On behalf of the Teaching and Learning Centre, I would like to thank the Beedie students and faculty who contributed to the success of this year’s Symposium on Teaching and Learning:
• Sanistha Bhujun and Doris Zhang, who shared their experiences as “Generation 1.5” and English language learners at SFU;
• Stephanie Bertels , who participated in a fascinating panel discussion on engaged scholarship and education for sustainable development; and
• Andrew Gemino, who moderated a stimulating and well-attended conversation on engagement at SFU.

The panel discussion on engaged scholarship and education for sustainable development was a highlight of the conference. The three panelists described how they invite their students to engage with complex, real-world problems, to work with community partners and clients, and to complete career-oriented assessments. Stephanie Bertels and Mark Roseland’s (Centre for Sustainable Community Development) pedagogical approaches resonate with the ideas on project-based learning in MIS that Nilesh Saraf shared in his seminar at last fall’s Teaching Luncheon last Fall and Eric Gedajlovic’s community-oriented entrepreneurship learning activities OpportunityFest and OpportunityQuest.

Three key educational features stood out in the panel discussion. The panelists offer their students opportunities to
• work with real-world, high-stakes industry and community partners on complex problems;
• practice and refine their work through multiple iterations, regardless of whether they are writing position papers, presenting a pitch, or designing a simulation; and
• receive feedback from real-world decision-makers and clients

Although planning and orchestrating community-engaged learning is challenging for instructors, I have yet to encounter better examples of what Dee Fink calls “significant learning experiences” for students . As Beedie’s Educational Consultant, I look forward to working with faculty members interested in engaged pedagogy and community-based learning to continue refining these educational approaches.

You may review highlights and resources from the Symposium, including a video archive of Julia Christensen Hughes’s keynote on the TLC website, or view a summary of Christensen Hughes’s keynote that I created.

I am looking forward to attending my first Academy of Management annual meeting next month in Boston. If you would like to connect during the conference or can recommend a session, you can reach me at 778-782-2278.

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.

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 upper-division 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.

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. 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.

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.

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