DPE Young Scholars

I am on the Delta Pi Epsilon National Board as National Treasurer. As part of my duties I am responsible for the Research Projects Committeee and the Membership Committee.

I am very fortunate to have to great chairpersons to work with. Wanda Stitt-Gohdes is the chair of the Research Projects Committee and Julie Chadd is the Chair of the Membership Committee.

As part of the upcoming November DPE Research Conference we have established the DPE Young Scholars Program.

Although we have called it the "Young" Scholars Program we really mean new scholars in the area of Business Education.

Any faculty member that has a Ph.D. student that is interested in a Business Education topic can nominate their student for this Program.

Accepted Young Scholars will be a part of a special program at the DPE Research Conference. This program will enhance their skills as scholars and assist them in finding and constructing meaningful Business Education research projects.,

I am proud to be part of this initiative

A Return and a Trip

My last post was in late April. A number of things have kept me from posting here since then not the least of which is a pretty severe neck and back problem. This is keeping me from sitting at a computer for any lengthy period of time. I guess I am paying for those long, long hours of slouching at the computer for all those years.

Yet I have still been busy in the intervening months. I taught two intersession courses - ED 800 (Introduction to Research) and EC&I 809 (Program Evaluation.) It was an interesting 6 weeks - teaching four nights a week! I am now also working on making EC&I 809 an online course. I'll be teaching it online during the Winter 2009 semester (even though I will be starting a six month sabbatical in January.) Any suggestions are appreciated.

But because I taught those two intersession courses I will not be teaching courses during the Fall 2008 semester.

Which allows for the Trip.

Yesterday, early in the morning, Helene and I got on a plane to Boston to begin the first leg of a journey that will take us to Boston, Nova Scotia, London, England, Sicily and the Amalfi coast. We will return to Regina in late September.

I will do my best to chronicle this journey.

There are also a number of professional issues that I have been thinking about that I will also address here over the next while.

For this trip I purchased an Asus EEE computer - two pounds and fully functional - all I need to do is get used to the smaller keyboard

Classes, students and routines

I have officially met all of my classes for the first time this semester. I teach three courses but two of them are with the same students - my business education pre-interns.

Although the excitement is still there - the beginning of the new semester - I know that things will turn into routine fairly quickly. Does that happen to all teachers? And how do we keep the routine from making us boring and predictable?

I remember a professor in my grad program that told us that he was amazed that he was still coming to lecture - we must be a special group - because usually by this time of the semester in other semesters he had stopped coming to class!!! And we were only about half way through the semester.

For me the relationship with my pre-interns keeps things fresh for me - I work hard during this semester to understand each of them as people, as prospective teachers and as future colleagues.

But my first responsibility this semester is to understand, even better than before, my students' strengths, weaknesses, potentials, etc. I need this sense of understanding to be able to pair them up for their three week field experience, but more importantly probably is to match them with an appropriate cooperating teacher for their pre-internship and then again in the Fall for their Internship.

I really do believe that I can't just arbitrarily send a student to any old teacher. There needs to be a fit. Some students need pushing and some coops only know how to push. Other student need gentle prodding and some coops are good gentle prodders. And then there are all the students and coops somewhere in the middle.

On top of that I also like to put students in places that are convenient and 'happy' for them. Its a juggling act but as usual I allow my students to help me with the project.

I encourage the students to attend and participate the Regina Business Educators Association and the Saskatchewan Business Teachers Association meetings and workshops. There they meet lots of teachers and perhaps even work with them on committees, etc. Over the years I have found that my students can pretty much pick the 'right' coop for their internship. I always have the last say but if they have been attentive and have met enough teachers they are pretty good at picking the right one.

My other course is ED 800 Introduction to Research. It is interesting to me that although I always pay attention to my students in this course, in many ways, the content 'rules.' I still need to 'teach' - help the students acquire the requisite knowledge but because the course is focused I have a little less concern with the overall professional development of the students and more concern with their acquisition of the content

Resolutions, Changes and Tomorrow

Second day of the year and second post of the year - if I keep this up I may exceed my 300 entry target for 2008.

But realistically that isn't going to happen - I'm already behind in my reading for pleasure and attempts to increase exercise and decrease weight!

One step at a time

I did take pictures both yesterday and today. Between trying to relate my daily activities to a blog entry and looking for picture taking opportunities I am becoming more aware of what is happening during my day. I've talked about this before in an early blog entry - becoming mindful is a difficult but very satisfying skill.

I am working hard to get my courses organized for the new semester which starts next Monday (well, officially Wednesday for me as that is when I meet my first group of students)

I am trying something very different for both classes - in a way I am becoming more directive. I regularly check the comments on Rate My Professor to see what my students are saying. One student wrote "If you like being in control of your learning you will enjoy his classes. If you need more direction choose someone else."

I have always held the opinion that the best learning a person can do is the learning that they want to do and that they control for themselves. This has meant that I provide a very long rope for my students. Many of them use the rope to find and create and benefit from their learning experiences. Others use the rope to hang themselves out of frustration with me. "Why don't you just answer my question?" is something I hear from some students. And my answer is always simple - if I tell you the answer you will hear me and forget it - if you create the answer you will always remember it and perhaps you'll remember the process you used to create that answer.

Teachers are alone with children in their classrooms - they have many problems to solve with very few 'answer providers' available. They have to know how to learn, how to teach themselves and how to enjoy that process.

But the courses I am teaching this semester require something different, I think. Or at least I want to experiment with a different style.

My undergraduate classes will still have a lot of discretion built in for the student but because there is so little actual contact time this semester things will be considerably more structured than in previous years.

My grad course is full of content - it is the overview of research in the social sciences. And I want to make sure that all bases are covered - so lectures, powerpoint presentations, etc. will be the order of the day. But I am working hard to have some active, hands-on aspects to the course too.

Perhaps tomorrow will see more movement on my other resolutions

New Places, new experiences

I am in the Twin Cities to teach a course on Research to graduate students in the Work and Human Resources Education department at the University of Minnesota (The U as they call it here - despite the fact that the Twin Cities are the home of many universities!)

The unique thing about this course, for me, is that the contact with the students is only during a three day period last week (8:30 to 3:00) and then again for another three day period during the last week of June. The week in between is for reading and assignments.

I am enjoying the students in the class. They bring a wide variety of backgrounds and interests and of course I always appreciate the subtle differences between the American and Canadian experience. It is the same feeling I had in Australia - everything was familiar but had an unpredictable twist to it.

The course is intense - for both the students and me but I'm looking forward to the next three days with them (let's hope they feel the same way.)

Another new experience was a play we attended on Thursday night. It was held at the Penumbra theatre in what used to be the Old Rondo area of St. Paul. The play was called Get Ready and is the story of the greatest Motown group that never was!.

The theatre looked like it held fewer than 300 people and was very intimate with quite a small stage. The neat thing was that the seats literally were within inches of the stage. We ended up with front row seats on the right side and I had to continually pull my legs in to avoid having the actors trip over me.

But they weren't just actors. With a small three piece band they blew up a storm with their singing and dancing. And the treat for me was being so close.

The men actor/singer/dancers were all outstanding, funny and exciting to watch. But for me the outstanding person was Jamecia Bennett. You may recognize the name. Her daughter is Paris Bennett of American Idol fame. But she is also the daughter of Ann Nesby. Nesby and Jamecia Bennett were also members of the Sounds of Blackness. If you have never heard of them and are interested in gospel music you should hear their album called The Evolution of Gospel.

It was fabulous seeing Jamecia Bennett sing. The whole experience - small theatre in an ordinary neighbourhood - an unexpected delight

On the road again

I'm settled - well sort of but not really. Yesterday I woke up at 7:00 a.m. - late for me - but then again yesterday was the day scheduled for me to drive from Regina to the Twin Cities - so of course I will sleep in so that I get a late start!! When are the stars ever aligned properly??

I finally hit the highway by 9:00 a.m. and made it to Winnipeg in record time - the tail wind helped with speed and gas consumption. But then the traffic in Winnipeg was incredible - over an hour to get from the transcanada to Pembina highway.

The border was worse - I waited close to an hour to get to the little kiosk only to be told that I need to park and be 'processed' I am coming into the states on a J-1 visa which allows me to work but also requires me to be processed.

Being declared legal I finally headed south

I am staying in the same apartment building as I used when I was here on sabbatical in 2oo4 but as it turns out I am in the 'other' tower. So last night well after midnight I had parked my car in the underground lot. I found that the fobs to get me into the elevators didn't work in that building. It took forever to find the security guy but finally I was in the apartment.

It is actually quite nice - I will post pictures - I am on the 26th floor with a great view of the Minnesota capital building.

The class I am here to teach begins on Tuesday but the real reason I am here is to work with Judy Lambrecht so that we can complete our Delphi research project and that will probably start tomorrow.

I am excited about both of these things. The class will be a challenge - 6 contact days to deliver some pretty complicated content (it is the introductory grad course on research). But I am also anxious to get into the data that Judy and I have gathered. I have fiddled with it over the last few weeks but Judy has the complete data set so we will do serious analysis over the next little while.