The Best Research Paper

As a professor, I am proud when my students receive research awards. Almost 10 years ago, I was about to teach my advanced research methods class in a doctoral program. The course is focused in quantitative methods. I asked myself, why people write research? Well, to change policies, to improve settings, to learn. Now what happened when you write a paper and nobody reads it...nothing!. After giving some thought I decided that will be incomplete teaching/learning experience to ask students to write a paper, and then give them a grade. The learning experience has to culminate when the student is able to present the paper in a peer reviewed conference (not in class!) or published in a journal. His or Her work will be read it, discuss it for several people, and forever, posted in his / her resume. That program begins in 2005...next year, we will have the paper number 100 produced in this class. Check them out in my website http://www.internationalprofessor.com/cv/index.html Students have presented in India, France, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Canada, and the United States. In the United States, students have gone to Las Vegas, Seattle, Florida, New York, Connecticut, and counting. I am proud of them, they have received several awards: Best Paper in IBEC conference, Czech Republic, Best Presenter in One Voice International Conference in New York, Best Case Study in IBEC Conference in India...and so on. The course requires several meetings and reviews of the paper before the paper is actually approved to be sent to a conference. I am writing this blog, because now I am teaching an online course that requires research, how can I repeat this success in an online course? That’s what I am up now. I have begun with Skype meetings, phone meetings and preparing some guidelines. I found this interesting blog that discusses 22 ways to teach research skills. I may explore some of them. What ways of synchronous/ asynchronous communication do you think I can use to assure the contact and feedback to the students papers?

First Class Guest Speakers in your Class! - No Travel required!

I was teaching Organization Theory II in the doctoral program at Dowling College. I got an idea, to ask the students to interview leaders that possessed a doctoral degree and have applied their dissertation findings to their work and/or life. I have invited successful alumni to participate and be interviewed. The results are coming this weekend! I can see the effects already...Networking...mentoring...and learning...! I also asked them to read two books among other materials, one was "The Princessa, Machiavelli for Women" by Harriet Rubin, and the other was The Art of the War by Sun Tzu. Students needed to review the books in different organizational perspectives, such as decision making, communication, and so on. And it happens..what it usually happens when you are in a room with a 135 IQ plus (ok now they will argue that it is a more...or what about Emotional Intelligence, and then, question the validation of the IQ or IE within different cultures...Do you see what I mean? ha ha ha ).

 These future doctors, females and males, foreign and nationals, various ages, races, and ethnicity..enter into a DISAGREEMENT!, They all have different analysis of the book!...yep...the classroom was a war zone..  You can hear comments such as
"In my country,...." "Females are..." "I am a young person who belief..." We were all laughing and interpreting the books under our own perspective... Hey, humor is requirement in this class....
Someone asked, Dr. Morote, What exactly Harried Rubin was thinking when she said "Use your body as a weapon"...? ; Dr. Morote, when Sun Tzu talks about "terrain", is it like organization culture? well, that's it, I said. STOP. I cannot write to Sun Tzu (he passed away more than two thousand years ago) and ask him...but I can write, right now to Harriet Rubin...and she can respond for herself!
Amazingly, Ms. Rubin responded to our call, and we will be interviewing her this coming Sunday..Isn't that exciting? Since this is blog is about technology, now the question is, What is the best technology to communicate one - to many? She won't be able to travel in person...
update: Our guest speaker was in an area of no Internet, we chose to use  a speaker-phone devise
Have you ever attended a world class speaker in your class? Describe the experience interviewing with Ms. Rubin.

Useful Websites for Teaching

As an educators we are always looking for good info to use in our classes. Sometimes we create our own lessons, or sometimes we use others --for example-- videos prepared for others teachers or organizations. I believe that a good teacher should be able to look for the resources he/she needs as well as create her/his own. For example for videos you can go to: http://www.teachertube.com http://youtube.com https://www.teachingchannel.org/ https://www.khanacademy.org/ There are so many websites, and depending on the topic, teachers should find the ones are useful for their classes. You can google them, ask them or use your favorite search engine. Which ones are your favorities?