Excellence in teaching

Associate Professor Nick Forster received an Excellence in Teaching Award for the year 2002. He is our first columnist for the year, as part of OSDS and the University's effort to share the expertise of these award winners with the wider teaching community. Nick has a long history of achievement in the teaching field, such as being the recipient of seven commendations and three awards for excellence in teaching since December 1997, with OB and MO both receiving the 'Best Unit Coursework' award in 1999 and 2001. He was also nominated by UWA for a National Australian Universities' Teaching Award in 2000.

I teach on three MBA courses: Organisational Behaviour, the Management of Organisations, Organisations in their Environments, and Managing Strategic Change on the Executive MBA program. My approach to teaching is pretty straightforward: I'm passionate about the subjects I teach and I hope this rubs off onto my students. However, passion alone is not enough because there are special challenges associated with teaching fee-paying post-graduates. About two-thirds have considerable work experience. Many are in senior management positions and some run their own companies. They pay $1600 per MBA Unit. Many have family responsibilities. When they come into the GSM after an eight or nine-hour day at work, they have every right to demand high quality teaching. The biggest challenge is to get them engaged with alternative ways of looking at the 'softer' aspects of organisational management and, equally important, at their own behaviour towards their bosses, colleagues and subordinates. One starting point to get them to talk about their own experiences in dealing with these aspects of organisational life - through a variety of experiental exercises - then relocating this within the academic discourses, theories and models they have discovered in the literature.

Effective teaching at the postgraduate level requires good up-to-date content, challenging and relevant class materials, a seamless fusion of theoretical perspectives on leadership and people management, and the use of every teaching device and aid that exists; integrated with the real-life managerial practices of participants on the course. It also relies on developing close relationships with students - in order to foster 'leading out' (educare) rather than 'spoon-feeding in' (lecturing). I see my own role very much as one of facilitator, coach or guide, rather than a traditional 'lecturer'. One-way lecturing is kept to the absolute minimum - with only vignettes or summaries to draw out the main themes of a session. I'm also a strong advocate of experiental learning and the content of the seminars reflects this. Last, but not least, enthusiasm and a good sense of humour always work well!

The one suggestion I'd pass on to my colleagues is the same as last year: don't use PowerPoint, or at least minimise its use. Tara Brabazon makes these comments about the use of PowerPoint in university teaching (in Digital Hemlock: Internet Education and the Poisoning of Teaching),

If I could uninvent one software program, it would be PowerPoint. Without exception, the worst presentations, lectures and budget briefings I attend are conducted using this tragic package. Presenters break all the rules of public speaking: repeating verbatim the words on the screen; letting the technology determine the pace and order of the presentation; and even requiring the darkening of the room. Many of these presentations either do not run or start late because of problems with the technology. For students, new problems emerge. Students desire access to the overheads of a lecture - this access means that they do not have to attend the lecture. More seriously, the students who check their notes against the PowerPoint slides will invariably copy down any points they missed - word for word. This is not critical thinking; it is not even thinking.

How true. During twelve years involvement with hundreds of postgraduate management students, PowerPoint has rarely been used (and you may be thinking, "So what?"). Well, the interesting thing is that there has not been one occasion when a student has indicated that I should use this technology, either in person or on their end-of-course SPOT forms. Not once. Ever. Perhaps it's time to review the ubiquitous use of this 'tragic package' in university teaching?

• Brabazon, T. (2002). Digital hemlock : Internet education and the poisoning of teaching. Sydney : UNSW Press