Statements of Teaching Interests
Shin-jeng Lin, Ph.D.
Overall teaching interests
My teaching interests include electronic commerce, knowledge management, client-side Web application development (e.g., Dynamic HTML, cascading style sheet, JavaScript), server-side Web application development (e.g., ASP.NET, XML), database management, and introduction to management information systems. I have had successful teaching evaluations by students and the department chair. I received all 1s for the questions about the instructor’s teaching style, whereas 1 is the most agreeable and 5 is the most disagreeable. I have attached samples of teaching evaluations in the application package.
My teaching styles
To provide the best education experience in the classroom, I utilize a variety of pedagogical techniques, including interesting lecturing, lab exercises, group project presenting and positive criticism. I welcome feedbacks from students and incorporate appropriate suggestions. I strive to deliver intelligent presentations with energy necessary to motivate my students. I will characterize my teaching with the following traits: enthusiasm, expansion, and communication.
My enthusiasm is generated from the passion I have for the subjects I teach. The student evaluation has shown that the majority of students think I have always focused clearly on the topics in the classrooms. I cultivate students’ interest with the relevancy of the subjects as it personally relates to their career development. For example, I would repeatedly let my students in “Introduction to Information Systems” know that because they are business majors rather than MIS majors, the proficiency in office applications, such as Excel and Access, is essential and would add points to their job applications.
My teaching style is expansive as I emphasize the ability of critical thinking. I often tell my students that technologies are updating very fast. The technologies they learn today can be replaced with more robust and mature technologies tomorrow. So, it is the techniques of learning a technology that is the most important. Fundamentally understanding a technology and paying attention to the learning process will make them adaptable to learn newer technology as their career progresses. Even in the non-technology classes, I challenge students to relate the concepts covered in different chapters, helping them see beyond the book and get a bigger picture of the subject.
I enjoy communicating with my students. I like to use analogy to help students understand the abstract concepts. For example, I use apartment complex to explain the concept of ‘array’ in a programming course. I also provide timely help and additional off-class tutoring for students who struggle in the class. I am quick with email responses. I often have students lined up for additional help with their homework or projects.
As I continue to grow and develop as a teacher, I hope to become ever better at engaging students in learning, and challenging and promoting them to achieve their best.
Curriculum development
I have a forward view about the direction of the MIS curriculum. First, I contribute to the MIS program with passion and skill. I teach a variety of courses. In my five and half years at Le Moyne College, I have taught 7 different courses, including Introduction to Management Information Systems, Web Design and Development, Electronic Commerce, Database Management Systems, Applied System Analysis, Electronic Commerce for Managers, and Knowledge Management. The nature of MIS is development and change; I am willing to do whatever it takes to improve the MIS curriculum, including designing and opening new courses when necessary.
Second, I am actively involved in the design of the new Information Systems curriculum. I have developed many new Information Systems courses for Le Moyne College, including MIS 465 Electronic Commerce, MIS 703 Electronic Commerce for Managers, MIS 335 Web Design and Development, and MIS 415 Knowledge Management. Believing that these courses will keep our IS students empowered with the cutting-edge technology and our IS program fresh and up to date, I spent considerable time to design and improve the new curriculum. Creating and designing new courses took much more time than existing courses because I had to research the course content and how professors at other universities designed the courses. Plus, because the courses were so new when they were offered at the first time, there were actually not too many colleges offering these courses and not too many appropriate textbooks to choose. I assembled materials from various resources myself (e.g., Web sites or books), and had to prepare additional supplemental lecturing materials (e.g., Power Point Presentations) for each class.
Third, I serve on the MIS curriculum advisory board at Le Moyne College, which consists of MIS faculty and alumni. The MIS curriculum advisory board meets annually to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the existing MIS curriculum at Le Moyne. The alumni have given us very valuable suggestions and the MIS program has made some important changes to our curriculum accordingly. For example, given the trend of outsourcing information technology jobs, it is extremely important to emphasize the need for undergraduate and graduate students to explore the concept of business-IT alignment. We have decided to change the focus of the current MIS curriculum and prepare our students with a career in IT management as opposed to IT system development. Technology courses will still be taught, but students are learning them with the main purpose of getting familiar with the system development process and being capable of communicating with system developers. In addition, we introduce a required Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and project management course for both undergraduate and graduate students and continue to emphasize project-based business case studies that integrate functional business problems with Information Systems (IS) perspectives in IS courses, such as System Analysis and Database Management Systems.
With my solid experience and enthusiasm, I will continue to devote myself in the MIS curriculum development and provide students with a better educational plan that suit and shape their careers.