Teaching Philosophy

Given the trend toward hiring based on skills^, a key responsibility of teachers is to develop managerial skills in students. Teachers should identify activities and assessments that lead to effective decision-making skills. In addition, they should build rapport with students and create a strong classroom community to assist students in gaining interpersonal awareness and team working skills.

My teaching aims at finding ways to connect concepts students already know with concepts to be newly learned. For example, in my marketing management course, I had some students with part-time jobs as baristas, bartenders, etc. I used the students' job context to explain the 4ps of marketing. The different ways they created value for the customers and made them happy.

My assessments align with the learning objectives and assess students’ ability to connect concepts and construct new meanings. At the end of each class, I ask one-minute summary on the material covered to assess the effectiveness of my teaching. In addition, I continuously use brief non-credit classroom activities like “think-pair-share” to ensure student class participation and increase critical and integrative thinking skills. Further, I allow students to demonstrate their knowledge through periodic individual tests. I grade the tests promptly and provide detailed feedback to help them update their understanding of the material immediately. I also make it a point to recognize and reward exemplary efforts by acknowledging them in class to reinforce such behavior.

My group projects aim to improve students’ teamwork, oral communication, and global awareness skills. I focus on increasing students’ confidence in their ability to work together, identify, analyze, and interpret data, and present results. I set high expectations to achieve these goals but provide maximum guidance. For the marketing planning project, part of my Marketing Management course, I first demonstrated the data collection, analysis, and reporting process. I then asked them to practice the process in class. After a few sessions, they developed the courage to do it independently. I offered continuous feedback to help them learn from their mistakes. Furthermore, when my students worked on a country analysis project for my international marketing course, they attended synchronous classes from different countries due to Covid-19 requirements. I encouraged the groups to choose a country outside the US where one of their group members was located. This arrangement enabled students to learn the effect of time zone differences on work and their potential impact on marketing planning.

As a teacher, continuous self-improvement is vital: so I constantly learn from self-reflection and feedback from students and peers. I also update my teaching skills by attending teaching workshops. I am always open to learning new technologies and implementing new teaching methods to create an intellectually stimulating classroom environment. Ultimately, I believe in transforming the student into a marketing professional, one class at a time.

^Harvard Business Review, 2022