Making learning “sticky”

This subtheme is intended to create conversations about what we can do to increase student retention of what we are teaching. These sessions could vary between specific new exercises or cases that capture student interest, to broad discussions of approaches that help make the learning more meaningful to students (e.g. a friend of mine uses the story of the Rocky Flats clean-up from Cameron’s book Making the Impossible Possible as a continuing reference through the entire course). If you have ideas you would like to discuss before doing your proposal, write to this blog or to Joe Seltzer at seltzer@lasalle.edu

Pedagogical scholarship

What can we learn about student learning? This blog will focus on the subthemes of presentations that help connect educational scholarship to our practice and opportunities to establish dialogs on student learning needs. In addition to discussions of organizational pedagogy in the Journal of Management Education, AMLE and Management Learning there is an extensive literature about teaching and learning in education journals and on the pedagogy of many other fields. What can we learn about student learning from these other sources. What do you think translates well to management education? I’d suggest you think about 30 minute catalyst sessions. If you have questions either write to this blog or to Joe Seltzer at seltzer@lasalle.edu

submit reflective sessions

This year’s OBTC has the theme of “from good teaching to good learning” I’d like to talk bit more about the subtheme of sessions that encourage the participants to “become more reflective of their own learning experiences, instructional practices, the assumptions they make about teaching, their own teaching philosophy and guiding principles.”

There are several things I’m looking for. Part of this subtheme talks about becoming more reflective. So sessions that provide opportunities for the participants to increase their self-awareness and/or understanding of their teaching are especially encouraged. Over the years I’ve personally been attracted to this sort of session and remember ones using Native American talking sticks, guided fantasies and one to develop a personal teaching philosophy among many I’ve attended.

Sessions that encourage the participants to think and talk about their own “best teaching practices” are welcome. Sessions that have the presenter talking about her/his own practices are acceptable, especially for 30 minute catalyst sessions, but explain how the session will encourage “good learning”

If some people want to talk about guiding principles for “learning” I’d be happy to put together a panel (or do it yourself – you could use this blog or the listserv to gather co-presenters). I’m open to lots of creative options. If you want to talk about it, write to this blog or to me individually at seltzer@lasalle.edu Be creative and give us some really interesting sessions.

Joe Seltzer

From Good Teaching to Good Learning

This year’s OBTC has the theme of “from good teaching to good learning”

What do we do to enhance student learning?  We see several paths to explore:

• sessions that encourage the participants to become more reflective of their own learning experiences, instructional practices, the assumptions they make about teaching, their own teaching philosophy and guiding principles.
• presentations that help connect educational scholarship to our practice
• opportunities to establish dialogs on student learning needs
• sessions that seek to answer the question, “how can we make learning “sticky”?  That is, what creates a memorable experience for the students that they can connect to for the rest of the course or longer?
• activities or exercises that capture this “stickiness”

In addition, we welcome submissions that vary from the theme, especially those that fall into the track: what experienced teachers can teach newer faculty) and what newer teachers can teach more experienced ones.  In particular, we would like to have some “classic” exercises presented with commentary about how to use them in the classroom to enhance learning and some “resource presentations” that provide summaries of the presenter’s view of the most significant things to teach about [fill in a standard OB topic of your choice].  These would be designed to help “seasoned” teachers update the content of courses that were in other than their special areas of interest.  The conference will help us explore how we design good teaching to create good learning.

Over the next few blogs I’d like to talk about each of these ideas in a bit more detail.

Today I want to explain the submission dates.  The submission date is December 8.  We will begin to review papers then and hopefully I’ll have a good portion of the program put together from the best proposals.  I will save some program time for papers that are submitted from December 9 to January 12 and also those deferred from the first set.  You should understand that the acceptance rate will likely be higher for proposals submitted by December 8.  Last year, there were lots of submissions in January, but just not a lot of program space was left.  I’ll also be happy to give people a quick, informal read of an idea and to ensure that the format is complete, if you send it well before the December 8 due date.  I don’t expect to have as much free time after that date.  Write me at seltzer@lasalle.edu

Joe Seltzer

Welcome to the Official Blog for OBTC 2009

Welcome to the OBTC blog for 2009!

I hope you will be thinking about submitting a proposal and also attending OBTC.  Charleston is a beautiful city to visit and the facilities at the College of Charleston will be very good for the conference.  Read through the call and write back to the blog if you have questions or write me directly at seltzer@lasalle.edu.  I look forward to interacting with many of you over the next few months.  I also will need reviewers, so please sign up through the website.

Joe Seltzer