Denise MacNeil, Ph.D., M.F.A., is a Professor at the University of Redlands. In her teaching, she specializes in using literature to illumine and examine managerial and business issues and themes. She is the author of The Emergence of the American Frontier Hero, 1682 – 1826: Gender, Action and Emotion (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009).
Dr. MacNeil's training and research are in the field of American literature, with a specialty in the period prior to 1914. Within this context, she examines mechanisms at work that realize literary influence on popular, lived culture, with particular emphasis on multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and social class issues and situations. Dr. MacNeil has more than ten years of research, writing and presentation experience in this field. She publishes and presents in both national and international, juried venues.
BUSB 301 is a writing-intensive course that I believe would benefit from technological enhancement. This course requires students to learn a number of sophisticated critical analysis techniques and then to apply these techniques to their own writing. I propose three technological upgrades to this course. I propose (i) to “flip” some elements of the course and to add Web 2.0 tools (ii) to serve as knowledge checks for the flipped elements of the course and (iii) to employ a web-based rewriting and revision structure for students to use to engage in active learning. As this course only meets once a week, enhancements that would scaffold student learning in between class meetings are especially important.
My intent is that these online segments and tools would be sustainable and available for repeated use. As the topics listed above are generally common to this course across instructors, these enhancements could be made available for use to other faculty teaching this course. The School of Business already has in place a platform for this sharing, because we have a Moodle club that is accessible to all instructors of this course.
Implementation I plan for these enhancements to be ready for implementation for the Summer 2019 offerings of this course. As I will teach this course in Spring 2019, while I am developing these enhancements, I hope to be able to engage students in live tests of the items as they are complete and get their feedback.