PeterSmith: Portfolio

Peter Smith's class Business Policy and Strategy (2002 Semester I) taught me a lot about myself and my ability to think strategically.

As a lecturer Peter has a genuine love of teaching his students new things. His approach towards them is a challenging and a forthright one, where he tries to evoke lateral thinking, rather than just text-book thinking. Coupled with a passion for the topic and a friendly outlook, Peter was able to motivate and encourage students to get more out of their learning.

My personal involvement with Peter has allowed me to grow as a person. I was very unsure of myself and my ideas during the first couple of weeks in his class. Peter seemed to be aware of this, and would often challenge me to speak up in class. His constant belief in my ability, his questioning and his encouragement allowed me to open up. In turn, I began to reflect his attitude towards his paper.

The way he taught the paper made me feel passionate. I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of an authoritative, spoon-feeding and patronizing approach in Peter. Instead, he laid the onus of learning key issues on students. The trust and respect he instilled in students, to be responsible over their learning, was reflected in our heated discussions of the theory. To make sure we understood the theory, Peter encouraged a case-study discussion per class, where we related practice to theory. During these discussions, Peter forced us to think outside of the square and question our learning, which helped expand our ability to critique the world around us. Something, I believe is valuable in my current work and academic experience. Peter's innovative style of teaching and passion for his topic has always received positive verbal feedback. Much of the class of 2002 felt honoured to be in his class and felt as if they had learned life-relevant issues from it.

Peter has always remained a positive influence on my life. I am currently completing my MCom thesis. I owe my place in the program to Peter's influence and nurturance of my academic abilities. He continues to teach me a lot about life in our daily interactions and he always encourages me to think that I can be the best.

Peter deserves this teaching award not only for his ability to innovatively teach and inspire learning in his students, but also because of his consistently friendly and concerned approach towards his students.

I do not think many people experience being 'taught' at university. It was an unusual feeling when I started Peter's paper the repetitious cycle of attending classes, being lectured, taking notes and studying was removed, and instead I was subconsciously immersed in learning. To me Peter is a pioneer, his approach to course design provided the chance to learn without penalty and have the opportunity to make mistakes something that is not offered in many classes. I was challenged to stop sitting on the fence and have the confidence to present my perspective on an idea to both my teacher and my fellow peers. This concept was challenging at first but the open atmosphere of the class where questions were expected and the constant feedback from Peter saw me gain a tremendous amount of self confidence. He does not fit the traditional lecturer's mould; Peter is a teacher who had an amazing amount of passion for our class and is not afraid to show it. This was unsurprisingly reciprocated by the passion that we developed for our paper. I use the word 'our' because as students we developed a relationship of shared respect with Peter that often saw us break the traditional student lecturer hierarchy and challenge our teacher's ideas. We became impassioned towards the paper as Peter led us down paths of discovery outside of the boundaries of our course. If it was not for Peter enthusiasm towards teaching I can honestly say I would not be in the position I am today. He has fostered a hidden ability in me for management and strategy and inadvertently driven my aspirations toward a career that utilises all of the knowledge gained while taking his paper. I now compete in strategy competitions (a suggestion from Peter) with the support of my teacher, his door is never shut and he is always willing to provide any guidance that will help me.

I read that you were no longer teaching 301 which will be a great loss to future students. The two best papers that I have taken practical lessons away from were 301 and 302, I think it is no coincidence that you were lecturing both of those. Your upfront and to the point style of teaching although a little bit challenging to someone coming across it for the first time, kind of grows on you.

Another point of difference is that probably have the least amount of notes from those papers, especially with 301 the book is something I will keep going back to. Unlike other papers where we get a wad of notes and a shiny text book - neither of which had the depth of material to go back to.

Peter's teaching style is quietly coaxing the best out of his students. This style is highly unique to Peter in our University environment, and helps all students in their important final year to find their stance on important theoretical issues.

For me, Peter's teaching allowed me to find my voice which was a little to quiet to speak up, and helped me to gain the confidence I needed. His help out of the classroom has also been unparalleled, and he has offered me a significant amount of guidance in my final year of study.

... I just want to say thanks for taking MGMT 301 this semester, and congratulations on your new role [as Deputy Director of the Auckland MBA]. I think that the paper will definitly be less without your skills (and stirring spoon!), but that MGMT 301's loss is the MBA's gain... something for when I finally manage to get back to university!

Anyway, thanks again for helping make this paper the most enjoyable one I've done in my degree

Below are my comments in regards to your teaching of the MBA Research Project:

The overall quality of the teaching was very good. This is examined against my personal criteria defined below (along with comments):

• The level and quality of guidance/support provided
  • This was excellent. The teaching felt personalised and questions asked were answered to ensure every student was moving forward. Each session was well structured with advanced notice and follow up information. In contrast, many other papers were quite generalised and anything outside of the teaching curriculum was ignored.

• How approachable the teacher is
  • The teacher was very approachable and had a true open door policy where students were always welcome. I always felt comfortable to ask any questions and could communicate by phone/email or direct. It was certainly shown that Peter wanted the students to succeed, unlike some teachers who just wanted to get the teaching done.

• How well the teaching is tailored for the audience
  • I found the teaching level appropriate. Peter was quite dynamic in his ability to get a feel of where the class was at and to ensure that we were getting the right information. In many other situations (other papers) the teaching level was too basic however the teacher never adjusted the level and just stuck with what they had planned.

• How challenging and interesting are the topics presented/taught
  • I felt that the class outline was designed well. It was structured to guide the students and provided them the necessary knowledge and tools at the right times.

• Quality and usefulness of material and presentation media
  • Good combination of slides/articles/whiteboard was used. Generally most classes throughout post grad and MBA provided good course material.

• The overall value/impact the teaching created for me personally
  • Peter was very motivating and supportive. I was encouraged to do well and he showed great interest in my progress and what I was actually doing. I saw this as an additional level of feedback which enabled my research project to free flow and advance. I feel that this was certainly not provided with other papers and that the majority of the feedback was from assignment/exam grades. Overall, I felt that the teaching provided me with the tools to professionally perform research and the confidence to present a professional research report.

I would rank the quality and impact of your teaching as very high from a personal perspective.

Positives -

1. Willing to understand students individual experience and translate academic value to that environment
2. Ability to understand various industry to translate where academic input can be of value
3. Timely in response to queries
4. Able to commit time and individual attention, recognising the pressures of the work/study balance
5. Vastly experienced in the areas of academic research and able to direct a students thinking on particular topics to current material, or able to understand that material in a logical manner and able to direct attention in order to explain the value of the academic research process
6. Friendly and respectful.
7. Firm and able to motivate the delivery of results

I would have limited negative points, particularly considering the challenges you faced last year, and I think its unfair to conclude on your group teaching ability, when the topic was 'academic research', so really all the value gained from interaction from you was from your one-on-one involvement.

... What I can say is that the facilitation that you provided throughout the process I underwent has impacted on my life. Hence the "what I learnt" had significant impact to the positive so hence I could only conclude that you were very successful in making an extended change to my business practice through the process of my learning facilitated by your teaching.

The research course for The Auckland MBA took 6 months to complete. During that time Peter was teaching the class, leading us through the research course. Peter was also involved in other aspects of The Auckland MBA throughout the year. I recall a discussion with Peter during a break from a lecture early in quarter two, we were discussing over coffee how I could feel the MBA programme was loading us up with more work than I thought could be completed in the time available. We discussed how as a class we were learning more than just the course content we were also learning how to achieve more through team work and collaboration, essential skills as you put the MBA to real work in the business world. That involvement from Peter and his help in making sense of the entire years content for the Auckland MBA was different to the type of help I received during the Diploma classes. The teaching style during the Diploma was much more about the specific course content, the linkages between the courses were not strong and as a student I had to make my own pathway through the Diploma to then apply for The Auckland MBA.

The content of the research course that Peter lead had everything that it needed. Peter was very good at managing the pace and time, which quickly ran out. Peter was consistent and reliable which became very important when appointments needed to be met. Peter outlined the requirements of the research and set for me the direction and then set the expectation that I would go and do the work and that we would be meeting again soon to discuss progress. Peter had made his expectations clear and was frank in telling me when he thought I could do better.

There was much more to completing the research than just the content of the lectures and following along the text book, Peter also needed to manage us as a class that during the same six months completed two other courses and managed complex personal lives and most students like myself were still working full time. Peter recognised that we were people too and made himself available to talk to us. Another example of Peters' leadership style I recall is the first class after we returned from International Business, where three or four students turned up. I said I was there because I needed to re-engage into the research and even though I had carried the books to Argentina and back I had not opened them for the past three weeks. My two or three other classmates were feeling the same, so Peter let us share stories and photographs from the trip and we finished early. I then went to Library until 9.00 pm feeling engaged, motivated and ready to carry on and finish the research.

The impact of Peters' teaching and leadership during the year and specifically the research project, has been for me to recognise the value in a strong peer group for discussion and the power in having specific goals and expectations set which are reviewed as well as the important aspects of the emotional requirements when managing people to perform while they are under pressure.

Peter is my lecturer for the 'Strategy' course. Compared with other courses I have done in the Postgraduate Diploma, I find that the quality of Peter's teaching is outstanding. This is based on the following reasons:

• The teaching environment was relaxing and creative, with different types of music playing as background sometimes (different from all other courses I have learnt);
• The teaching methods were innovative and challenging for some students, as we had to discuss at the class about a particular case and find out the best strategy among ourselves (no heavy reading, traditional PowerPoint lecturing);
• Peter performed as a facilitator rather than a lecturer. He strongly engaged students in active discussion about a practical business issue. (different from other courses, most students felt that we had to own the course and alter the ways of on-class discussion in order to maximise the learning)
• Peter also gave students constructive and effective feedback in terms of further improvement in the course. (due to the small size of the class, nearly every student got individual in-depth feedback during the course.)
  

The outcomes are:

• I enjoyed the class more and more as the course went on. Different from other courses, I really looked forward to attend the class every week;
• The use of in-class discussion has enhanced my communications skills and forced me to think the topics deeply and quickly.
• Students had to use all the previous knowledge learnt including economics, finance, law, etc. to represent their ideas about strategies.
• I also got on well with other students in the course, from the examples used by other students, I was able to learn from others and share some of my experiences with them.