In Ukraine I teach various courses related to economics, marketing and management which is very challenging but at the same time allows to track different business aspect and to use the interrelating information while presenting the material during the lectures.
The main idea of my teaching philosophy can be defined as follows: students are important; they deserve the same respect that professors expect from them. Unless you treat students like adults, they will not act like adults. They need to be taught in a variety of methods and with examples from real-life situation. They must know how to implement the knowledge and were to find necessary information. The students MUST LEARN HOW TO THINK
Economic and marketing related courses are not rocket science, but students are struggling to link theoretical concepts and methodic with real world events. They are not only unaware of the events that constantly change the business world, but also don’t want to track them. I believe such lack of excitement will influence negatively the credibility of economic and marketing related courses as academic field in the long-term.
That is why it is very important to minimize this knowledge gap in the curriculum and encourage students to monitor the changes in the business world. This gives my students a chance to realize the relevancy of the material for their lives and in the world and expand their appreciation of the curriculum.
Although there are various aspects of teaching, I choose to play the role of a guide in most of my classes as they are designed predominantly for 4th and 5th year students. I help my students to find and understand the answers to major business issues by themselves. I extensively use business dailies and journals, documentaries from TV shows and even clips from movies to relate courses to the visual resources they are comfortable with. I develop and assign various cases in my classes to bring up the essence of the subjects from the students' minds
While teaching my classes, I realized that most students struggle with the application of statistics in the class. This motivated me to create various practical assignments in Excel format that cover important topics of Statistics and their uses in Economics of the enterprise and Marketing. This refers to my teaching goal of supplying my students with the information that will be useful in their career.
The integral part of my teaching philosophy is to provide a friendly class environment to my students. I want my students to understand the material, improve as professionals, and find the class helpful and enjoyable. I make an effort to learn their names along with their strengths and weaknesses within the first few weeks of the semester, which is rather challenging as there are at least 25-30 students in each class. But this helps me to understand my students' learning processes and allows me to make my teaching more effective.
I try to provide an open debate for students on business related topics. I am convinced that opportunity to express their opinions encourages them to start thinking deeply about the topics. I moderate these debates and lead them towards the objectives of the courses. Proper course structure and detailed syllabus at the beginning of the semester enable my students to realize what is expected from them and how I would like them to evolve throughout the semester.
In future I would like to use my classes as a training ground for job interviews and business presentations for my students. The class activities such as individual presentations and role-plays can be video recorded. These activities along with feedbacks on their performance will help students realize their mistakes and identify behaviors that typically haunt them in their career.
During my scholarship at the Pennsylvania State University due to Woscob research in agriculture grant I learned new teaching methods and techniques that I would like to implement at my University. I have created my web-site which will give me an opportunity to implement technology in teaching and to become more interactive with students.