small-group discussions among students to explore the answers together.

Poll Everywhere can provoke both dialogue and discussion but also comes with its own set of challenges. By sharing their experiences, the group noted some key insights when using this new software. Shauna Jones said it is a way to “go where the students are”, and engage them with the technology they are already using. Michael Johnson, who has used interactive polling for several years, said it can be a natural and functional part of teaching, without being an overwhelming or dramatic shift. Stephen Spector pointed out however that it does require “a great deal of pre-planning by the presenter” as questions must be embedded into PowerPoint and require forethought to introduce into the coursework. Maureen Fizzell talked about larger issues of teamwork vs. individuality in our School and how this type of interaction can facilitate integrated thinking and cooperation rather than competition.

Poll Everywhere provides another facet of interaction teachers can use to reach their students. If you are interested in utilizing this new software, please contact Andrew Gemino at gemino@sfu.ca.

To learn more about how to teach with Poll Everywhere and other engagement techniques,
• Read Derek Bruff’s book Teaching with Classroom Response Systems or visit his blog, Agile Learning
• Explore Elizabeth Barkley’s Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty
• Read the Higher Education Academy’s review of evidence and research on student engagement

Tags: Andrew Gemino, Beedie School of Business, poll everywhere, student engagement, student experience, 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?

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.

Tags: Teaching, Teaching and Learning Group, Teaching News