"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen.
"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do,
to keep in the same place."
(Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 2)
Currency: Sometimes I think the Red Queen must have taught information systems. First and foremost, my teaching and preparation for teaching is driven by my desire to stay current with developments in my academic field, especially research, and with changes in commercial best practices. Syllabi for my courses have never remained the same from one semester to the next. The content of individual lectures changes even more than the syllabus. The revisions are necessary because of changes in my field, both academic and in commercial practice, as well as by my observations of what works in the classroom and what does not.
Lasting impact: Despite the changing nature of information systems, it is important to me that my teaching have a lasting impact. I particularly want students to believe that my class was still valuable five years later. In my field of information systems, it is very easy to teach material that is immediately useful but which has a short half-life. I want to educate my students for a profession, rather than train them in skills that degrade quickly.
Comprehensive Content: I also want to cover as much material as possible. There is so much to know today about information systems that you cannot possibly teach someone all he or she needs to know; I want to accomplish as much as I can in the time available to me and also to educate the students about how to find out and learn more in the future as they need it. My goal of comprehensive content is in a state of tension with my next philosophical point.
Higher Level Learning: I I have been influenced by the Master Teacher Program offered at Georgia State University. As much as possible, I want to teach at the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Objectives. I want students to not only learn the mechanics (knowledge level) but to also be able to apply, analyze, and synthesize. I am somewhat willing to cover a little less content if the time freed up enables me to move the students to a higher level of learning.
Fairness: I conduct my courses as fairly as possible. An important element of fairness is to have a thorough syllabus so that students know in advance the requirements and expectations of the course. A printed copy of the syllabus is handed out on the first day of class, and the syllabus is placed online. The online syllabus is a living document that describes every week where we have been as a class and where I expect us to go. A second element of fairness is uniformity. I apply course policies as consistently as possible to all students.
Communicating a Vision: In each of these classes, I have a vision that I want to communicate to
the students. That vision is outside of the textbook, and it is important to me that they remember
it as the years go by.
In BIS 302
"Introduction to MIS," the vision is that information technology
(IT) has become pervasive. It provides opportunities in every functional area and every field.
Graduates of our program will need to interact with IT-functional area people and what those IT
people are generally trying to accomplish. Our students ignore IT at their peril.
In BIS 552
"Data Base Management," the vision is that technology enables one to leverage information from
where it is created across the entire organization. If one sets up the technology properly to start
with, one can save effort later.
In BIS 558
"Management and Economics of Computers," the
vision is that appropriate leadership of the information technology function is contingent upon
the situation; what works in one situation will fail in another; I work to help students understand
the contingencies. A second vision in BIS 558 is to understand the economics that drive IT in
business, and how those economics continue to change over time.
Back to Roger Pick's Teaching Portfolio
Contact me at pick@acm.org; or Bloch Business School, University of Missouri - Kansas City, 5110 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO, 64110-2499 US; or (816) 235-2336.Last Updated: 11 July 2007