Teaching Philosophy

 

Teaching and learning are separate activities. I believe that teaching consists in making available knowledge, expertise and support, and providing the opportunity to learn. This means that students are responsible for learning. An instructor can motivate, teach and offer support, but responsibility for learning lies with the students. This responsibility for their own learning prepares students for their life after university, in which lifelong learning and self-motivated seeking our of new knowledge and the continued acquisition of new skills are important. A university is more than an institution of instruction but graduates students that are sufficiently mature for their future life and careers. This must be especially the case for students in applied areas like business administration and information systems. I consider students to be intelligent and responsible learners, who must assume partial responsibility for the outcome of their university career.

 

My teaching style is "hands on" when possible, in the sense that I ask students to not only learn the concepts and theory but also gain familiarity with performing realistic tasks and exercises. While the traditional lecture is an important tool to convey basic information, I believe that real knowledge can be gained only through application and problem solving. The courses that I have taught have had a strong component of applied examples, in-class demonstrations, hands-on assignments and project work.

 

I also apply this philosophy to myself and believe that I should not teach what I have not done myself. Consequently, for many technology related courses I have developed deep expertise in the technologies that form part of a course. I believe that this expertise and practical knowledge, rather than only knowledge theoretical concepts, are important to good teaching; I hope to be recognized as an expert with relevant practical knowledge and skills, rather than just an instructor teaching from a textbook.

 

My teaching approach is to provide challenges to students and offer assistance to overcome them. From my own experience as a student and researcher I know that accepting and overcoming a challenge is a rewarding and motivating experience. For example, I might cover basic principles of business processes in a course, but will refer students to additional literature for their project or assignment, and be available to answer specific questions. Students having to seek out and pull together knowledge is realistic in their future careers, but very different from the pushing of knowledge to them that they may experience in traditional lectures.

 

I set high standards and have high expectations of my students. The difference between good and excellent course performance is the difference between competence in performance and the ability for critical reflection and evaluation of the topic. For example, while a competent student in a business process class may be able to define a business process that is correct and solves a particular problem, excellent performance requires a demonstration of critical reflection on the problem, the technology, or the solution.

 

In my courses, I value group work among students. While this has some associated problems like "free-riding", group work is essential to develop communication, management, and teamwork skills. It is also required in today's workforce and must be an essential and integral part of any curriculum.

 

From a curriculum perspective, I believe that as a scholar and teacher it is important to provide students with the most rigorous, most relevant, most useful and most up-to-date curriculum that I can design. This requires continuous improvement of courses and continuous reevaluation of the appropriateness of learning goals, objectives, course content and pedagogical approaches. I believe that students will develop an interest when relevance and usefulness of a course are effectively communicated to them. Increased interest in a course is a prerequisite for a better learning outcome. The importance of rigour and relevance does not only apply to individual courses but also the curriculum in a particular discipline as whole. Again, I believe that continuous reevaluation and redevelopment are required to capture student interest and improve student learning outcomes.

Student Testimony

 

“  I'd like to take a minute here to thank you professor as well. This class was difficult, and everything was new material. I really felt that you supported us students and had a desire to see us succeed. You were very respectful of our questions and very approachable. This might seem like like it should be a given for a teacher, but it is actually a rarity. So thank you professor!  ”
“  As we conclude this semester, I've decided that this is the hardest course I've taken while at MUN, simply because of the group work and technical material. However, I also feel like I've learned the most in this course in comparison to any other course I've taken. It was a field of business that I knew nothing about, had no interest in and thought was basically impossible. However, it really turned into a course with some potential of passing after asking a lot of questions and putting in some solid hours.  ”
“  The instruction and class work in Business 2710 did an excellent job of teaching the different ways workflows could be modeled, notated and eventually analyzed. Given the intricate nature of the material, I found the course to be marked very strictly, which drove me to concentrate more on the subject area than I initially thought would be necessary.  ”
“  I want to thank you for teaching the course and spending many hours in your office providing feedback to our work, it shows that you care about your students and their progress in the course; even if we don’t always get A's!  ”
“  I appreciate your interest in the course Dr. Evermann and also the number of office hours that you made available for our group. ... I feel my career path will not be with business information systems however I will not hesitate to take another class like this.  ”
“  Joerg is very helpful and his willingness to help is excellent. Great lecturer  ”
“  One of the things that really struck me was the amount of effort and dedication it must have taken on your part to bring the course to such a high level. Teaching the course in the manner in which you did must have taken an enormous amount of preparation and time.  ”
“  Really enjoyed the course, I am hoping that my applications development teams start to use these techniques for their developments and am investigating suitable training.  ”
“  However, combined with the real-life examples used in the past couple of modules, I feel as though I have gained a better understanding of the software and how it can be useful in a business environment.  ”
“  Now that I am at the end I realize that I certainly have learned a lot. I don't know if I'll find myself doing this kind of work explicitly in the future, but I am confident that the new knowledge will yield rewards in my own career day by day ... I am also delighted to have some new tools and vocabulary that I hope will help facilitate new avenues of opportunity with the stakeholders that I deal with. ... And this recent foray into the analysis component, I can already envision taking these techniques into my workplace for application to how we approach analyzing and understanding the work we do and how our systems perform.   ”
“  As I've mentioned many times before, the best thing regarding the material was how it so easily integrated into human resource management. Sometimes it is hard to picture how I will use knowledge from a class in the working world, but it's plain to see with this class, especially if I get into consulting. I've saved all my notes, readings, and tutorials so that hopefully I can continue to practice building models in my own time and get better at it. I think it would be a valuable skill to have when applying for HR, Organizational Development or Consulting jobs.  ”
“  I find that the subject matter is fantastic. My mother is a department manager for a local company. When I discussed with her what we do in this class during the second or third week, the first thing she said was "that's what we're trying to do now." ... All in all, i think this class is useful.  ”
“  I've enjoyed Business 3700. I previously heard some bad things about the course, but the course was a pleasant surprise. What I liked most about the course is that the course material was constantly related to a future career in business.  ”
“  I have occupied many positions in the workforce over many years, mostly in managerial positions and international positions outside of Canada. I have encountered many of the issues we have discussed throughout this course and found our discussions both interesting and relevant. While my specialty is not IS, we are all affected by it. The content of this course has done well to at least examine some of the potential issues faced by managers in any type of organization and give some relevant discussion to the realities of the workplace.  ”
“  The concepts you presented were very useful, especially given the extent IT pervades every aspect of most organizations nowadays.  ”
“  Dr. Evermann's style of teaching made the material clear. ... Dr. Evermann's main concern was that his students understood the material and he was available outside of class for further discussion.   ”
“  Dr. Evermann is a caring and creative instructor and knows how to design the syllabus so that all the students respond positively while course goals, in terms of learning, are achieved.  ”
“  On a personal note, I have over 5 years of teaching experience at every level from kindergarten through university, as well as seminar instruction and professional development at the corporate level. I am tough critic of other educators. Joerg has a keen understanding for achieving clear objectives, both through the development of appropriate, goal-oriented curriculum, and the creation of an effective learning environment. He has an engaging personality and excellent classroom management skills.  ”
“  Dr. Evermann was always ready to help. He provided me substantial guidance on challenging questions of research methodology, theoretical development, and even matters of professional growth. This was highly commendable considering his limited direct stakes in my success ... Throughout the program Dr. Joerg Evermann has been instrumental in my academic growth.  ”
“  I am currently in the midst of analyzing the data for my summer research project. As I work on my data, I have had several opportunities to use/apply what I learned from your class. ... I have to add that I never thought I would be able to read statistics-related journal articles and actually enjoy them. But I did, which was great. I find that they are great reference materials too. The class discussions were also quite interesting.  ”
“  Joerg was a fantastic professor who cared about his students, and was always willing to provide assistance, be it through email or in person. I found that he developed and taught the course in a way that was interesting and applicable to MBA students. With his unique teaching style, instead of memorizing facts and information, I feel that I gained knowledge, improved my problem-solving skills, and enhanced my analytical thinking skills, all of which will no doubt benefit me in other courses and future endeavors. I appreciated his fairness in marking and his feedback with regard to assignments and coursework. I would recommend him as a professor to other students in the MBA program.  ”
“  Another important aspect of my interactions with Professor Evermann was his mentoring. He is always available to answer questions: after class, during office hours, and whenever you could catch him in his office. For my own experience in applying for Post Secondary, Professor Evermann offered a wealth of knowledge and advice. He put me in contact with current students and faculty, and promoted programs offered through Memorial.  ”
“  Given his expertise, I occasionally asked for his help on topics such as statistics, conceptual modeling, and system's theory. In every occasion, he had been very welcoming and extremely instrumental in coaching me with the subject. I find his approach to students friendly and professional. Through the comments of my fellow students, I came to the realize that Dr. Evermann's organization and discipline in course material as well as his expectations in classroom would positively serve his students to employ their best efforts and realize their true potential.   ”

Publications on Teaching

 

  • Jewer, J., and Evermann, J.: Enhancing Learning Outcomes through Experiential Learning: Using Open-Source Systems to Teach Enterprise Systems and Business Process Managament Journal of Information Systems Education (JISE) (accepted January 29th, 2016).
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  • Jewer, J. and Evermann, J. (2014) Experiential Learning with an Open-Source Enterprise System. Proceedings of the 20th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), Aug 7-10, Savannah, GA.
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  • Evermann, J. (2013) Developing a Realistic Workflow Management Environment for Teaching: An Interface from YAWL to OpenERP. Proceedings of the YAWL User Group Symposium, St. Augustin, Germany, June 7th.
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  • Evermann, J., Furey, M. and Hussey, T. (2013) Using YAWL in a Business Undergraduate Course on Process Management: An Experience Report. Proceedings of the YAWL User Group Symposium, St. Augustin, Germany, June 7th.
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  • Evermann, J., Hooper, V., Yoong, P. et al. (2007) The Discovery Camp: A Talent Fostering Initiative for Developing Research Students. Proceedings of INSITE 2007.
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  • Evermann, J., Hooper, V., Yoong, P. et al. (2007) The Discovery Camp: A Talent Fostering Initiative for Developing Research Students. Journal of Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, Vol 4, 211-255, 2007.
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Leadership in Teaching and Curriculum Development

 

The curriculum in the Information Systems discipline must constantly be kept up-to-date and relevant due to rapid changes in Information Technology. Thus, as outlined in my teaching philosophy, there is a need for constant reflection, change, and improvement. I have demonstrated leadership in teaching and curriculum development in the following ways.

 

In 2006, I initiated a project at Victoria University of Wellington to increase graduate student enrolments. In order to build awareness of and interested in graduate research among students, I conceived of and developed the discovery camp initiative to encourage promising undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies and a research careers. The discovery camp is a two day event where faculty members mentor a group of invited undergraduate student on a small research project. Teaching research skills to undergraduate students in this way was personally very satisfying and proved successful for the school's graduate programs, with application numbers increasing.

 

The team that was involved in the event reflected on the experience from a pedagogical perspective and developed a general set of recommendations for such events. Our experiences from this action research have been published at a conference. The report was subsequently selected by the editors for publication in a journal for research on teaching. I organized the event at Victoria University in Wellington for two years, and it is still successfully run as an annual event (as of 2011).

 

The Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow's ICT skills (CCICT) is a Canada-wide non-profit organization comprising over 20 Canadian universities and many of Canada's largest businesses as industry partners. CCICT is developing an industry-relevant model curriculum for careers in information systems or information technology. I have been Memorial University's representative to the CCICT and have provided feedback on the curriculum initiative, its process and the proposed model curriculum. I have participated in meetings, and have discussed the model curriculum within the information systems area group and also discussed the CCICT initiative with the head of the computer science department at MUN. While no action has been taken to commit to this model curriculum,this demonstrates my commitment to curriculum development and improvement and leadership in this matter. It also demonstrates my awareness of current requirements by our industry stakeholders.

 

NATI is the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Technology Industries, which also represents the local St. John's information technology industry. In the interest of identifying current requirements for graduates in information systems by our industry stakeholders, I have attempted to initiate a dialogue to support curriculum improvements.

 

In the interest of providing a relevant information systems and computer science offering to students, I have worked with the head of the department of computer science on numerous occasions and different initiatives. We held initial discussions on developing a joint degree program, I contributed to the development of a new computer science elective course that is relevant to business students (COMP1600). We developed combinations of minors and majors that are relevant to different industry needs for graduate skills.

 

I have developed a course proposal for a research project course that was approved by faculty council in late 2011. The course is intended as a two semester course that will allow students to gain some research experience at the undergraduate level, to develop their interest in graduate studies, and to develop their capacity to perform research at the graduate level. Given the difficulties of our PhD program to attract qualified students, I believe that this course is important to attract our own undergraduate students. Further, the course can in effect play the role of a thesis, should the faculty later wish to develop a research based undergraduate honours degree.

 

I have received an instructional development grant (IDG, competitive) to develop hands-on experiential learning with enterprise software systems in the business curriculum. I have taken the initiative to introduce experiential, hands-on, active learning on enterprise software systems into the curriculum. Enterprise systems integrate the information for the entire business and support functions spanning the entire organization, from accounting, to sales, procurement, production management, logistics, human resources, etc. Our graduates will experience the use of enterprise systems in almost any business. Consequently, consistent with my teaching philosophy of providing a relevant and current curriculum, I believe that, hands-on experiential learning and exposure to enterprise systems are an important part of a business education. My instructional development proposal has been funded to select and configure a suitable Enterprise Systems, integrate it with other software systems already in use in some courses, and develop instructional materials such as student exercises, tutorials, demonstrations, etc.

Teaching and Research Relationship

 

I believe that it is always possible to find synergies and connections between teaching and research. For example, in my information system analysis and design courses (INFO-212, INFO-222), I emphasize the problem of meaning of modeling languages and encourage students to reflect critically on the meaning of the symbols they use. This provides an opportunity for me to bring recent research results (mine and others) on the best use of information system modeling languages to the course. I also teach modeling rules for UML diagrams that are based on my own dissertation work and my later research papers on that topic.

 

Because my research frequently involves software development with emerging technologies, I also have the opportunity to expose students to these technologies. For example, in internet application development courses (ELCM-353), I employ XML (extensible markup language) technologies that I routinely use in my research. In fact, XML has become so important that I took the opportunity to focus an entire course on XML-based data and information management with ELCM-353 in 2006 and 2006.

 

The development of the new BUSI-2710 course on business process modeling and implementation is heavily influenced by the latest research on this topic. While my own research only indirectly touches on this topic, through my work in conference program committees and attendance of international conferences, especially the ER and CAiSE conferences, I am aware of the latest research developments in the business process area. These have informed the selection of topics for the BUSI-2710 course, the selection of the textbook and the selection of the software that is used in the course. For example, both the textbook and software are authored by the leading research groups on business process management (at Technical University Eindhoven and Queensland University of Technology).

 

My teaching has also informed my research. I have been fortunate enough to teach courses on research methods and statistical techniques both at Victoria University and at Memorial University (BUSI9901, BUSI9903, INFO403). This forces a reflection on what I do in my own research, the principles and methods that I apply, and the validity of the knowledge that I claim to create. Such critical reflection is important for all researchers. Consequently, I derive much intellectual stimulation from postgraduate courses.

 

As an example of the connection between teaching and research at this level, my process tracing study on data integration was the result of discussing process tracing with a group of graduate students. I realized that this was an appropriate technique for the kind of research question I was interested in. The result was a journal paper on the substantive results and a conference paper on the methodological aspects of data analysis techniques for process tracing. These research experiences and results in turn are being used in current research methods and data analysis courses.

 

Teaching research methods courses (BUSI9901, BUSI9903, INFO403) and supervising graduate student work required me to develop a deep expertise with research methods and statistical methods that I may not have become exposed to otherwise. It has led to a deeper understanding of the current issues and problems faced by their users. Specifically, after teaching the statistical technique of structural equation modeling to students it became clear to me that this technique is not well understood in the information systems discipline. This has prompted my recent research into statistical methodologies in the information systems discipline, and has led to a number of conference publications and two papers in a high-quality journals. In turn, these results and this knowledge will inform future instances of BUSI9901 and BUSI9903.