Segal
School of Business Simon
Fraser University 500
Granville Street. Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada V6C 1W6
Eric
Gedajlovic
Teaching Philosophy
“Effective teaching involves
motivating students to teach themselves and to instill in them a sense that
learning is an incremental and life-long pursuit. In pursuing this objective, I
emphasize to my students the power and limits of theoretical explanations of
real world phenomena and seek to deliver to them an appropriate balance of
specialized and general knowledge in a climate of respect for the individual
student and their unique talents and needs.”
Teaching Experience
I have taught a
variety of core and elective courses in the fields of Strategic Management,
Entrepreneurship, International Business, the Management of Technology and Organizational
Theory to undergraduate, MBA, Executive MBA and PhD students.
Pedagogical Approach
My
pedagogical approach involves the triangulation of theory, case studies and
‘real world’ contemporary events through guided discussions, group and individual
projects as well as experiential exercises.
I believe
there is nothing quite as practical as a good theory and my teaching approach
involves couching directed and specialized knowledge, or ‘theory’ in terms of
problems and issues which students need to confront and resolve. In my
classroom, no theory is presented without discussing alternative explanations.
I ask students to rigorously consider the strengths and limitations of
particular theoretical approaches and most importantly to assess a theory’s
“reasonableness” or face validity. In doing so, we consider the following
questions,
1. Does the theory make sense?
2. Can we think of real examples in which the
theory sheds insights on problems that individuals, teams, organizations and
communities face?
3. Can we think of real examples in which the
theory does not seem to apply?
4. Can we think of real situations where
application of the theory would lead to dysfunctional outcomes?
5. Can we identify contingency factors which help
us understand when, where and at what level a particular theory is most
usefully applied?
This approach
is geared towards helping students develop a better ability to deal with
ambiguous real world problems. Such problems are highly complex and are often
intertwined with other problems. They are also multifaceted and persistent over
time. I strive to have my students leave my course with a stronger sense of
confidence in their ability to deal with practical real world problems, but
also with a sense of humility stemming from the understanding that such
problems frequently have no definitive solutions.
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Copyright, Eric Gedajlovic, 2000-2010