Many DBA graduates aspire to teaching roles in business schools and professional education programs — and effective business teaching requires a different skill set than business expertise alone. The practitioner who knows supply chain management deeply, understands strategic decision making from experience, and has led organizational change firsthand does not automatically know how to design a course that develops these competencies in adult learners who begin the course without the practitioner's background. DB8420 bridges the gap between business expertise and teaching effectiveness, developing the pedagogical competencies that DBA graduates need to become effective business educators.
Developing a personal teaching philosophy
Grounding teaching practice in explicit beliefs about learning
- Why a teaching philosophy matters: DB8420 begins with the recognition that every instructor operates from a teaching philosophy — explicit or implicit, examined or unexamined — that shapes every pedagogical decision from learning objective design to assessment construction to student interaction. Making this philosophy explicit is valuable for several reasons: it enables systematic reflection on whether one's teaching practices are actually aligned with one's beliefs about how learning occurs; it enables communication with colleagues and administrators about one's pedagogical approach; and it provides a framework for evaluating new pedagogical ideas (does this approach align with my beliefs about effective learning, or does it require me to revise those beliefs?). The course examines the major learning theories that inform contemporary business pedagogy: behaviorism (learning as behavioral change through reinforcement — the foundation for competency-based assessment and feedback design); cognitive constructivism (Piaget — learning as the active construction of understanding through engagement with experience, not passive reception of transmitted information); social constructivism (Vygotsky — learning occurs through social interaction and collaboration within the Zone of Proximal Development); and transformative learning theory (Mezirow — deep adult learning involves critical reflection on and potential transformation of underlying assumptions and frames of reference)
- Teaching philosophies in business education: The course examines how teaching philosophies manifest in specific business education contexts. An instructor whose philosophy centers on experiential learning will design cases, simulations, and real-world projects as primary learning vehicles and will use lecture sparingly. An instructor whose philosophy centers on critical thinking development will design discussions, debates, and Socratic questioning sequences that challenge students to examine their assumptions rather than accepting received wisdom. An instructor whose philosophy centers on professional competency development will design assessments that mirror professional deliverables — strategy memos, financial analyses, HR policy recommendations — rather than traditional academic examinations. DB8420 guides students in articulating their own teaching philosophy and connecting it to specific instructional and assessment design choices
Adult learning frameworks in business education
DB8420 grounds business pedagogy in adult learning theory — the recognition that adult learners have distinctive characteristics that differentiate effective pedagogy from approaches appropriate for traditional-age undergraduate students. Malcolm Knowles's andragogy theory (1980) identifies five core assumptions about adult learners: they have a self-concept that requires autonomous rather than dependent learning; they have accumulated life and work experience that is both a resource for learning and a potential barrier to new conceptual frameworks; their readiness to learn is tied to the developmental tasks of their social roles (professional advancement, leadership, career change); their orientation to learning is problem-centered rather than subject-centered (they want to know why they need to learn something before investing effort in learning it); and their motivation is primarily intrinsic (driven by internal rewards — curiosity, competence, professional identity — rather than external grades and credentials). DB8420 examines how these andragogical principles translate into specific business curriculum design decisions: when to use immediate application as a motivational strategy; how to leverage students' professional experience as a learning resource (case discussion, peer teaching, experience-based reflection); how to connect course content to professional roles that students currently occupy or aspire to; and how to design assessments that are inherently meaningful to adult professional learners rather than arbitrary academic exercises.
Instructional plan design with measurable assessments
DB8420 develops course design and instructional planning competencies using backward design (Wiggins and McTighe's Understanding by Design framework) — beginning with desired learning outcomes and designing assessments and instructional activities that enable and demonstrate those outcomes. The course covers learning objective construction using Bloom's revised taxonomy (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create) and the specific challenge of writing business learning objectives at appropriate levels of cognitive complexity — avoiding the trap of writing objectives at the remember and understand levels (appropriate for basic knowledge acquisition) when the course aims to develop the higher-order analytical and application competencies that business education should prioritize. Assessment design receives substantial attention: how to construct case analysis assessments that genuinely require the application of conceptual frameworks rather than the regurgitation of memorized content; how to design rubrics that evaluate business analysis quality with sufficient specificity to guide student learning and provide actionable feedback; how to design performance assessments (business plans, marketing plans, financial models, HR policy documents) that mirror professional deliverables and demonstrate practical competency; and how to use formative assessment strategically to identify and address learning gaps before high-stakes summative assessments.
Curriculum design for business programs
DB8420 examines business curriculum design at the program level — how individual courses fit into a coherent curriculum that progressively develops the competencies that business graduates need. The course examines AACSB accreditation standards as the quality framework for business curriculum design: AACSB's emphasis on assurance of learning (the systematic process of defining program learning goals, designing curriculum and pedagogy to achieve them, collecting assessment evidence, using that evidence for program improvement) provides a structured framework for curriculum design that connects individual course objectives to program-level learning goals. The course examines curriculum mapping — the visual representation of which courses contribute to which program learning goals, enabling curriculum committees to identify gaps (competencies that no course adequately develops), overlaps (topics covered redundantly without additive value), and sequencing logic (courses that should be prerequisites because they develop competencies that subsequent courses build upon). DB8420 also examines the specific curriculum design challenges of supply chain management and business programs: how to sequence foundational conceptual courses with application-oriented capstone experiences; how to integrate functional areas (finance, marketing, operations, HR, strategy) that are taught in separate courses but must be integrated in practice; and how to incorporate emerging content (digital business, sustainability, ESG, AI) without continuously displacing foundational content that remains essential.
DB8420 assignments include teaching philosophy statements, instructional plans, assessment designs, and curriculum analyses
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Frequently asked questions
DB8420 serves multiple purposes for DBA students — and while its most obvious application is preparation for academic teaching roles, its content has significant value for students pursuing non-academic careers as well. First, the instructional design competencies developed in DB8420 are directly applicable to corporate training and development roles — designing learning programs for organizational talent development, leadership development, and compliance training requires exactly the skills that DB8420 develops: needs assessment, learning objective construction, instructional design, assessment development, and curriculum evaluation. Many DBA graduates move into roles as chief learning officers, VP of talent development, or learning design leaders in large organizations where these competencies are central to role effectiveness. Second, the adult learning frameworks examined in DB8420 are relevant to any leadership role that requires developing others — coaching direct reports, mentoring emerging leaders, facilitating strategic planning processes, and leading organizational learning after significant projects or failures all involve the same fundamental challenge of facilitating adult learning that classroom instruction does. Understanding Kolb's experiential learning cycle, Knowles's andragogical principles, and transformative learning theory enriches any leader's capacity to develop others, not just those who lead in classrooms. Third, the teaching philosophy development process itself — articulating one's beliefs about how learning occurs and how educational experiences should be designed to enable it — is a valuable reflective practice for any DBA graduate who aspires to contribute to organizational knowledge and capability development, regardless of whether that contribution occurs in a university classroom or a corporate boardroom.