Pedagogy
As I have stated in my teaching philosophy, my goal as an educator is to teach my students be leaders. I believe that no one is born a leader, and that anyone can be a leader. Having worked in business industry before entering education, I have learned that to be a leader one not has to have the ability to effectively communicate with others, work in teams, fulfill all the responsibilities, and be innovative.
My strategies to foster my students to be leaders are:
1) Project-Based Learning
I plan on employing project-based learning to expose my students to real-world business situations and get them use to working in teams. During my practicum, I gave my students multiple real-world business projects, such as making online surveys for Canadian companies and the school school.
Below are three examples of my students’ online surveys:
Aldo Group https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HlZC_KPbsYmS6XJH4jsZ6zNscNSJpBMGaNE2WSgV4UM/viewform
Tim Hortons https://docs.google.com/forms/d/19RWOOq-VmfB5I7n6oxWu8yj2xGAQkozaD_HWwN3h9Hc/viewform
Selling Arizona Tea at the School Store https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GUUhhuZkOV-Qtn2uokOY7zKXqSAwbhqghJDWnaSvAO8/viewform
I noticed that the students were much more engaged in these real-world projects. One student remarked, “I feel like a real marketing researcher.” Students were into these projects, because they saw they could use the knowledge they gained outside the classroom.
I also saw that the project-based learning approach provided students deeper understand of business. As students worked on real-world business challenges, they learned how to work collaboratively with others, and how to effectively deliver their ideas and opinions across to each other. As students practiced different roles within the organization during these projects, they displayed leadership and responsibility. Moreover, I saw that innovation was being developed during group meetings and discussions.
2) Reflection
Reflection time proved to be very effective with my students. I provided students reflection time at the end of each project, where students could self-reflect on strategies that went well and that didn’t, and how they can improve next time. I saw that students were taking this reflection time seriously and were honest in their self-evaluations. Through reflection and self-evaluation, students were motivating themselves and learning to be their own leaders.