Teaching Statement
Teaching Experience
I have several years of experience effectively teaching undergraduate, graduate, and executive courses related to leadership, negotiations, organizational behavior, and women in business. More specifically, I have taught full courses in “Human Behavior in Organizations,” “Negotiations and Conflict Management” and a “Board Leadership Curriculum,” which I created from the ground up (i.e. getting the course approved, creating a new syllabus, lectures, assignments, assigning MBAs to real boards, classroom exercises). Teaching other courses (e.g. teams, human resources, organizational theory) would also be interesting to me. I have multiple years of experience as a teaching assistant for MBA-level Team Foundations courses as well as Negotiations courses. I have received overall instructor ratings of 5.8/6 in the David Eccles School of Business and 7.5/8 in the Marriott School of Management. Recently, and I was invited to discuss how to foster an inclusive culture inside the classroom at a professional development workshop for faculty at the Academy of Management conference in Boston, Massachusetts. This year I was also awarded the University of Utah Doctoral Student Teaching Award for the Department of Management. In addition, I have several years of experience teaching college level students in the performing arts (in New York, California, and Utah). I attribute much of my success in the classroom to the professors and master teachers throughout my life who have taught me.
Teaching Philosophy
As a scholar, researcher, teacher, and mentor, I have the opportunity to influence how my students will build the world around them. I view my role as a teacher similar to that of a master architect; I work with students to create an intellectually rigorous and psychologically safe environment where we can map out the tools and concepts necessary for each student to be empowered to lead in their own lives. To accomplish this, I have four goals each semester: 1) establish respectful class guidelines and behavior, 2) encourage students to be critical thinkers, 3) promote lifelong learning, 4) openly receive feedback (and encourage students to do the same) to adapt and improve.
It is my responsibility to establish respectful class guidelines, and to model respectful behavior. It is my experience, students usually follow the model they are provided. To establish respect in the classroom, I collaborate with students to create a safe space for optimal learning. Through various questioning techniques, I increase equal student voice and engagement. I also encourage students to share their ideas and opinions in class discussions while creating awareness of students’ responsibilities to one another. For example, in a groups and teams class, I have students generate ideas to create guidelines for their own teams regarding mutual respect. I then suggest that these also apply in class. With such classroom systems in place to minimize negative judgement, teaching and learning is empowered. To be psychologically safe, students also need to feel like they belong. I sincerely view each student as a vital member to society, and to our class; I encourage them to think about their unique talents and abilities, letting them know that each individual in class is needed to contribute ideas and viewpoints to the course material that nobody else has. I utilize my previous experience in the field of conflict management to implement experiential class exercises (e.g. active listening, perspective taking, and advocating for the opposing view) designed to enhance students’ openness to others’ views. For example, when I was teaching organizational behavior abroad in Italy last year, I invited students to share negative stereotypes they had experienced, as they felt comfortable to do so. In a safe space, we discussed the challenges involved with these negative stereotypes and the successful research interventions some organizations are implementing to try to mitigate them. As this is the most recent course I have taught, I have also included some comments from students about this class below:
· “Prof. Goodwin fostered a very inclusive and comfortable classroom environment. I felt safe and comfortable sharing my personal stories, experiences, and opinions in her class.”
· “Thoroughly enjoyed the class! Content was very engaging and relevant to both a professional career and in my current personal life.”
· “In class examples and activities as well as simple and clear assignments for outside of class that really helped me learn the material.”
· “There were many opportunities to practice the skills learned in class. I loved the interactive aspect that the class provided. She was really active in getting students to participate and share their opinions.”
· “We did real life activities where we went to workplaces and observed workplace interaction. We did activities in the class to simulate workplace interactions”
· “She did a great job of encouraging participation and feedback from students. She was very knowledgeable about course subjects”
· “She made very clear powerpoints and uploaded them to canvas after class for us to review. Was very interactive with the class during discussions to assure that we knew what she was teaching.”
Teaching in academia provides the opportunity for developing critical thinking by using unique knowledge creation: the knowledge created through an energetic culmination of thinking, learning, and reflecting, that is unique to each student (unique knowledge creation). Every student in my class is encouraged to master class materials sufficiently to be able to teach others, and live what they are learning, so that it becomes unique to themselves. They are also invited to think critically about this. For example, I tell students that I will provide them with several tools, but they must think critically about which tools are most relevant to them in any given situation. Using an evidence-based practicum, my courses disseminate several research studies in a distilled form to provide opportunities for us to learn and apply techniques that researchers have spent hours to demonstrate. As I share practical research findings, I also encourage students to think carefully about what these research findings really mean for themselves, and others, so that they can apply this research to benefit themselves and others. For example, in my negotiations course, after reviewing the literature linking preparation with various successful negotiations outcomes, students are invited to prepare planning documents to identify specific issues of importance, sources of power, and back-up alternatives for each case they negotiate in class. In doing so, I invite students to carefully reflect upon the issues that are most important to them (e.g. relationships). I then assign students a real-world negotiation wherein they implement these same preparation strategies to negotiate an issue from their own life (at work or elsewhere) that is important to them.
Optimal learning occurs when students acquire and access knowledge and skills that can be retrieved for future use. To help students activate memory retrieval mechanisms and create additional retrieval pathways, I invite students to share the wisdom they already have with others in the class; I have students connect previous experiences to current learning, to identify new contexts in which their existing knowledge applies. When appropriate, I also relate class discussion to personal experiences from research and industry. For instance, in a leadership class I may share my experience consulting with board members about proper leadership practices, or I may share my research on how leadership motivation may be influenced by anticipated power. In a leadership course I taught last year, I invited students to write about an inspiring leader and to identify the traits that leader has that they want to obtain. In an organizational behavior class I also like to share my research on courage and bystander intervention to encourage students to be more actively involved in reporting unethical behavior. In these ways I help students connect scientific inquiry and course material to practical action. Sharing relevant stories from my own experience as a state court mediator, board member, and landlord also models the ability to apply course concepts in a practical way. To help students retrieve and recount connections gleaned in class, I use small and simple interventions. Some of these include: summarizing readings or materials, mapping concepts, analogies, reframing, recording the most important idea. I provide all of these opportunities combined with several engaging in-class activities to engender students’ long-term connection with course concepts. I hope that by doing so, students will have a toolbox of classroom tools to continue utilizing course knowledge and skills long after the course is over. A few times each year I get a phone call from a former student who is looking for advice, as they are trying to continue to implement the course material taught years earlier. These informal student consultations provide valuable opportunities for mentorship, service, and lifelong learning.
I continue to learn and grow as an instructor; learning to improve and modify my teaching. Feedback on my instruction, via student evaluations or inviting experts into my classroom for review, is important for refining my pedagogical techniques. Success in the classroom often comes from the ability to manage and mentor students, and I believe this is achieved more easily with active listening to identify students’ needs. By listening carefully to students’ suggestions for improvement, I am able to tailor classes to meet students’ needs, and improve their overall classroom experience. This fall I am also adjusting to student and campus needs by modifying some lectures to an online format. The University of Utah has provided several online resources and trainings to facilitate this. Given the changing world we live in, and the uncertainty that exists, I am adjusting and modifying my teaching materials accordingly, even for large, complex classes. For example, just last week, with 60 MBA students, I assisted Kristina Diekmann in running a groups and teams exercise called ‘Tannagram’ online, complete with ten breakout rooms, online messengers going between breakout rooms, and digital puzzle pieces that teams were to assemble in a timely manner. In the coming weeks I will also be assisting Jesse Graham with his online Groups and Teams class activities, in a similar manner. As classroom formats and logistics evolve with these types of online classroom experiences, I encourage students to be flexible and patient.
In summary, I have demonstrated my ability to teach courses in a wide array of management related subjects at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels. I do so by creating safe and inclusive environments, where students thrive as critical thinkers who desire lifelong learning and self-improvement. I bring my excitement for research into the classroom (or into an online meeting room) with scientific findings, open discussions, and interactive exercises (e.g. case study analysis, break-out sessions, field activities), to create an active and engaging learning environment. Finally, I see teaching as a life enriching opportunity to listen to, learn from, and mentor students.