My observation: The Wuhan Coronavirus and its Covid-19 illness are creating a watershed moment in how people meet, conduct business, and learn. I doubt we will return fully to prior behaviors after this settles.

Breaking News (from The Buffalo News)

"All state university campuses will shut down on March 19 to try to reduce density levels of students who could spread the novel coronavirus among people on and off college grounds.

"The remaining weeks of the spring semester for the 64-campus State University of New York will be offered through online course work, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said Wednesday afternoon.

"'That will be a way to reduce density and that’s a good thing,' Cuomo said.

"The order will also affect the City University of New York system."

https://buffalonews.com/2020/03/11/all-suny-cuny-schools-shifting-to-online-learning-to-combat-coronavirus/

#covid-19 #coronavirus #education #businessmeetings #travel #socialchange #onlinelearning #elearning

"What to expect for the global economy in 2019"
World Economic Forum, January 11, 2019

I am preparing course content for five college business sections that I'll teach this spring semester, starting this coming Monday. Two sections' subjects are undergraduate strategic management. One section's subject is graduate strategic management. The two remaining graduate sections are regional business in the pacific rim and a section on the global competitive framework. 

There is so much going on globally, both politically and economically, that we will never be at a loss for current news to support and illustrate the material we are studying. I just added this World Economic Forum summary article to the required reading for all five courses.

The article is available on the World Economic Forum website at:
www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/what-to-expect-for-the-global-economy-in-2019/

#iloveteaching #strategicmanagement #realeconomicnews #universityatbuffalo #canisiuscollege #daemencollege

This is an example of Project-Based Learning.

The strategic management students are working on final presentations of their three-year strategic plan outcomes within a global strategy simulation in an athletic shoe industry. This is a semester-long project, culminating in the final presentation of the analysis of the strategic plan outcomes.

The teacher (i.e., me) ceases to be the "sage on the stage" and becomes a consultant. The teacher visits the student teams, and the students come for advice and consultation.

Both strategy classes this semester have been fully engaged, and their results within the simulation have been outstanding.

Entrepreneur and educator Indra Wijaya visited my University at Buffalo Entrepreneurship & Small Business class in Singapore this morning. He talked about the business he has started, and he worked with some of the project teams.
The students have grouped into their course-long working teams. Each team has a leader who wishes to develop a business plan for a new business.

​My current Ph.D. research is deeply personal. I spent a year, from January 1969 until January 1970, in Pleiku, Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. Pleiku is in the Central Highlands, less than 50 miles from the Cambodian border. At the time, it sat squarely on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the major supply route for the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) into the South, in support of NVA troops and the Vietcong. For about two decades, I had wanted to return. I saw the devastation we created during the war – to the countryside and to the lives of the people. I wanted to see how the Vietnamese were doing. In early 2012, I had an opportunity to travel to Hanoi, Vietnam, to teach business classes for seven weeks for Keuka College. I took that opportunity I have been teaching annually in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) since 2012. Finally, I had the opportunity to see Vietnam 40 years after the war, and to give something back to a new generation of Vietnamese business students.

Prior to starting to teach in 2012, I had spent 37 years in business. For most of those years, I was a senior marketing and sales executive, in Fortune 500 and global companies. Teach college business courses came naturally. I had mentored subordinates throughout my career. I had given dozens of business workshops, both in my salaried executive career, and as a consultant from 2001 through 2012.

My instinct, starting with the first Keuka College course I taught, which was a business leadership class, was to incorporate projects for the students that would enable them to apply what they were studying in lectures and in their textbook. After a year of teaching in Vietnam, I realized that I needed to gain a deeper understanding of the processes of teaching and learning, resulting in my enrollment in fall 2013 in the Curriculum, Instruction, and the Science of Learning Ph.D. program within the Graduate School of Business, State University of New York University at Buffalo. I was – and remain – driven to understand the variety of experiential or active learning processes through my Ph.D. studies and subsequent research.

The image below is a screen shot of a Google map showing the route to Cambodia from Pleiku, Vietnam.

Project-Based Learning at the University at Buffalo School of Management Singapore campus.

Marcus Tan, a co-founder of Singapore based startup Carouselll, visited with our University at Buffalo, Singapore, School of Management Strategy students to discuss his startup. This was in 2015.

The students completed a semester-long project-based learning activity to apply what they are learning by developing a strategy for part of Carousell's business.

Thank you Mr. Marcus Tan, and recent University at Buffalo graduate Claire Yeo, who now works for Carousell.