Although my case for promotion is based on excellence in research, I strive to continuously pursue a strong record in teaching contributions.  I am committed to being an active teacher who is continuously playing a positive role in my students' lives. I strive to ‘guide’ and ‘inspire’ students to develop ‘career-long habits’ of 'self-motivated learning’ through my enthusiasm and support. With different instructional innovations of delivering my teaching materials, I strongly believe that my goal of instilling lifelong-learning skills in students could be attained. 

My teaching duties at IPFW fall in the areas of International Business/Marketing, Marketing Research, and Marketing Strategy.  Over the past five years (Aug 2004-December 2009), I have taught 2 graduate courses: Marketing and Customer Relationship Management (M560) and Strategic Management of Global Operations: Integrating International Aspects of Functional Areas of Business (M588) and 5 undergraduate courses: International Business Administration (D300), Special Studies in International Business Administration (D490), Marketing Management in a Competitive Environment (M301), Marketing Research (M303), and International Marketing (M490).

Based on self-, student-, peer-, and client-evaluations from previous years, I have incorporated different teaching methods to engage students with different learning styles. I made sure that a relaxed learning atmosphere was created so students could ‘open up’ to absorb the knowledge at hand.  I often used Power Point slides filled with key words, stories, pictures, visual displays, and video clips in the presentation.  I provided the slides on Webct/Blackboard before class to make it easy for the students to take notes.  I alternated lectures with discussion throughout the class period not only to check whether their understanding was on track, but also to promote critical thinking.  Students were encouraged to bring current news or their experiences to discuss in class, engage in role-play, and participate in classroom competitions. Real projects and case discussions were added into different classes to provide students with opportunities to apply what they have learned in the class.  I have also enforced cooperative learning groups so that students can also learn from each other.  I posted students’ scores on Webct/Blackboard on an ongoing basis to allow students to track online and learn how well they performed on each activity, exams, and their overall scores for the class.  This way, the students know what they were doing and could plan the strategies to perform better. 

I consistently received positive feedback from the students (student evaluations, midterm student evaluations, and unsolicited thank you notes), peers (Dr. Zoher Shipchandler, Dr. Hedayeh Samavati, Dr. Kathy Pollock, Dr. Yvonne Zubovic, and Dr. Kimberly Mcdonald), and clients (e.g., Lisa Compton from SensoryCritters.com; Denny Springer from BioAdvanTek; Cynthia Elick from IPFW Purchasing and Support Services; J.L. Nave, III from Fort Wayne Philharmonic; Sachin Shah from Vera Bradly; Tom Barfell, Do it Best Corp.; Nancy Louraine and Jennifer Neher from TURNSTONE/Kimbrough Early Learning  Center; Deborah Godwin-Starks from Quasi, Inc.; and Joan Brown from Northeast Indiana Public radio (NIPR). I also received many useful suggestions from them and incorporated their suggestions into my teaching. 

I attended several workshops and symposiums that could assist my teaching and plan to attend and participate in more teaching effectiveness seminars and workshops offered at and outside IPFW.  Though I do not intend to seek tenure on teaching excellence, I strive for continuous improvement in teaching by keeping both students’ and peer evaluations above the department average and utilizing new techniques that I pick up at different teaching effectiveness seminars and workshops.  My intention is to demonstrate competence (if not excellence) in teaching.