Past IB Pedagogy Workshops

Our keynote speaker this year from the business community was Mr. Rahm Sitaraman, The Coca-Cola Company (ret.). He provided the attendees with a unique industry perspective on globalization, employer expectations of business graduates, and future trends in the global economy. Sitaraman argued that companies should strive for building ‘survival advantage’ since ‘competitive advantage’ is no longer sufficient in a volatile environment and a highly connected and interdependent global economy. Sitaraman provided the attendees with a unique industry perspective on globalization, employer expectations of business graduates, and future trends in the global economy. He argued that companies should strive for building ‘survival advantage’ since ‘competitive advantage’ is no longer sufficient in a volatile environment and a highly connected and interdependent global economy. 

For the first time this year, the FDIB included three plenaries on teaching excellence, instructional technology, and designing the introductory International Business (IB) course. These sessions gave the opportunity to all attendees to discuss and deliberate teaching philosophies, experiences, and best practice.plenaries on teaching excellence, instructional technology, and designing the introductory International Business (IB) course. These sessions gave the opportunity to all attendees to discuss and deliberate teaching philosophies, experiences, and best practice.

The first plenary featured a panel of experts who were asked: “What makes a good teacher?” The enthusiasm of each panel member provided a different perspective on what elements make a good master teacher, including ongoing exploration of how students engage with classroom materials (or not), using storytelling to encourage students to understand lessons, building on the innate curiosity in students, keeping energy in lectures, and giving students a true learning experience. Roberto Garcia from Indiana University opened the session with advice to draw on the world economy to help students understand processes in international business and remember that students are in fact interested in the professor him or herself, so it is important to find out what is relevant to millennial students. Fernando Doria, Georgia State University, said: “there’s good news and bad news, it’s good but bad.” Doria’s passion resonated as he spoke about how teaching models have basically been the same for years, and professors need to find tools to build on the students’ curiosity.

The second plenary presented instructional technology platforms and resources demonstrating how professors can use them to leverage classroom learning on and offline. Jacobus Boers from Georgia State University posed the question “as technology continues to grow and change every day, how will professors be relevant in 10 years?” Some of the tools featured by panel members varied from more traditional software such as Adobe Captivate to social networks such as Pinterest and Zaption (which allow teachers to use video to give the student an interactive experience). Attendees were given a crash course on each type of technology and how to effectively integrate the various tools into effective learning environments.

The final plenary featured content and resources for teaching the introductory IB course. Topics discussed included: dynamic textbooks, experiential teaching, and how to keep student skill sets relevant, so the students are marketable in an ever-changing landscape. Michael Pustay, Texas A&M University, stated that one major challenge IB professors face today is that they now need to be an expert on many subjects of the world and provide millennial students with critical thinking skills as well as foundational knowledge of IB functions, world cultures, and country facts. This problem can be tackled via experiential teaching by using applied, participative involvement in a real world environment. John Riesenberger, a former business executive, and educator spoke about the most critical issue in business today: getting talented people to commit to jobs. According to a NACE survey on 1,000 companies, the most significant skills employers are looking for in today’s market is a person’s ability to work in a team environment, be able to effectively communicate, and have organizational and critical thinking skills.

Also, new this year, a competitive poster session was held, allowing participants to showcase their classroom innovations and teaching resources. The first place winner was the first-year attendee Jim Blair from the University of Rhode Island. Blair received a $1,000 prize, sponsored by Emerald Press. Second place winner, Dina Frutos-Bencze from Saint Anselm College, received a $750 prize, and third place winner, Chinintorn Nakhata from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, was awarded $500. Both second and third place awards were sponsored by GSU-CIBER.

As in the past, five parallel thematic workshops were held, each led by expert faculty in the IB sub-disciplines. These breakout sessions included finance, management, marketing, introduction to international business, and supply chain management. Sunday morning ‘bonus’ workshops addressed such themes as pedagogy, research, case teaching, and cross-national perspectives in teaching IB.

Thank you for a wonderful session. It certainly reinvigorated me for teaching the class again next semester. The tips, ideas and advice were invaluable.”
– Reccia Charles, St. George’s University, West Indies

“A fantastic experience! You will walk away with so many ideas and resources that your biggest challenge will be figuring out which you want to utilize!”
– Shirley Stretch Stephenson, California State University, Los Angeles

“In addition to the instructor’s expertise and knowledge, I appreciated their contagious passion and willingness to share their best practices. I’m excited to bring that back to the classroom.”
– Jim Ryan, Bradley University

The takeaways from this year’s conference left attendees with new ideas of how to reach students in the classroom, how to adequately prepare them for the job market, and numerous new connections with other likeminded professionals in international business. The FDIB Workshops went beyond simply providing lectures; attendees were encouraged to mingle with one another at various lunches and coffee breaks throughout the event. The success of the year’s conference has Georgia State’s CIBER team looking forward to an even more effective and exciting symposium in 2017!

The 2015 event saw over 75 participants, workshop leaders, and special guests from the U.S. and abroad, including Dr. Timothy Duvall from the U.S. Department of Education, Ed Baker, publisher of the Atlanta Business Chronicle, and Eric Joiner, vice chairman of AJC International, and featured welcoming remarks by Richard Phillips, Dean of GSU's J. Mack Robinson College of Business. GSU-CIBER was especially proud to not only reduce the registration fee from previous years (which included lodging and conference materials) but also be able to offer 28 Faculty Fellowship Awards to help defray participation costs for those faculty members from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), two-year colleges and institutions, and those with little or no professional development funds.

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Ed Baker, in his traditional fashion, challenged attendees to look beyond the existing models of graduate business education. The MBA, he reminded participants, has become a commodity that is difficult to distinguish from one university to  another. Therefore, it is our common responsibility to ensure that what we offer students is relevant, cutting-edge and closely tied to the needs of the business community.

As the Publisher of the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Ed has his finger on the pulse of Atlanta and Georgia businesses. For business schools to remain relevant, he argued, they must ensure that they build strong and sustainable ties with these businesses. He also emphasized entrepreneurship as a viable career alternative that should be championed by leading business schools.

Mourad Dakhli, Associate Professor & GSU-CIBER Faculty Director

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Since 1992, the Globalization Workshops have been sponsored by a consortium of CIBERs and have trained over 1,000 faculty members from around the U.S. and other countries. Each workshop is designed to facilitate an open dialogue among educators who share teaching interests and is led by one or two world-class educators in international business, who incorporate content, pedagogy, and resources for teaching in their courses.

The thematic workshops offered in 2015 were:

• Introduction to International Business,
• International Management,
• International Financial Management,
• Global Supply Chain Management,
• International Marketing.

Additionally, participants were able to select from three-hour bonus sessions on:

• Research in international business,
• Teaching pedagogy,
• Case writing for international business, and
• Tools for Cultural Learning in Study Abroad (incorporating the Cultural Analysis Toolkit).

Download the 2015 Agenda

The event received much praise from the participants. Attendees expressed great satisfaction with the range of workshops offered, expert speakers, facilities, and overall hosting of the event. Here are some representative comments:

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"It is a humbling experience to learn from such experts. I am leaving Atlanta with lots of fresh ideas and resources to help educate my students on international management, global issues, strategy, organizational behavior and international marketing… and to entertain them, as with the newer generation of college students, the line between professor and entertainer is fading fast. As a new professor, I also welcomed the validation of some of my practices… it is always good to learn that some of our lecture practices are the "right stuff" to implement when teaching IB."

- Juan-Maria Gallego, Lecturer, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

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"Ben and Leigh Ann were both so inspiring and great workshop leaders. I came back to Florida with so much great information. And it was so great to be with a group of colleagues who sharing best practices."

- Dr. Ann Langlois, Palm Beach Atlantic University

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"FDIB was a great learning experience for me, not only in the design/delivery of my new Global Management MBA course but also in my own personal growth and development."

-vRana Haq, Assistant Professor, Laurentian University

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"The three things I appreciate most about the conference were the subject matter expertise and teaching styles of the workshop leaders, the specific pedagogical approaches to teaching IB, and the step by step knowledge and instruction offered during the workshops."

- Anonymous MSI faculty and Fellowship awardee